Aldo & crew,
I wonder how much that bike weighed. It looks fairly light even with a cottered crank. I also wonder where his pump is? In his jersey? Would he have trusted a follow car in 1948 to be close by and if so why does he have the tire if that's the case?
Look at his right & left hand and how his fingers are draped around the hood, index finger inside. I ride like that sometimes to rest my palms in a different position. Also, I see the brake levers are taped. Yesterday I rode a 100, the Katy Flatland 100, and found myself in this hand position many times. Because it was so hot, my sweat sometimes ran down the brake levers and made them slippery. I might try some tape on my next long, hot ride. Lots of heat related sags I heard at the end. We had a heat index of 105F. My Gianni Motta did very well, thank you. I got lots of comments about my down tube shifters and "old skool" steel bike. A rather spectacular crash had an aluminum frame mostly intact but a carbon fiber completely unrecognizable, shattered into pieces. Thankfully I was about 3 minutes behind the crash. When I went by I remember thinking my old steel Motta would have probably survived that crash with only scratches. After all that, I heard the guy only had a couple of broken fingers.
James Doolittle Spring, Texas, USA
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of aldoross4 Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 8:12 AM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR] Pic of the Day (annex) Bartali at the 1948 Tour de France
Wooljersey.com might be down, but I don't want to miss this opportunity to post a Pic of the Day, so here's one from my blog:
Pic of the Day 17 July, 2009
Gino Bartali at the 1948 Tour de France
July 17th, 1948 was a rest day for the Tour de France. Gino Bartali had just won two consecutive mountain stages and taken the maillot jaune from Louison Bobet. Bartali broke away on stage 13, from Cannes to Briançon, beating 2nd place Briek Schotte by 6'18". On stage 14, from Briançon to Aix-les-Baines, Bartali broke away again, finishing alone 5'53 ahead of Stan Ockers. And the day after the rest day, on stage 15 from Aix-les-Baines to Lausanne, Bartali would again finish alone, 1'47" ahead of Briek Schotte. Three mountain stages and three solo wins had moved Bartali from 2nd place on the G.C., 1'06" behind Louison Bobet, to the yellow jersey, 13'47" ahead of Bobet. On stage 16 Bobet lost an additional 21'20" to Bartali, who now lead 2nd-placed Schotte by 32' 20".
Note the cambio corsa shifter, single chainring, low
saddle/large framesize, different color of headtube (is this
the green and red bike?), rear-facing thorn catchers, and
8-panel cycling cap with small bill.
>From But et Club, July ??? 1948.
http://aldoblog2008.blogspot.com/
Click on pic for much larger image.
Aldo Ross
Middletown, Ohio, USA