Road fixed / fixed road

Coppi and the 'conversion look'

Coppi was the master of looking cool and stylish on a bike - you might almost say he invented the concept.

I was aware of his choice of ends for track. I will admit I was surprised the first time I saw one, which was in the bike museum in Novi Ligure. That machine also had campag q.r, skewers with the release levers cut to about half their normal length; track regs? look, if you've paid a big chunk of start money to Il Campionissimo you're not going to tell him he can't start because of his bike!

I'm not sure where I heard this, but there is a story that Coppi's track bikes are more common than you might expect. This is because when he went to a track meeting (outside Italy, at least) he would take a spare bike 'just in case'. Being a thrifty (and shrewd) Italian peasant, he would sell the spare bike before returning home. I guess Bianchi winked at this, thinking the publicity was more valuable than the bike.