The story of Pelo, the lad who won the Milano – Sanremo
Piero Chechi was a fifteen-year-old lad who was a woodcutter like his father, his grandfather, his great-, great-great-grandfather. Nobody took care to call him Piero but everyone addressed him as “Pelo”. Lore has it in his family: Pelaccio was the grandfather, Pelone was the dad, Pelona the mum, Pelina the sister, Peluccio, Peletto, Pelino his little brothers too.
Everyday he got on his grandfather’s big iron bicycle with solid tyres and relentlessly rode along paths, along fields, steep and sheer lanes. He relentlessly climbed hills, got down downhills, crossed streams, gorges… gliding up and down along bumpy knolls under the hot sun of those forgotten summers.
And when it rained nevertheless he rode away on the solid tyres, sinking in the mud, stomping the pedals out of the saddle, raising his weight and plunging it back down on the pedals again, mile after mile, while the rain was beating down into his half closed eyes.
And when he crossed threshing-floors, all the kids ran after him teasing him and shouted: “There’s Pelo! There’s Pelo! Come on Pelo! Come on Pelo, you are the best!”
And he did indeed put his back into it. He resembled lightening which dazzles eyes on those white country lanes, covered in dust.
He always left home in darkness and returned in darkness.
He lived in Sassi Bianchi, a little village between San Gemignano and Il Castagno.
His love for cycling began some years earlier in those evenings he liked to pop into the inn. There were people who had travelled all over the world, who had been to Volterra, who had been to Cècina; the most adventurous to Livorno, and someone even to Grosseto.
And he was listening , with eyes wide open and mouth gaping.
There people talked about everything, but above all about Petit-Breton, about Girardengo, Ganna and Gerbi “the Red Devil”. About the hellish Paris-Roubaix, and its wicked road made entirely of cobbles. One talked about the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. And the stories which stirred him the most were those of the Milano-San Remo a race which fascinated Pelo because it had always been run in dreadful conditions and there were the infamous climbs of Turchino and Cipressa and because one raced along the sea, which Pelo had seen only once, and he had a vivid memory of.
So then it started becoming crazy about cycling and races. He often watched the races which were run in that area.
A day came when he set to train himself hard along the ups and downs between San Gemignano, Certaldo, Gambassi and Il Castagno: a circuit he also did twice a day. And he really took a liking to it.
The father Pelone became furious with his son, who instead of going into the forest to chop wood spent all day up and down those hillocks. And what’s more he ate anything that he saw that he thought tasty.
But Pelo was so pigheaded as to resemble a mule, and he kept on training.
“Tomorrow dad I’m off to race in Montignoso. It is the village fête. There’s a bike race. I put my name down and I wanna go.” He told his dad one evening at dinner.
“You must be bloody loopy! You’ve got bloody sawdust for bloody brains! Enough’s enough! It’s time to put you bloody head on your soddin’shoulders. On Monday you’re going back to work in the bloody wood. So enough of this story about cycling, everyone’s always taking the piss. Pelone yesterday I saw your lad on his bike…what’s he wanna do? Don’t he work with you anymore…does he want to become a cyclist?”
That night Pelo had a dream. He dreamed he was a locomotive. “How it’s beautiful being a train!”, he thought. He ran at breakneck speed along the rail. He ran, ran and ran along that unending way.
Out of blue the railway ended and in front of him he saw a gravel climb that was so utterly white, so steep and so sheer it was scary.
All of a sudden he turned up to find himself halfway up that climb. He looked down and saw a little by little- coming- up a tiny man, all black. Dirty, covered and soiled with mud, riding a big iron bicycle, so big that that tiny man seemed to be even tinier on it. He passed him, in front of Pelo. Pelo shouted out something. But he lost his voice. The tiny man passed Pelo, like a rocket.
Pelo turned around, to see him up there, at the top of the hill lost in the middle of the blinding and twinkling dawn light.
The morning after, Pelo got up and he couldn’t remember his dream anymore.
In Montignoso he won. Up the last climb, he really took off on his grandfather’s big bicycle: nobody could keep up with him.
The others all had racing bikes, but it didn’t matter.
Pelo was like a missile. He got to Montignoso with twenty minutes to spare on his first followers. That day he made friends with Giovannino. Giovannino, who everyone called Giovannino-no-fear, because he was so brave that he threw himself into the most difficult adventures.
Pelo was on the winner’s platform receiving the prize, when he saw Giovannino-no-fear arrive.
Pelo looked at him: “ How sad it must be arriving the last of all, alone, when the others have arrived.” And he didn’t feel happy any more about his victory.
When the flowers were brought at the prize giving Pelo said: “You can’t eat flowers? Bring me instead a plate of spaghetti, for me and for that boy down there!” pointing at Giovannino-no-fear.
From that day on they became true friends. They trained together; they went to the inn together. Pelo’s father, who apparently was as tough as old boots, when he saw his son winning, felt something indescribable inside. He was beside himself with joy, and he was the first and most dogged fan of Pelo. “My son is really cool! What did I tell you? He’ll become a fantastic cyclist.” He told everyone he met on his way.
Pelone was not a very tall person, and a bit more than him was Pelo indeed, his boy:……And here comes the best part! We have heard that one day Pelo took one of those big basket with straps generally carried on woodcutters back and packed his father in it. He lifted the basket on his shoulders, then he climbed back on his bike, and went! along those ups and downs to train himself.
He did it every time that the father was available. If his father couldn’t go, in the basket went some bricks. Or when there were fairs in the nearby villages he would put boules balls in his basket in order, killing two pidgeons with one stone, to rent them at the said fairs.
Pelo continued to win one race after another one. By this time Pelo was a real racer. Thus the father took him to the Gazzarrini shop in Volterra and he bought him his first racing bicycle.
His adversaries always tried everything to stop him. Once a certain Pandolfo from Montaione bet Pelo that he couldn’t manage to eat an entire boiled hen, and therefore he couldn’t manage to get started. “Will you bet? Will you bet, Pelo?” Pandolfo said to him. “I will win anyway!”, answered Pelo. And he didn’t welsh. Deadpan, he ate all of it, and he won in an incredible fashion, winning by a mile. Another day there was one, Carletto from Castelfiorentino, who during the race made Pelo drink the famous purging water of Pillo. But also in this case there was nothing to do. Pelo won, as always: “Sod you all. You bloody boys!” he said popping up next to Carletto at the winning post.
He was beaten too! In a race of three hundred kilometers, passing through the area of the Asciano locality, when he was attacking a slope (Pelo was alone, leading the race, as usual) a bunch of scoundrels were waiting for him and beat him, leaving him for dead.
There was a long running rumour going around that Pelo had made a pact with the Devil.
Everyone tried to discover the secret as to why he rode so strongly. Anything he did before, during or after the race, was immediately imitated in the hope of snatching the secret of his top form. One knew, for instance, that Pelo had a sort of water-vinsanto-beateneggyolk-feeding-mash, in his water-bottle. No sooner had many of the pack known, that they started to imitate him. The result? Many of them, in what was the hottest and muggiest part of the season, the dog-days, and because of the great sultry heat or because of the vinsanto or maybe both , felt bad and ended up in Hospital. Another day Pelo came up at the start of one stage race with a fantastic tuscan cigar in his mouth; he smoked like a chimney. Thus the following day, during the signing ceremony before the race, you might have thought you were at Larderello’s smoke-holes. Half the pack, or perhaps more than the half, smoked in a bloody and hellish way. It turned out, as usual, that in the middle of the race more than half of the riders withdrew, reporting strong respiratory difficulties.
By this time Pelo had become a legend!
But one thing in those days worried him such a lot: his Giovannino friend. “Giovannino watch out for the Fascists!”, Pelo often said to him. But the boy, hard, obstinate, and scornful of the danger, continued to speak badly about the regime and spread communist propaganda. Giovannino received warnings several times. One day they punctured his two tyres; another time, during a race - Giovannino was left behind the pack - a car approched him trying to get him to end up in a ditch. One of us would have tried, at that point, to turn over a new leaf, or at least we would have been more prudent. But you can figure out Giovannino-no-fear! Nothing. Do you know what he did? One night, it could have been two or three o’clock in the morning, he decided to go to Il Castagno; he broke down the door of the vestry, climbed out onto the top of bell tower of the church and put on a gramophone and go! at top speed! “L'Internationale", and he took to his heels . After barely two minutes a squad of fascists was over there (Let him have it, the Communist! Let him have it, the Communist!, they yelled). Who, for ten minutes, were shooting the top of bell tower, until at the end, the gramophone fell down to earth, breaking into a million pieces. Unfortunately, someone had seen Giovannino and grassed about him to the fascists. Giovannino, having been told, went into hiding.
The fascists went to his home, but couldn’t find him, so took his bicycle and hammered it, smashing it to pieces. Nevertheless, not satisfied with that, they caught his hapless father and took him to the Casa del Fascio and there using huge bottles of castor oil, they really purged him. That poor man, his father was about to pop his clogs, kick the bucket: “I’m almost dead! I’m almost dead”, whimpered the poor-father-thing on his way home, farting as if he’d eaten beans for an entire month.
From that day on, Giovannino swore he’d get his own back on the fascists. And when he could, he broke into the houses of the richest, stealing everything he could, to give to victims of fascism.
But his love of racing was too strong and he suffered greatly being away from the races. So he took to disguising himself and mingling among the crowd because he couldn’t help but see his friend, Pelo.
Pelo knew, Giovannino had let him know, he had got used to being there, and seeing him winning.
And every time Pelo climbed up to the winner’s platform to receive the flowers he looked around for his friend (“Giovannino, where are you?”), endlessly trying to make him out through the people surrounding the stage.
And finally, that day came, the one of the Milano – San Remo
And that day came, the Milano San Remo day. Pelo’s dream. Since he was a baby. What bewitched him was Ganna’s victory, when he broke away on his own on the Turchino ascent under the sleet, but he fell heavily on the slippery downhill, and afterwards, caught by Georget, was overtaken. But stubbornly he threw himself in pursuit and recaptured him at Savona and went ahead on his own to win in a daring solo breakaway.
Even if Ganna was famous in all those years, how could anyone forget the mythical “Red Devil”, Gerbi, so called because he always wore red jersey, red cap, red straps.
A sort of Mephistofele without beard or moustach who, first, carefully shaved his legs. As mad as a hatter, a wily, bullheaded, individualist tormented by a queer sense of inferiority, he, just through his craving for long solo breakaways, was able to get excited and fulfil his mystical feeling of racing. For him racing was living. He raced as if it were a matter of life and death.
Once at the Corsa Nazionale, near Asti - Gerbi was the leader – a boy crossed the road in front of him and Gerbi fell down as if dead.
Fainted and bleeding he was brought to a chemist’s shop. There they somehow stitched up the wound. Nonetheless someone was sent for ice to prevent the concussion whilst awaiting to be taken to the hospital. Gerbi woke up and found himself entirely bandaged – “He’s dead, he’s dead, the Red Devil’s dead!” they said all around outside - ; “What happened?” Gerbi asked.
And when they explained what happened because of the lad and told him that meanwhile some other racers had passed by, black and blue all over, ashed-faced, he climbed back onto his bike and pedalling furiously caught the break-away batch. And then he caught Gajoni, who was the leader in a grand solo flight, accelerating away, dropping him in an instant, to be the first in Milan.
One wrote then he had been pedalling as if unconscious, covered in blood and dust; with fever and throbbing temples, twinkling eyes; sharp and smooth-skinned profile, which occasionally stuck out of the bandages, as a devil. Gerbi’s deeds, he had heard about at the inn, were left deeply stuck in the heart of Pelo. He felt as if he was resembling the Red Devil. In temperament and in courage. And if Gerbi trained himself with a pack of bricks bound up to the saddle, Pelo trained with his father in the corb. And if Gerbi gained himself the nickname of Red Devil, Pelo took on that one of Champion of Tripolitany. He raced with a bicycle without mud guards, and when he got to the finish he was so dirty and covered with mud that he resembled an African as well.
“Dad I’m so excited. My legs are trembling. My legs are trembling if I think about it. Tomorrow I can’t do it.
“Oh sod off, you stupid git!”, was the comment of his father.
That night Pelo was ill.
He lapsed into a disturbed sleep. That night he had the same dream. He seemed to be a locomotive. He bowled along at breakneck speed, along the rails. Suddenly he stopped at the foot of a steep ascent. But this time there was a fork road. To his right the road climbed wide and broad towards the top of the mountain where a blinding glare didn’t allow him to look at the mountain top itself. To his left a black, dark, tiny path.
Instinctively he tried to go to the left. But a strong wind started blowing against his left hip and forced him to take the road on his right. While climbing he looked down and saw Giovannino, who wholly alone had entered that black and dark tiny path. He was sad and he looked as though he was weeping. He howled. But nothing came out of his mouth. Oddly enough now he was not on his bike anymore. He stood up, at half climb, as a fan along the road. He looked downwards again, and there he saw that-coming-up-black and dirty-tiny-man, riding that big iron bicycle.
He looked at the tiny man and looked downwards at the tiny path. Giovannino was not there any longer.
The wind started blowing impetuously again against his left hip and bent his face towards the top of the mountain, at the same moment that the tiny man disappeared into that dazzling light.
When Pelo woke up, he was completely upset and entirely sweaty. He tried to stand up but his legs couldn’t carry him anymore and his head was swimming around. He felt as if he had an incredibly high fever.
“Vatta! Vatta!” he shouted.
From the room beside appeared the loyal masseur Vatta,.
“Help me. I’ve got fever.”
“No problem!” answered Vatta and he went in his room.
He returned with a small bottle in his hand: “Drink this one!” he said to him.
And Pelo without any further question swallowed it down: “What’s that?” he then asked.
“Don’t worry. It’s something I’ve prepared with some herbs! Drink and you’ll be fine!”
There and then he was fine. But his legs were trembling, and the excitement cut his breathing.
At the starting line the weather was stormy.
They were one hundred and fifty at the starting line. There was Binda, Girardengo, Piemontesi, Guerra…
Milan was cold and foggy.
They put on their windcheaters. It started raining. Near Pavia it stopped raining but the sky was still threatening : it began raining in the neighbourhood of Voghera. The racers were unrecognizable because of the mud. At
The racers got over the borders of Piedmont and they entered the ligurian hills. They started going up the 532 mt. of Turchino. Then it started snowing. Everything was frozen. The road seemed to be covered by 15 –
Pelo felt ill. His legs didn’t turn well: he had cotton wool legs. He felt frozen, himself too. He huffed and puffed. Panted. He tried to stick it out and go up with the big iron bicycle. But it was no use. He was about to give up. He had tears in his eyes. He realized he had betrayed his childhood dream. He looked up and saw the top wrapped up in an unbearable flashing glare. “It’s too far. I can’t do it. I give up!”
All of a sudden he felt a slap, two slaps… on his shoulders. “Com’on Pelo! GO! GO!! GO!!!”, a well known voice yelled at him. He turned around. It was Giovannino. “Win Pelo! Win for me!!” , he shouted to Pelo once again.
Pelo had barely enough time to turn around before he saw two cursed blackguards in dark, plain clothes getting out a car which was behind him waiting for the right moment. They assaulted Giovannino and beating him with a stick carried him in the car. “GO Pelo! GO! Win for me!...” it still rang in his ears.
The blood went warmly up to his brain, a sudden heat entered his body. He looked upwards. He saw the top bright now, calm and tranquil. Now the top was closer.
He stood and pushed hard on his pedals, did Pelo. And he sprinted. He sprinted. Sprinted again…and again he sprinted. Sprints repeatedly in a row. Now he danced on the pedals. Now he was the Pelo who we had always known. He rapidly caught up with the small batch and mile after mile he tightened his grip on the leader Girardengo, then he joined the leader and impressively upped the pace so as to force Girardengo to fall back. He got to the top alone and started the downhill stretch.
Then he launched himself headlong into the mire of the descent and zigzagging he vanished along the bends.
Everyone was waiting for Pelo’s collapse on the Berta, but his muscles didn’t play a trick and kept on his solo breakaway and with an extraordinary average speed of
And Pelo?
From that day on we lost the trail.
As the story goes Pelo disappeared. At the prize giving a bloke whispered in his ear that Giovannino was dead. He was killed, beaten to death, by fascists. Then one said Pelo cried, threw away the flowers. He climbed back onto his bike and went away towards The Cipressa.
There was a strange glare up there on the top of The Cipressa: perhaps it was snowing up there. Who knows?
But somebody said he saw a tiny-man, all black, as an African, quite dirty, going-up, with a big iron bicycle black too, towards that glare further and further.
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