VINE: Il Sangue della Terra (Blood of the Land)...... page 2
STYLE: NYC’s Nino Corvato & the Italian Finish.... page 6
PRECISION: Richard Bryne on Bike Handling......page 8

May 2012 | Issue 01 | 36 Pages | cannondale.com

TRADITION: Grappa Nardini Distillery ............ page 10
CULTURE: The Bicycle Thief ............................ page 16

COMPETITION: Giro Stages Not to Miss........ page 20
PLACE: Italy’s Roubaix: Strade Bianche’s ............. page 26
LEGEND: The Great Felice Gimondi................... page 30
WEAR: Sugoi’s Relationship with Liquigas ............ page 33
SCENE: Jered Gruber’s View of Italy ................... page 34
GIRO
SNAPSHOTS
With John Wilcockson
Through a century of history, the Giro
d’Italia has experienced countless episodes
of drama, surprising results and reversals
of fortune. To show how varied and
emotional these moments can be, here’s a
sampling of five incidents that defined the
Giro’s most famed champions.

1949: Bartali slips, Coppi conquers Experience versus youth. This was one of the classic battles in Giro history. Gino Bartali, the 34-year-old veteran from Tuscany, had won the Giro three times before (1936, 1937 and 1946). Fausto Coppi from Piedmont, five years younger, won the Giro on his 1940 debut (when Bartali was his teammate) and again in 1947.

Fausto Coppi.
The Horton Collection.

By the 1949 edition, they were regarded as equals, and their rivalry consumed, and divided, a nation. After 10 of the 1949 Giro’s 19 stages, the two heroes were only a minute apart in the overall standings, still biding their time before the marathon 237-kilometer stage from Bassano del Grappa to Bolzano through the Dolomites via the Rolle, Pordoi, Campolongo and Gardena mountain passes. The day began well for Bartali, who attacked strongly on the last switchbacks of the Passo di Rolle, just ahead of Coppi, to snaffle the one-minute time bonus at the summit and move closer to his rival.

VINCENZO NIBALI: Following the
ideal training template. PAGE 4.
CANNONDALE SLICE RS: Much
more than a simple progression. PAGE 14.

CANNONDALE SUPERSIX EVO: The Liquigas team bike. PAGE 32.

There was no televised cycling back then, and just brief
news reports on the radio, so the tifosi had to wait for
their morning newspaper to get details of the race. At
that Giro, the celebrity writer and poet Dino Buzzati
was reporting for the Corriere della Sera. This is how he
described the decisive moments of the stage to Bolzano,
just after the leaders descended through a hailstorm to
the feed zone at Predazzo and before they began the long
climb to the Passo Pordoi:
The riders eat, drink, clean mud from their faces;
several are joking. Nerves relax a bit. Will the
decisive challenge occur on the Pordoi? Bartali
peels a banana with his teeth. For just two seconds,
he focuses on the fruit. When he lifts his eye again