A journey through the history of cycling through its most famous rivalries. The parallel lives of the most famous riders, told through the red thread of the sporting confrontation-clash but also human and personal. An ancient passion, which becomes a popular novel thanks to the heroes of the bicycle, brave captains of a thousand battles made up of fatigue, sweat, bad weather, climbs, sprints, escapes, falls, redemptions.
Dario Ceccarelli, the prestigious sports signature of this site, traces a century of great cycling challenges in a freshly printed book, making us enter the lives of ten pairs (plus one) of champions who have marked their era and often even passed each other a very special witness, that of being darlings of the crowds that have always been on the roads of cycling, watching the races of their champions, as well as admiring their exploits in front of the TV.
More than real rivalry, vintage marketing
“Public, private and very reckless” rivalries of “almost enemy” sportsmen, defines them Ceccarelli in his book published by Minerva with a preface by a convinced cyclophile like Romano Prodi. The author tells of the very heated competition, the desire to excel typical of the champions of every era, but often artfully magnified also for reasons of public interest and passion, for media speculation, because in this way cycling was “sold” more. Above all in Italy, the country of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, where we comment and divide ourselves for everything, where everyone sees it in his own way.
The stars of cycling, especially of the golden times, willingly lend themselves to this game (see the paradigmatic case of Coppi and Bartali), only to then always confirm in private a relationship of esteem and (almost) friendship that is bombproof. . On the other hand, they know very well that, as well as the victory of each one, rivalries are also part of the game, and of the business.
The Red Devil and Manina
The overview starts with two characters who perhaps no longer say a lot to the general public, but whose history is full of anecdotes: the Piedmontese Giovanni Gerbi, from Asti, called “Red Devil”, and Giovanni Cuniolo di Tortona, called “Manina”, for his ability to help himself in sprint duels with opponents even with the upper limbs, as well as with the lower ones. Ceccarelli rattles off facts and hilarious stories, which return the image of a primordial cycling, poor, full of fatigue but frank and already talented in its main protagonists.