Fallen Angel Read Online Free Page B
Author: William Fotheringham
style of the best film scripts, one morning he met a string of them, apologised for not riding with them because he was late for work and whizzed away on his heavy bike, to their utter consternation.
Cash, meanwhile, remained scarce. The Castellania priest would walk with Faustino to catch the bus at a stop outside the village to save half a lira. So it must have been a huge gamble when one day, probably in 1933 when he was thirteen or fourteen, Faustino and Livio took their savings out of the bank in order to buy new bikes. The bank accounts had been opened for the brothers by an uncle, Cico, with ten lire apiece; il comandante Giuseppe Fausto, the sea captain, had gradually filled them up so they had 400 lire each. Livio bought a Maino, Faustino a Girardengo, and they rode them together, always over the climb at Carezzano, unsurfaced like most of the roads, up to one in six at its steepest. Here they would meet local amateurs and professionals; Faustino could leave them all behind. Among his victims was a cyclist named ‘Piass’, who had raced the Giro, and who refused to speak to the youngster after being left behind.
However, the butcher was less than entirely happy with the scruffy boy who turned up each morning on his bike: Faustino took far too long to do his rounds of the neighbouring villages. Unknown to Merlano, every time he rode out into the countryside he chose a route that took in a village called Gavi, an extra ten or fifteen kilometres, including a long climb. To avoid Merlano’s clips round the ear, he had no choice but to ride the circuit faster and faster. When the butcher did find out, he had trouble believing quite how quickly his delivery boy could ride his bike.
CHAPTER 3
----
THE BLIND MAN AND THE BUTCHERâS BOY
The Museo dei Campionissimi in Novi Ligure is a large, yellow building just outside the town centre, surrounded by cycling sculptures â a final sprint, a cyclist on a mountain â while inside is a celebration of the townâs two cycling greats: paintings, photographs, cuttings from magazines, cartoons, all devoted to Coppi and his predecessor Costante Girardengo, nine times Italian champion and six times winner of the MilanâSan Remo Classic after the First World War. Here, cycling roots still run deep. Leave the station and the first thing you see is a statue of Coppi in a small park with tired-looking goldfish in a pool. Coppi spent much of his life in Novi, and his daughter Marina still lives in the town.
Visit Novi and you can understand why Coppi became a cyclist: the town lived and breathed the sport. This was a centre of the Italian cycle industry, home of the Santamaria and Fiorelli manufacturers; when Coppi came to work here, Girardengo was the townâs most famous inhabitant. Here, in the early 1930s, the campionissimo and the men who raced with him and lived off him were hard to avoid. The baker opposite Merlanoâs boasted that he had delivered his brioche to the champion. Giraâ also bought meat from Merlano: on one occasion, Coppi had to take him some salami but the great man showed little interest in the bony youth on the butcherâs bike.
Domenico Merlano had a number of regular clients whowould sit in the shop and put the world to rights over slices of sausage and a glass or two of wine. One of these regulars, a recently blind man named Biagio Cavanna, spent more time there than the others as he came to terms with his disability. With his Ray-Bans and his stick, Cavanna was a distinctive figure in the little town: thickset, heavy jowled, and now weighing 120 kilos due to the loss of physical activity with the onset of blindness. His bad temper was well known. The blind man had worked as a masseur and team manager; he had a dogmatic way about him as they discussed the merits of this cyclist and that footballer.
There are at least four versions of and several different dates for the first meeting between Cavanna and Faustino Coppi; it is
Cash, meanwhile, remained scarce. The Castellania priest would walk with Faustino to catch the bus at a stop outside the village to save half a lira. So it must have been a huge gamble when one day, probably in 1933 when he was thirteen or fourteen, Faustino and Livio took their savings out of the bank in order to buy new bikes. The bank accounts had been opened for the brothers by an uncle, Cico, with ten lire apiece; il comandante Giuseppe Fausto, the sea captain, had gradually filled them up so they had 400 lire each. Livio bought a Maino, Faustino a Girardengo, and they rode them together, always over the climb at Carezzano, unsurfaced like most of the roads, up to one in six at its steepest. Here they would meet local amateurs and professionals; Faustino could leave them all behind. Among his victims was a cyclist named ‘Piass’, who had raced the Giro, and who refused to speak to the youngster after being left behind.
However, the butcher was less than entirely happy with the scruffy boy who turned up each morning on his bike: Faustino took far too long to do his rounds of the neighbouring villages. Unknown to Merlano, every time he rode out into the countryside he chose a route that took in a village called Gavi, an extra ten or fifteen kilometres, including a long climb. To avoid Merlano’s clips round the ear, he had no choice but to ride the circuit faster and faster. When the butcher did find out, he had trouble believing quite how quickly his delivery boy could ride his bike.
CHAPTER 3
----
THE BLIND MAN AND THE BUTCHERâS BOY
The Museo dei Campionissimi in Novi Ligure is a large, yellow building just outside the town centre, surrounded by cycling sculptures â a final sprint, a cyclist on a mountain â while inside is a celebration of the townâs two cycling greats: paintings, photographs, cuttings from magazines, cartoons, all devoted to Coppi and his predecessor Costante Girardengo, nine times Italian champion and six times winner of the MilanâSan Remo Classic after the First World War. Here, cycling roots still run deep. Leave the station and the first thing you see is a statue of Coppi in a small park with tired-looking goldfish in a pool. Coppi spent much of his life in Novi, and his daughter Marina still lives in the town.
Visit Novi and you can understand why Coppi became a cyclist: the town lived and breathed the sport. This was a centre of the Italian cycle industry, home of the Santamaria and Fiorelli manufacturers; when Coppi came to work here, Girardengo was the townâs most famous inhabitant. Here, in the early 1930s, the campionissimo and the men who raced with him and lived off him were hard to avoid. The baker opposite Merlanoâs boasted that he had delivered his brioche to the champion. Giraâ also bought meat from Merlano: on one occasion, Coppi had to take him some salami but the great man showed little interest in the bony youth on the butcherâs bike.
Domenico Merlano had a number of regular clients whowould sit in the shop and put the world to rights over slices of sausage and a glass or two of wine. One of these regulars, a recently blind man named Biagio Cavanna, spent more time there than the others as he came to terms with his disability. With his Ray-Bans and his stick, Cavanna was a distinctive figure in the little town: thickset, heavy jowled, and now weighing 120 kilos due to the loss of physical activity with the onset of blindness. His bad temper was well known. The blind man had worked as a masseur and team manager; he had a dogmatic way about him as they discussed the merits of this cyclist and that footballer.
There are at least four versions of and several different dates for the first meeting between Cavanna and Faustino Coppi; it is
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