Now don’t start getting the idea that I’m mad about cycling. Well I have got una bici (a bike) in the shed with two flat tires, and it gets an airing once or twice a year. When we lived in a fairly flat region in England we cycled to work, to the shops, and also for leisure. But now we are montanari (mountain people), we’ve got strong leg muscles from all the walking we do, but we hate cycling uphill.

Nevertheless, even if I’m not about to cycle 1000 meters up to the pass, there is no escaping the fact that cycling is una passione (a passion) here in Italy, and so I’d like to mention a couple of curiosita’ ciclistiche (cycling curiosities) from the history of the Giro d’Italia.

Una donna al Giro! (A woman in the race!)

The Giro d’Italia is a men’s race, women having been granted their own race, Il Giro Donne (The Women’s Tour), which has taken place every July since 1988 .

However, I recently read an interesting article in an Italian magazine about a female cyclist called Alfonsina Strada (Strada, hmm what an appropriate name) from Emilia Romagna, who in 1924 was accepted as an entrant in the Giro d’Italia. Alfonsina didn’t manage to win any of the tappe (stages, see my previous blog) but did nevertheless beat a lot of the men. You have to remember that 1924 was the era of Fascism in Italy, and for a woman to beat men in a race was not acceptable, so a clause was found to exclude poor Alfonsina from the classification of the competition. She was not however deterred, and carried on to complete all the tappe. Only thirty one of the competitors managed to finish the grueling race: thirty men and one brave woman called Alfonsina Strada.

La ‘Maglia Nera’ (The ‘Black Shirt’)

Almost as prestigious as the ‘Maglia Rosa’ (‘Pink Shirt’), which is given to the winner of the Giro, was the ‘Maglia Nera’ which was awarded from 1946 until 1951 to the competitor who arrived last!

Luigi Malabrocca wasn’t a great champion, he had won 138 cycling races, 15 of these as a professional cyclist, yet it was for his ability to loose, not to win, for which he became famous! In 1946 and 1947 Malabrocca managed to ‘win’ last place in the Giro d’Italia by using the tactics of wasting time between tappe, hiding behind hedges at the side of the road, spending as much time as possible in bars along the route, and even puncturing his own tires to slow himself down. In 1949 however, his tactics backfired on him when the timekeepers and judges, annoyed and fed up with waiting for him, went home before he arrived at the finishing post and awarded Malabrocca the same general timing as the main body of cyclists. That year the ‘notorious’ ‘Maglia Nera’ went instead to his co-competitor Sante Carollo. From that time  on Malabrocca abandoned his rather singular corsa all’ultimo posto (race for the last place). Malabrocca died at the age of 86 in 2006: for his ultimo viaggio (last journey) his friends dressed him in the ‘Maglia Rossa’ the famous ‘Pink Shirt’ which he’d probably never even dreamed of wearing.