La Mitica 2025

 La Mitica 2025

We missed this last year, choosing instead to see LeTour in Bologna, so we were determined to be there this year, despite Zio Lorenzo's recent health issues and the record heat.

We flew to Milan, rented a car and zoomed off to our old home-base Hotel Ariotto. The next day our old friends and former clients Don and Cindy arrived. They'd ridden La Mitica with us back-in-the-day so we left them to ride around Monferrato and enjoy lunch.

Sadly, the record heat really cooked us both..so much that we walked the famous Rampina climb near the end, pausing under bits of shade along the way. After taking a break at the ristoro at the top, neither of us savored the idea of the steep 3+ kilometers to go, so we hitched a ride with a local lady in her beat-up Fiat. We left the bikes at the aid station and came back for them once we got the car at the finish in Castellania. Since we walked over the finish line and didn't ride the entire route, we skipped the pasta party and awards ceremony.

Because of all that we're posting photos of interesting bikes with names we've never heard of. The plan was to get more details on them post-ride, but that didn't happen. If you have details, share them in the comments.

PELOSO

ZAPIER

 PAGANI

                                                

                                                                           CALDARO

?

                    

                                                                              LEONE

                                                                           MAGGIONI

FIORELLI

                                                                        BIANCHINI

?

GANNA

?

LEGNANO (fairly well known, but pretty)

DINO CHIESA

?

Then there's Zio's GIOS. The history of this bike is it was built by the maestro Giuseppe Pella for the DREHER cycling team. When Dreher pulled out, the team continued as BROOKLYN and some of their team bikes were simply repainted in the classic blue. This is one of those. If you've seen the classic "Sunday in Hell" documentary, you've seen Aldo Gios in action with this team.

Mille Grazie to Pietro Cordelli and his amazing crew! La Mitica continues to be our favorite vintage rally, though perhaps it needs to happen in a cooler period of the year?

Wall hanging

 Wall Hanging

Newest addition to the decorations of our tiny house in Sicily.

Just back from the frame shop, a La Mitica souvenir jersey autographed by our late friend Piero Coppi, first cousin of Il Campionissimo.

We missed the event this year, instead seeing LeTour in Bologna but we did meet up with promoter Pietro Cordelli and his lovely wife while we in Piedmont. It was great to see them and we hope to be back at La Mitica 2025.

The jersey was a gift from our friends the Beurmans

who had it autographed when they rode the event with us a few years ago.

Grazie Mille!

Raphael Geminiani

 Addio Geminiani

Geminiani (R) with Bobet in 1958 

Thanks "Chairman Bill"!

Raphael Geminiani left us for good back on July 5. Zio Lorenzo was sad to see so few tributes to Le Grand Fusil.

Was he the last of Fausto Coppi's gregari?

Here's a great tribute to the man written barely a year before his death.

RIP Geminiani

Marco Pantani

 Marco Pantani

"Il Pirata" would have been 54 years old yesterday. He and Fausto Coppi are probably the most revered cyclists in Italy.

Why? An early death under tragic circumstances explains part of it but Zio likes to think it's a lot more than this and their racing records.

Both men overcame injuries and other obstacles to win and win again - something that can't be explained away as a product of doping.

Both men endured scandals, but overcame those too and both were revered by former teammates for their generosity.

Books in English about them are more rare than they should be. Matt Rendell's "The Death of Marco Pantani" is still available as is Manuela Ronchi's "Man on the Run: The Life and Death of Marco Pantani. Zio thinks both should be read to get a balanced take on The Pirate.

William Fotheringham's "Fallen Angel: The Passion of Fausto Coppi" does a pretty good job of describing Il Campionissimo. Sadly, most of the other books about Coppi Zio likes are no longer in print, his favorite being Herbie Sykes' "Coppi: Inside the Legend of the Campionissimo".

Gravel World Champs

 A rainbow jersey for gravel racing?

Here's the link to the story Zio stole the photo from.

Is Zio Lorenzo the only one who smells an industry-created rainbow jersey here? I mean, c'mon..you already created a Hall of Fame, which was kind of laughable, right?

The bike biz seems really obsessed with gravel bikes. They've already sold you a 'cross bike which is so last fad, not to mention a road bike, an aero road bike,  an endurance road bike, not to mention a super light road bike and gawd-knows-what else.

So now it's gravel bike with a rainbow jersey to go with 'em. Zio says they should have given rainbow jerseys to the winners of Strade Bianche Eroica Pro  but what does he know? He knows a few things - one being that gravel is another American invention, despite the fact races have been run on unpaved surfaces for years and the Strade Bianche for pros event has been run for over a decade.

Some guys race on gravel roads across Kansas or Iowa in sort of what Zio calls an "Evel Kneivel" event = an event you dreamed up because you couldn't win anything that was already being run. Kneivel wasn't a very good motorcycle racer so he decided to be the champ of jumping his Harley-Davidson over school buses. One could argue triathlon was invented by guys who weren't good enough to win a bike, swim or foot race, so combining them would give them a chance to be champs at something, even if its something they created.

More than a few US pros have stopped racing at the World Tour level to return home and race gravel. One even turned down an offer to race at the WT with Jonathon Vaughters squad after winning a big gravel race. But just like with MTB's back-in-the-day, once the big, bad UCI got involved these US gravel champs found it tough to win in international competition. Too many US sports organizations crown their champs as "World Champs" when their own name is National (as in NBA, NFL) rather than International.

But at least this time round the US gravel champ came in 5th, though far, far behind the winner - a road pro and winner of Milano-Sanremo, riding his very first gravel race, riding pretty much a road bike with room for fatter tires. Meanwhile the women's rainbow jersey was one by another road pro...riding her first gravel race.

Funny thing is, until the 1980's pretty much any road bike could have been used as a gravel bike. Look at old photos of Fausto Coppi, or more recently Felice Gimondi and notice they're racing on GRAVEL roads a lot of the time. But once "short reach" brakes came along with their supposed technological superiority, tires were limited to around 28 mm in width, making "gravel" riding perhaps too challenging.

But now with disc brakes, there's no limit on room for fat tires on drop-bar bicycles, though the course used for the gravel world's looked on TV like it could have easily been raced on bikes like John Tomac or even Zio Lorenzo raced on back-in-the-day.

So what happened? Zio thinks MTB courses have become really technical due to 29" wheels and full suspension, with "rock gardens" and all kinds of stuff that would have either caused crashes or cyclocross style bike carrying with 26" wheels and rigid frames/forks. Gravel has been inserted into this space, both in sales and competition, but the industry is still trying to figure out whether these things are drop-bar MTB's or road bikes with room for fatter tires, like back-in-the-day. Either way, they want to sell you one...or more, if they can convince you that you need one of each!

Until they figure it out, Zio thinks 2023 Strade Bianche winnersThomas Pidcock and Demi Vollering are as much gravel world champs as Matej Mohoric or Kasia Niewiadoma, though the latter get to wear the rainbow stripes.

And Zio Lorenzo now has one of each - his ancient 26" wheeled, rim-braked, front suspended SuperGravelMonster

And a "real" gravel bike

Just like the one(s) Heather has, which is a story for a future blog post!

Another take on this race HERE. And more on the gravel racing scene HERE.

 

Vintage Cycling

Bici d'Epoca

Fall is coming and (thankfully) things are cooling off a bit here in Sicily though the tourists seem as plentiful as ever. Must be the post-pandemic surge combined with the weak euro?

Autumn also means vintage cycling events, though sadly we won't be enjoying any of them until next year.

This piece about heroic cycling was so well done (we met the author at a book-signing in Rome awhile back) that we had to share it with you and wish we could be there. I thought the link would go to the English version but if not, it's worth trying to get Google, etc. to translate it for you. Enjoy!

 

La Mitica 2022

 La Mitica 2022

Geez, almost a month with no posts!! What have we been up to?

Heather has been running some academic conferences, we enjoyed a trip to the Aeolian Islands and last week we came up to Piedmont for a couple of weeks.

Since CycleItalia/Piedmont Cycling Resort has been closed, we have a lot of stuff that we no longer need. We'll keep our own stuff up here as we intend to visit regularly but we need to get rid of a lot of bikes, parts, equipment that's no longer needed. So Zio Lorenzo is going through it all bit by bit, bike by bike, box by box.

Of course we've been riding and eating well along with some other activities like La Mitica, our favorite bici d'epoca event. Today Zio went to Castellania to see old friends and enjoy old bikes, taking his vintage Bianchi around the short (55 km) route.

Zio in Volpedo, the first ristoro.

Heather was off running in the ancient Nemean Games in Greece so Zio was a uomo solo...but not al comando like Fausto Coppi though the Campionissimo's son Faustino was a guest-of-honor on a weekend all about Fausto (and Serse) Coppi.

La Mitica is our favorite epoca event for a lot of reasons including the amazing, hands-on management of Pietro Cordelli and his staff, the festive stop in Tortona and the general atmosphere. We've enjoyed all the epoca events we've attended but La Mitica stands out! And for some reason the normally fearsome "rampina" climb this year didn't seem so hard - perhaps because the sterrata surface was more firm and the temperatures were not too hot? It was great to finally enjoy one of these again after a two-year absence even though Zio looks to have come down with Covid-19 as a result...by Thursday he tested positive after feeling bad starting on Wednesday.

Buon lavoro Cordelli & Co..see you next time!!!

Slam that stem!

 Slam that stem?

Fausto Coppi 1940

We see and hear plenty about not having any spacers under your stem these days. Of course back in "Il Campionissmo"s day the quill stem simply moved up or down inside the steerer tube, but note how low Coppi's position is despite this.

One thing that IS very different these days is the bar shape. Oddly enough modern handlebars with the kind of "drop" you see here are almost non-existent. All of 'em are now "compact" style, some even with horribly uncomfortable curves (almost corners!) and drops so short your forearms hit the bars when you try to use 'em.

For us this explains why so few modern cyclists ever ride with their hands down there. Our guess is the rider might actually be more aerodynamic with his/her hands up on the brake hoods than down in these too-shallow drops? That's the way it seems with the pros these days.

This "progress" seems to reduce the useful hand positions as with things "slammed" for most people a bar with traditional drops has too much drop, so these compact things sort of fix it, though the result is the drop position becomes rather useless, meaning you have fewer usable places to put your hands rather than more.

With Wings on Their Wheels - Campagnolo

 "CON LE ALI ALLE RUOTE"

Zio Lorenzo's not big on podcasts but he enjoyed this six-part series about Campagnolo* very much. He found it sort of buried on their website and then searched for the English version.

To listen in English go HERE

For Italian go HERE

Buon divertimento!

*Disclaimer: Campagnolo NA is an official supplier to CycleItalia/Piedmont Cycling Resort

Fausto Coppi in Siracusa?

 COPPI IN SIRACUSA

Here's a photo of Fausto Coppi in Siracusa from November 1947. Who knew Il Campionissimo was here? Next to him is local guy (from Floridia, a place we ride past regularly) Gino Aglieco. There was a GP di Ragusa soon after this photo was taken, suggesting Sicily's been a great place for winter training for a long time.

The photo is from COPPI per sempre by Auro Bulbarelli. As far as Zio Lorenzo knows it's yet to be translated into English, but you can see some of the pages in this video clip.

Zio's plowing through this 2-book set page-by-page, improving his understanding of Italian in the process...or so he thinks!

Giancarlo Brocci's crazy dream?

Above: Heather and Larry at Luciano Berruti's Museo Bicicletta

The internet cycling world's chamois got all-in-a-bunch recently with news that Eroica founder Giancarlo Brocci was meeting the UCI president. Fears of the big, bad UCI taking over "gravel racing" in the USA, a fad currently being pushed heavily by the bicycle industry were expressed. Below is what I believe to be the source of this panic, an article from Tuttobiciweb by Giorgio Viberti, roughly translated and edited by Zio Lorenzo.

The prophet of another type of cycling is called Giancarlo Brocci, a 65 year-old from Gaiole in Chianti (Siena). He has a degree in medicine, is an ex-politician, writer, musician, footballer and cyclist. The son of peasants, he's had an adventurous life, even as a bohemian, worked in health and sport, sang with a band, became a journalist and traveled extensively. He would seem an ex-flowerchild, but thanks to an immense passion for cycling he's discovered himself to be a very skillful manager.

In July 1995 he created the Gran Fondo Gino Bartali, with start and finish in Gaiole, the center of his world. Two years later, a new brand, "L'Eroica" was created: vintage cycling on dirt roads for romantics wearing wool jerseys, using metal water bottles and riding bikes as heavy as gates. 
In a short time L'Eroica has become the new fashion of cycling enthusiasts in search of ancient emotions, hunched over old steel bicycles with gearshift levers on the frame, brake wires outside the handlebars, clip-and-strap pedals and low profile wheels with 32 spokes.

There are now a dozen Eroica events all over the world from Italy to Japan, from Germany to the USA, from England to South Africa and from Holland to Spain. The "visionary" Brocci hit the mark, yet he never stopped dreaming. Today he will meet David Lappartient, president of the UCI to offer him another way to race by bike.

"Cycling is now a planetary phenomenon - says Brocci - but it's in a technical crisis and the riders are hostages of trainers and directors, far from the people and they race just a few times a year. The exaggerated technology has flattened class and talent, embalming the races and making everything more predictable and boring.

Today a tour is won or lost perhaps by a dropped chain. Worse, people are not able to admire athletes who are so thin, almost undernourished, with a thousand medical exemptions for allergic or asthmatic syndromes. Even a phenomenon like Fausto Coppi, 180 cm tall and 75 kg could probably never win a Grand Tour today. It's time to change.

But how? By rediscovering heroic cycling, the sense of adventure, of the unexpected, the search for new paths, if possible on dirt roads with return to offer the real, healthy effort and the values of sport not ruined by hyper-technology and subterfuge."

In practice, however, what will Brocci propose to Lappartient? "Unknown roads, no longer the usual classic climbs that everyone knows. Moreover, the Giro, Tour and Vuelta need new routes. Perhaps longer distances over 300 km with departures at night on bikes without super-low climbing gears so as to really see who makes the difference uphill. Computers and radios are banned as are supplies from the car and banned are racers falling below 6% body fat, thus giving a message of health and joy.

However, it's difficult to disrupt the business of professional cycling...nobody wants to do that. I'm thinking of a parallel circuit, such as Formula E for F1 or Superbike for MOTOGP, reserved for a selection of Under 23 or young pros, after a check to assess their physical and moral qualities. You could race especially in winter in South Africa, Australia and Latin America, hosting racers in common structures in villages set up with food and medical checks for all. And it would be nice to identify "heroic municipalities" countries to be relaunched also thanks to cycling which protect nature and unpaved roads as Roubaix does with their pave. One day perhaps a Heroic World Championship?"

Intriguing and romantic, of course. But who puts up the money?

"Italy, home of cycling, no longer has a World Tour team, sponsors have left because the current type of cycling does not excite so many these days. Shall we try something different?"

Click HERE for another article on this subject.

La Mitica 2019

La Mitica 2019

Fausto Coppi, "Il Campionissimo" would have been 100 this year.

La Mitica has always been dedicated to his memory, but of course 100 years on it's an extra special occasion.

Starting and ending in the birthplace and final resting place of Fausto and his racing brother Serse - Castellania (now called Castellania-Coppi) this event is a highlight of the vintage cycling scene for us. Pietro Cordelli and his amazing crew do a fantastic job putting this together each year.

The rest stops (ristoro) are always amazingly well-stocked. Volpedo (above) serves up fresh peaches which are just coming into season in the area. Plenty of cold drinks and fresh focaccia are on offer as well.

As you can see above as we line up to depart Volpedo, the centenario celebration attracted a large turnout. We counted numbers over 300! At one point Zio Lorenzo raced up to the front just to get a good look at a rider on a gorgeous Legnano bicycle (with kit to match!) then slowed down to let the moving museum go past. Some take great care in curating everything to perfection (like #40 with the Legnano - BRAVO!) while others just drag their old bike out, throw on some old kit and join in. The atmosphere is nothing but fun and friendly.

Tortona always puts out a fantastic welcome. As we ride into the center of town along narrow cobbled streets, the public is out cheering with many in period costumes. In the main piazza there's a stage with live band and Pietro calls up various folks to say thanks for showing up. Above you see a group from London...yep, the UK. There were more than 20 of them! We were called up later, but our dancing could not rival the Brits or the Brazilians who also had a large group decked out in yellow and green vs the Brits blue and white.

There were famous celebrities there too (no, not the two above) including Faustino Coppi, Aldo Moser and the "pope" of the entire bici d'epoca movement, Giancarlo Brocci among others. We saw friends from previous events, including last week's Monsterrato. It's always great to see a familiar, smiling face!

La Mitica's might be the best schwag too. Above you see just some of the contents of the "pacco gara" as they call 'em - a commemorative bottle of local wine, a cool t-shirt, a local salami, local jam and (not shown) a really nice drawstring sack/backpack.

Finally, some of us (we don't know if this was limited to those who signed up early or what?) received this cute piece of jewelry with a caricature of Il Campionissimo.

Buon lavoro Pietro e tutti!!!

Grazie mille!!!!

How to Watch a Bike Race: Lesson 1

How to Watch a Bike Race: CycleItalia Style

First, choose the right stage. For us Stage 12 from Cuneo to Pinerolo had a lot of appeal with the location not too far from Piedmont Cycling Resort and a circuit which would let us see the riders more than once.

We drove up in the late morning with the idea of being up there in time to enjoy a proper pranzo before the race came by.  First we parked the car and walked along the route to the finish line, then up the short, but insanely steep San Maurizio climb with the idea to see the race pass by then head down to the finish.

Once we'd scoped out a great viewing spot (and escape route) it was time to find the perfect pranzo spot. PIAZZA DUOMO was right at the bottom of our escape route and had a Giro lunch special going, but we wanted a proper meal with all the courses. They had it!

A wonderful lunch in a sunny piazza, looked after by a caring staff. What more could you wish for? GRAZIE!!

OK, now back to the race! This climb was like one of the murs of Flanders!

We were jammed in with the masses of spectators as the racers struggled up this cobbled climb. Once the race passed...

....we headed back down to see the vintage bike displays

.

In Piedmont they are very much in-touch with the history and heritage of cycling.

Especially 100 years after Il Campionissimo Fausto Coppi was born.

Next, find a spot where you can see the action on the big screen, in this case along the finishing straight...

...close enough to see the prize presentations.

Pinerolo was dressed in pink with lots of creative displays for both the finish and the next day's start.