The first brick was lain by a mason. Luigi Ganna left his trowel in Varese to win the first Tour of Italy in 1909. It is during the first decade of the century that bicycle makes itself an important place among the Italian sports. The Tour had been announced by the milan-Sanremo since 1907. The pink T-shirt did not exist yet (it was established in 1931: Learco Guerra wore the first), but the Tour already was the race that united that pile of traditions called Italy.

And the legend was born of this race divided in sections organized by Gazzetta dello Sport (Sports Gazette), that gave a leg up to the first legendary men, such as the challenging Costante Girardengo, the first Superchampion, and Alfredo Binda, the only sports champion paid not to race (it happened at the Tour of Italy of 1930). Ottavio Bottecchia instead built his fortune in France: he won two consecutive editions of the Tour of France before being the victim of a still mysterious murder.

But it is Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi who are the heroes of a story still told as a fairy. The cyclist from Tuscany who assailed the climb and the delicatessen shop boy who caressed the mountains until he seduced them have left the deepest mark in the history of cycling. Between 1937 and 1953 they won 8 Tours of Italy (Coppi 5 and Bartali 3) and 4 Tours of France (2 each) and everybody ask themselves how many more victories they could have achieved if there had not been the 5-year stop because of the Second World War. The Catholics supported the pious and extroverted Bartali, whereas the melancholic Coppi, who left his wife for the White Dame, became the symbol of the secular Italy. The two men divided Italy, but they also became the metaphor of a country that was starting building itself up again on the ruins and miseries of the Second World War. Between the challenging men also Fiorenzo Magni found his glory, he won three Tours of Italy and three consecutive editions of the Tour of the Flanders.

Then came Ercole Baldini, Gastone Nencini, Vittorio Adorni and most of all Felice Gimondi. Reserve of the cannibal Merckx, Gimondi had the merit of winning the Tour of Italy, of France, the World Championship, and the most prestigious classic races. The last fires have been the challenges between Francesco Moser and Giuseppe Saronni, Gianni Bugno’s flashes of class and Marco Pantani’s pirate deeds, who on the mountains has taken cycling back in the track of the legends.