Vittorio’s bicycles

• … and they used to rinse clothes in the Ombrone
• After September 8th 1943
• Between the twenties and thirties
• Corrado Capecchi, military internee
  • A medal (at last) for Corrado
  • The joke of the military internees
• Five places of Romanesque Carmignano
• Friar Bocci, at the beginning of the twentieth century
• From archaeologists to farmers
• Gino Balena
• Gino di Fico
• Historical shops in Carmignano
• In the name of Jesus and Saint Peter, may the sty go away
• Liberation day
• Matteucci, the ‘forgotten’ bishop
• Soldier in Greece
• Stories from a school notebook
• Stories of donkeys and jockeys
• Stories of mayors and town councils in Carmignano
• Stories of our home
• Stories of war and displaced persons
• The Battistina and other scary stories
• The colours of the rioni
• The Golden Roster
• The last sharecropper in Carmignano
• The siege in memory of the Princess
• The tree of liberty in Carmignano
• Ugo Contini Bonacossi
• Vittorio’s bicycles
• When the river Arno was fordable ..
• When they were digging pietra serena between Arno and Ombrone
• The colours of Carmignano, a small guide for tourists
  • Ancient churches and abbeys. Montalbano, a crossroads for pilgrims.
    • San Giusto al Pinone
    • San Jacopo in Capezzana
    • San Leonardo in Artimino
    • San Lorenzo in Montalbiolo
    • San Martino in Campo
    • San Michele amarcord
      • San Michele, the theater takes to the streets
• Itineraries for just a few days or more
  • Walking through history and nature
  • A Sunday devoted to the discovery of Artimino
  • A few words about the hamlets of Carmignano
  • The Fontina and Castagnati Lake
• Guides to download

The passion for cycling has many faces. There are those who like to challenge the steepest climbs, those who prefer bicycles to cars and trains for a slow tourism, with the landscapes that parade before their eyes, wind blowing in their hair and a gaze that focuses on details that would have gone unnoticed. And there are those who   instead of that, restore bicycles – like Vittorio. Old bicycles, that after several decades, were saved from iron scrap yards, old carcasses became new again, thanks to original pieces tracked down from flea markets and antique stores of central and northern Italy.
Vittorio Cirri born in 1941, who has always lived in Seano, is now retired. Imagine an avid cyclist, gaining more and more grey hair and also more free time, becomes a bicycle mechanic. Hasn’t Vittorio always been one of them? And there are many others like him on the Montalbano, land of Maggini brothers, Franco  “Crazy Heart” Bitossi and other champions who have challenged the hills of Carmignano or who  get on the bike on Sundays and clock up the miles. Vittorio preferred motorcycles and jogging instead. As for TV-programmes, he prefers watching Grand Prix ​​Formula One to Tour of Italy. It is after a lifetime spent with looms, like so many others (once) that there were in Seano – struck by the passion for bikes. And so, the big room behind the house freed from old looms, those same rooms that have now become a real workshop, was filled with bicycles and two wheels which were ready to retire but now they are about to bloom again.
Vittorio started ten years ago with a 1938 Touring: it took him three years to fix it and to find all original parts, including fenders. Then it was the turn of the Ganna, the Maino, the Taurus, the Day and then of course the Bianchi – Italy’s most famous bike. There are almost thirty of them in display. There are vintage bikes from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. The oldest piece is a Bianchi: a 28 and 3/8 inch from 1933, black and sleek, with the original leather seat and the tool bag. Worth a showcase are also two other Bianchi bikes: pearl grey, men’s and women’s, from 1938. Only the headlight that is “almost impossible to find,” says Vittorio costs 200 euros.
In the room you’re walking around in, you can find pieces of bicycles and each one of them has a story: there are handlebars and hubs stacked on the shelves that have been found in the markets of Modena, Reggio Emilia, Imola and already chosen and boxed pieces ready to be assembled: lights, tires, forks and also the original metal badges. On the table there is a Maino from 1938 and a Touring from 1940 just waiting to be assembled. But Vittorio also gives advice. A man comes in with an old bike and just one look at the frame is enough to guess the year – 1951. The eyes have been trained by looking at the photos in original catalogues of various brands, very useful for reconstructing a shabby frame getting a bike that seems brand new.
He has sold three or four bicycles. But after so much work becoming attached is inevitable. And so it’s not easy to even rent them out. “I once rented a Maino for a wedding,” he confesses. (Wf)
Ndr. The article was written in February of 2009. Two and a half years later Vittorio Cirrus was gone, devoured by an illness that didn’t give him a chance.