haddawad

One of the greatest comebacks in cycling history. Here's the first installment.
If you're interested, you can read the rest of the story here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2788...68882087610379

THE 1948 TOUR de FRANCE – As told by Mark Mahan
One of the more impressive pages of cycle racing history was written by Gino Bartali at the 1948 Tour de France. Ten years after winning the race at the age of 24, he returned to France and took the overall victory in what most of the sport’s historians consider to be a surprising a manner.
Why was it surprising? For one thing he was about to turn 34 years old, considered an advanced age for a professional cyclist. Like all of his colleagues he was coming back to full time racing after a long hiatus due to the Second World War. Many things had changed in those turbulent times. Which of cycling’s heroes would be able to return to their previous standards?
Following the 1948 Giro d’Italia, won by Fiorenzo Magni, Gino was not held in high regard for the upcoming Tour. Remember: Back then the Tour was raced by national teams. Riders were chosen by their respective federations and Italy that year would send two teams, the A team and a second team known as the “Cadets.” The Giro was a race within a race in that it was also a sort of selection for the Tour, besides being the normal national tour which, back then, was hotly contested between the various trade teams. You will recall that pro racing in those years was sponsored by companies that produced bicycles. Fausto Coppi’s Bianchi team was probably the most powerful team in Italy and Coppi was considered a demi-god. What’s more, Bianchi was also one of the biggest producers of bicycles in Italy and had a lot of political weight within the federation - not to mention the cycling industry.
Bartali raced for Legnano and those two teams, along with the Wilier team of Magni, were considered amongst the strongest in Italy. As happened not infrequently in the long rivalry between Coppi and Bartali, they tended to control one another and during the Giro of 1947 this behavior rendered the race lacklustre. By the time the race caravan reached the Dolomites everyone was waiting for the fireworks to start. Fiorenzo Magni was in the Maglia Rosa and was hindered by his limits in the big mountains because he was a “passista” or as the French called them, a “rouleur”. In the third-to-last stage from Cortina d’Ampezzo to Trento, which climbed the passes of the Falzarego and Pordoi, Coppi was determined to race himself back into the lead and almost succeeded. He soloed away with almost 150 km to the finish in typical Coppi style while behind, Magni, Bartali, Cecchi and Alfredo Martini (long time national team coach for Italy later on) chased. Magni stayed in the hunt thanks to organized pushing, almost from the start of the Pordoi to its summit, a fact that led to a 2 minute time penalty later that day. Though Fausto won the stage, thanks to the ‘help’ that Magni received from the pushes on the Pordoi, he wasn’t able to overtake Magni on G.C. After the stage there was a fierce polemic and the Bianchi team wanted the Maglia Rosa expelled from the race. When that didn’t happen they withdrew in protest. Magni went on to win over Cecchi by a scant 11 seconds amidst controversy that took a long time to die down.
Which brings us back to the TDF of that year. The big question on everyone’s mind was, “Who is going to lead the A team?” There was intense political maneuvering but Gino knew all along that Fausto had no intention of going to the Tour (he’d confided as much to Bartali during the Giro). But Gino couldn’t say that because it would have caused a scandal and cast Fausto in a bad light. Despite their sporting rivalry (promoted and exacerbated by the almost hysterical Italian press), they were actually on friendly terms. In the end the Bianchi team released a statement saying that Coppi would not be competing in the Tour de France that year, though they tried until the very end to impose their weight against Bartali’s interests. So Gino would be the captain and he chose his men; Bevilacqua, Biagioni, Corrieri, Cottur, De Santi, Feruglio, Pasquini, Rossello and Volpi. These riders were true ‘hard men’, guys that Bartali knew would ride their hearts out for him. However, the press didn’t consider this team to up to the task without Coppi and his faithful team mates. The Italian expedition to the ’48 Tour departed for France with low expectations – for everyone, that is, except the racers and their team manager, Alfredo Binda, yes, THAT Alfredo Binda.
When Gino had won in 1938 the team manager had been the legendary Costante Girardengo, the first “Campionissimo” and when Gino was forming his team, ‘Il Gira’ was the first person he contacted. Girardengo, however, didn’t feel up to the task. By then in his mid-fifties, he begged off but directed Bartali to Alfredo Binda who took the task to heart.
Binda convinced Bartali to follow a strategy that would help draw attention away from his possibilities of winning the race. Leading up to the Tour’s depart, Binda gave interviews saying that Bartali wasn’t in top form, was still suffering from a crash at the Giro and hopes shouldn’t be raised too much. Such was the lack of enthusiasm that the Italian press corps for the Tour was smaller than usual.
Gino, however, forgot the agreed-upon strategy and managed to win the first stage from Paris to Trouville of 237 km, in a sprint finish on a dirt velodrome. During the stage, Gino had flatted. Back then you had to either get a wheel from a team mate (if you were lucky), or change the tubular tire yourself. Fortunately, at that moment, Gino had one of his staunchest helpers with him, Vincenzo Rossello, who handed up his own wheel but was left to chase alone, arriving dead last. The Tour’s regulations back then stated that from the second stage onward, the last man on general classification would be eliminated each day. If Rossello were to eliminated that early in the race it would have put Gino and his team at a real disadvantage - not to mention depriving Rossello of much needed prize money. So the following day the Italian team did everything it could to get Rossello into a break and, towards the end of the stage, Gino convinced him to chase after a group that was just going up the road. Rossello managed not only to catch on to the breakaway, he even won the sprint for the stage win, thus climbing back up on GC and now no longer in danger of elimination.
Part #2 is next: Gino hits a rough patch

Saguaro

Great story! Looking forward to Part 2.

RobbieTunes

I've read the book about him, and the main thing to me are the lives he saved during the war, at plenty of risk to his own.

Scenes from Bartali 2014 near the metropolis of Hollandale, WI:

shelbyfv

Lazyass

He's always been my favorite professional cyclist.

haddawad

There's an amazing book about the network of Italians that saved lives during WW II. It's a first hand account of the hollywood-type story, told by the Franciscan monk that ran it in Assisi.
The book is out of print, but you can still buy used copies of it. It's called: The Assisi Underground by Alexander Ramati

You can read the other chapters of Gino Bartali and the 1948 TDF here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2788...68882087610379

Enjoy!
Michael

rootboy 

Check out The Road to Valor too. Alluded to by Robbie, above.
Story of Bartali's clandestine efforts during WW II. A great read.

LouB 

Very cool. Thanks for posting.