Fausto Coppi's 1952 race bike

Written by Guy Andrews

In the 1950s racing bikes were made almost entirely of steel. Aluminium was still rare and exotic, just as carbon became at the beginning of the 1990s. Nowadays at the Giro almost all the bicycles are made entirely of carbon, with the chain being pretty much the only steel item on the bike. That's not to say that steel bikes weren't pushing innovation , as you can see by Fausto Coppi's 1952 race bike, there are a few things that designers and bike builders still have in use today – and some ideas they 'pinched' too. Last year Rouleur took a trip to the Bianchi factory (see issue ten of Rouleur). The headquarters is based just outside of Milan in Treviglio. It was a busman's holiday, make no mistake, but was still a wonderful learning experience. Allowed to wander through the factory we found countless treasures, old chroming tanks, celeste coloured spray booths and welding bays – through to the modern bike building workshop where mechanics busily assembled the latest range of bikes, with the same care and attention that Bianchi have always paid to building fine racing bikes. We spent hours nudging and nosing around the prototype workshop, which was full of ancient and modern delights, the past decades of cycling technology all spread out like a cycle jumble. Bianchi are proud of their racing pedigree and so they have kept and preserved many of the race winning historical bikes, on display are those that once belonged to Felice Gimondi, Gianni Bugno and Marco Pantani among many others (more pictures of these will follow at some point). Amongst all these valuable, priceless bikes there was one that stood out as a gem. This is Fausto Coppi's 1952 World Championship winning Bianchi Specialissima complete with insulated bottle covers, Campagnolo derailleurs, Ambrosio forged aluminium stem and Universal brakes. The frame was a huge advance on the bikes of the time, with chrome lugs and an early integrated style headset (who said that there are new ideas in frame building?). So, here are some photographs of the most famous Celeste coloured bike of all time...