Peter and the Peloton!
By Peter Olney
The 105th running of the Giro d’Italia begins on May 5, Friday. The Stansbury Forum is happy to present the cycling exploits of co-editor Peter Olney in Florence, Italy on March 20th of this year.
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One of the first tasks upon arriving in San Frediano, our neighborhood in Florence, is to rent a sturdy “bicicletta” for our two months in Italy. At the corner of our street, Via del’Orto and Via del Mago di Oro, is Cicleria Iandelli run by Riccardo Iandelli who was an up and coming junior cyclist in his youth. He found me a sturdy city bike, which means no clip ons for the pedals and wider tires for the cobblestones. He threw in a lock and a helmet for 200 Euros for two months.
Each day I would try to ride to explore a new place. I am hoping to mail home “proletarian postcards” from places off the tourist trails. As you can imagine they are places with working class communities, often near manufacturing locations like Sesto Fiorentino, Campi Bissenzi and Nuovo Pignone in the northwest, and hill towns like Bagno a Ripoli and Impruneta to the southeast. These are longer excursions, often 15 or 20 kilometers. But perhaps my most challenging ride is to Fiesole, the hill town just north of Firenze and just ten kilometers from my door. My usual route to Fiesole includes an ascent to Piazzale Michelangelo where the iconic postcard panorama of Florence is the first stop on any guided tour.
On Sunday March 20, I arrived on my “bici” at Piazzale to find cycling team support cars with roof racks full of replacement bikes, chase cars, ambulances, and a ton of motorcycle cops. I even saw a van emblazoned with the azure blue of the Italian national cycling team. They were parked, massing on the piazzale. It looked like a race was to begin shortly. I kept on riding from the Piazzale and descended to the Arno, crossed the river and after a short flat traverse started the ascent to Fiesole, a five-kilometer ride, but at 7% grade. I tooled along in the lowest gear and was passed several times by younger and lighter riders with state-of-the-art racing bikes. When I finished the final climb into the main piazza di Fiesole I rode towards the statue of Garibaldi and King Vittorio Emanuel II, both depicted on horseback. I saw Carabinieri directing traffic and diverting traffic. I saw a mass of spectators look up to see a lone cyclist: me, entering the piazza. A little ripple of chatter: “Oh the leader, there has been a breakaway….” Then the momentary murmur subsided as the expectant spectators realized the oversized rider wearing no colorful spandex and riding a pedestrian city bike was not part of the “gara per onorare Alfredo Martini” (a race in honor of Alfredo Martini, renowned Italian cyclist and coach of the Italian national team, deceased in 2014).
Soon after I dismounted, the real deal “peloton” came roaring around the corner and further up the hill from Fiesole.
The Gara is 172 kilometers and weaves up and down Florentine hills before finishing in Sesto Fiorentino, the birthplace of Martini. My brief moment as a “breakaway rider” reminded me of the wonderful masterpiece movie made by Charlie Chaplin in 1936, Modern Times. This depression era story features Chaplin as the Tramp, an unemployed worker who sees a red flag fall off a construction truck. He picks up the flag and yells to the driver to stop and take back the flag. Just at that moment a march of the unemployed turns the corner and falls in behind Chaplin carrying a red flag. Then the police attack to break up the march and descend on Chaplin assuming he is the leader of the march.
I suffered no arrests or beatings, but for one solitary Chaplinesque moment, I was the leader of the “peloton” in Fiesole.
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Readers are owed my “proletarian postcards” from those sites in the Metro Firenze area that are off the tourist trail of museums and cathedrals. They will be forthcoming on the pages of The Forum.
Read it and it’s hilarous! My vivid compliments.
(May I correct the name of Campi Bisenzio?!)
Bike has had an enormous impact on the italian postwar reconstruction and remains fixed in our imaginary (even before during the war, considering the staffette partigiane).
Bicycle’s champions were the working class heroes as their main skill is to bear the sufferance: no animal and no engine will do the job for you. Combined with the widespread catholic view it results as a passion. The sweaty face of the cyclist in the effort of pushing uphill is the face of Christ on the way to the Golgota…
There is a movie then, considered part of the wider family of the italian neorealism, whose title is “Ladri di biciclette” by V. de Sica, that depicts the morality of the people hinged on the bike.
david
Pete, congratulations on summiting and having the rare opportunity to lead the pack. And having the good sense to move over. Must have been quite a draft!
Grazie mille Johnny! Spero che tu e la famiglia possano trovarci un giorno a Firenze!
Ciao Peter! La tua cartolina mi fa sorridere pienamente. Mi fai ricordare che la vita è un viaggio sempre in moto che va su e giù in collina, avvolte faticoso ma sempre spruzzato dai momenti profondamente piacevoli. Non vedo l’ora della tua prossima tappa!