Dan Artley wrote: << The Portraits of the Tour de France calendar for June shows Coppi and Bartali alone on a mountain with two very different bikes. Coppi's got a derailleur equipped bike that may be the original Campy Grand Sport and Bartali's got the Marguerita? (forgot the name) shifting system.>>
to which Steeven Maasland responded: <<In 1949, Coppi rode Simplex equipped Bianchi and Bartali a Cervino equipped Legnano.>>
Steeven is correct, escept that Gino Bartali quit Legnano at the end of 1948 and formed his own team for 1949. He rode a Cervino-equipped "Bartali".
Dan Artley also wrote: <<I know from Aldo's postings of the 1949 Giro, that Bartali won the Giro that year.>>
As passionate as I am about this topic, it's hard to imagine that I would ever mistakenly write that Bartali won the '49 Giro, when it was in fact Coppi.
Steeven Maasland also wrote: <<This is mostly true. Coppi apparently won the tour with Simplex, but there are plenty of photos from 1949 that show Coppi riding bikes equipped with a Campagnolo cambio corsa. I can't tell whether these photos were from early or late in the season, or perhaps even during the Tour itself. Campagnolo also advertised that Coppi won some 1949 Tour awards using Campagnolo, so who knows exactly?>>
Coppi, Bartali, and Cino Cinelli had to get special permission from Tour director Jacques Goddet for the Italian team to use two different types of shifting systems for the 1949 Tour... each teams was expected to use the same type of shifters within their team. I have a list of them all at home, but I can tell you that no team used Campagnolo shifters in the 1949 TdF.
Campagnolo was able to advertise Coppi winning the Tour using "Campagnolo" because he and many other riders where using Campy qr levers. Even the Italian "B" team, or Cadets Italienne, used Simplex derailleurs in '49.
I have collected nearly 100 photos of Fausto Coppi in every stage of the 1949 TdF, from having both his bikes officially stamped and tagged at the offices of L'Equipe the day before the start, to the parade lap at the Parc des Princes on the final day, and every stage in between, and not one photo show's him using anything other than Simplex front and rear shifters.
I cannot yet say what he exactly what he used each day before or after the Tour, but I'm gradually collecting more photographs and information. For instance, Coppi used Simplex for Paris-Roubaix that year, the one race where you'd expect him to possibly use the cambio Corsa - the race where, the following year, he made the single-lever shifter (later called Paris-Roubaix shifter) so famous. Coppi was still using Simplex for the World Championships in August.
Hope this contributes some more information to the discussion.
Aldo Ross
Indian Lake, Ohio