In October 1952 Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport published its 32-page guide to the 46th edition of Il Lombardia, or the Giro di Lombardia as it was known at the time. In among the stories of Fausto Coppi, Gino Bartali and 1951 winner Louison Bobet was a single-page retrospective and interview with the winner of the first edition of the race, Giovanni Gerbi, under the headline ‘1905: the Devil on the Rails’.
Gerbi would have been 67 years old when the writer of the story, Ulisse Corno, came calling to talk about the. Once I gained two or three hundred metres, it was done: nobody was able to catch me.’ But exactly how did Gerbi gain those first metres? ‘Some tricks, we suggest,’ writes Corno, knowing the legend of the race. At this suggestion, ‘Gerbi’s face becomes dark’.
