Fallen Angel by William Fotheringham Page B

fighting over him,’ recalled Giulia. Locatelli was not keen to marry, but Giulia was insistent. ‘What if we ran away together?’ he suggested. Two weeks later – during which time she continued to write loving notes to her previous fiancé – they were married; they eventually settled near Varese, north of Milan.

    All over Italy, people were beginning new lives. Coppi had changed employers. When he started that Milan–San Remo, on his jersey was the name Bianchi, the bike manufacturer that would become inextricably linked with the campionissimo . At Legnano, Pavesi still doubted whether he had the staying power of Bartali in the long term, and was sticking with the older man, so Coppi had accepted a generous offer – a million lire plus performance bonuses – from the car,motorbike and cycle maker. Bianchi had already approached him before the outbreak of war; they had a distinguished history, and not just in cycling. Tazio Nuvolari and Alberto Ascari, both of whom would become notable Grand Prix drivers, had ridden the company’s motorbikes.
    The deal included the car he had dreamt of on his way home from the war; more importantly, he took with him the mechanic from Legnano, Pinella di Grande, the man they called pinza d’oro , golden pliers. Coppi’s relationship with Cavanna, part trainer, part confidant, part masseur, now spanned eight years, and he had long known the importance of having the right man to look after his bikes in the same way that Cavanna looked after his body. Given the state of the roads after the Germans and the Allies had done their worst, it was doubly important now. And with Bianchi, there was the chance of a place in the team for Serse, who had taken out an amateur licence early in the war, then had raced with his elder brother on the post-war circuit. Late in 1945, Fausto engineered a victory for Serse in one of the first road races, Milan–Varzi, and that was enough to persuade Bianchi that he was more than their leader’s little brother.
    The preparation Fausto had put in under Cavanna’s guidance was enough to instil confidence in anyone. A strict diet had got rid of the stomach ulcer that had affected him after he left prison camp. He had also recovered from an attack of malaria that hit him after transfer to a camp in Blida, Algeria, late in 1944. The disease had lingered. His tent-mate of the time later testified that he had still not recovered when he returned to Italy in February 1945, and he had a relapse late that year.
    Since the start of 1946, he had ridden 7,000 kilometres in training, sometimes using a fixed wheel to increase his pedalling speed. There had been three weeks of light work before he had begun to lengthen the training rides, eventuallygetting up to 250 kilometres per outing. Finally, in the two weeks before La Primavera , there were the dress rehearsals, in which he would ride alone for 150 kilometres, at a brisk pace but without hurting himself. With those kilometres already in his legs, he would meet Cavanna’s amateurs 100 kilometres from home. They were under orders to simulate a race, attacking one by one to make life as hard as possible for him. For the time, this was unprecedentedly systematic, targeted training.
    The night before the race, Coppi, Cavanna and the manager of the Bianchi team, Giovanni Tragella, had laid their plans well. They knew that after such a long gap in competition, the serious contenders in the field might well lack confidence, and might be unwilling to chase an early escapee. They also suspected that Bartali was not at his best, due to a dispute over his salary with Legnano. So Coppi was to make an early move, following the track racers who had raced the winter circuit and so had plenty of speed but little stamina; they tended to break away early to pick up intermediate prizes before fading later on.
    On the Turchino, the last of the early escapees to remain with Coppi, the Frenchman Lucien Teisseire, dropped his head for a