For these with an curiosity in biking expertise, modifications have come so quickly within the final thirty years that one loses sight of what got here earlier than. We get pleasure from our carbon frames, tubeless tires, clipless pedals and near-near faultless shifting over a variety of gears commanded by wi-fi electronics, taking most of it as a right (effectively, minus the value!). However historians of racing biking haven’t solely seemed on the nice competitions and athletes of the previous but in addition their gear and the story is variable gearing is an enchanting one. An enthralling new ebook by Francesco Di Sario seems to be at one of the profitable of those pre-World Conflict II efforts. “Vittoria! The Story of Tommaso Nieddu, the Shifting Programs, His Household and Innovations” reveals how a small household concern’s improvements helped set the stage for what we get pleasure from right this moment.
This yr’s Giro d’Italia started within the neighborhood of Turin, which is a pleasant coincidence on condition that the topic of this ebook, Tommaso Nieddu, was born in that metropolis in 1892. The writer notes:
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“The Turin biking scene has produced quite a few champions and might inform many tales….Nonetheless, there’s one other Turin biking story that has obtained little or no consideration: that of the craftsmen and small enterprise homeowners from Turin. With their ardour and masterful craftsmanship they performed a major position within the nice successes of biking….Tommaso Nieddu considerably formed the historical past of biking together with his information and expertise.”
A eager bicycle owner, and a gifted novice racer, Tommaso loved some spectacular adventures on the bike, together with a visit from Turin to Rome in 1914—a feat he relived in 1968 when he was 75 years previous, additionally finishing the journey in three days as he did aged 22. Throughout World Conflict I he joined the Italian air power, flying as a co-pilot on bomber missions, then post-war bought married and opened a bicycle store in his spouse’s hometown. The store closed in 1921 and the household returned to Turin, the place he discovered employment within the submit workplace.
With a gentle job, he nonetheless discovered time to pursue his ardour for biking and tinkering led to his first patent in 1922, adopted by improved one in 1924, for what is actually a variable gear system by sustaining chain rigidity by shifting the rear wheel in its dropout. This was an concept taken up later by Campagnolo in 1943 with the Cambio Corsa shifter. Tommaso, then again, modified his considering to deal with leaving the rear wheel in place whereas discovering one other method to keep chain rigidity. This grew to become the Vittoria shifting system, patented in 1930 after three years of trials. Tommaso had retained his contacts within the bike racing world and located keen testers.
Early variations of the Vittoria required some dexterity because it operated by pushing a giant lever situated above the chainset to loosen the chain, which then allowed the rider to make use of both a heel or fingers to push the chain to a unique sprocket whereas pedalling backwards. Over time this was improved so {that a} metallic fork did the pushing within the 1934 Vittoria Margherita model. The system was easy and light-weight and clearly an enormous enchancment over stopping to loosen wingnuts to flip round a wheel or in any other case change gear.
There are quite a few movies on-line exhibiting how Campagnolo’s Cambio Corsa works however not a lot on the Vittoria. This little YouTube video will give some concept:
Variable gear methods had existed for some years however have been aimed extra at vacationers as they have been discovered to be too fragile for the rigours of racing. Tommaso’s brother Amodeo got here in as a companion they usually have been capable of make the most of his enterprise and advertising and marketing skills and shortly the Vittoria gear system discovered its means onto the bicycles of Italy’s greatest riders. Within the 1932 World Championships the nice Alfredo Binda conquered the course in Rome, taking the Rainbow Jersey for the third time, whereas his novice counterpart, additionally utilizing the Vittoria, was Giuseppe Martano, who received the World’s for the second time on that event.
The Fratelli Nieddu went from power to power as their shifting system gained vast acceptance within the conservative racing group following Binda’s success. Because the ebook reveals, it was favoured by riders as notable as Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi and was exported. Swiss ex-pro Oscar Egg had the distribution rights for France and his Tremendous Champion gear system was to point out some similarities. When the Tour de France lastly allowed variable gearing methods in 1937, all riders have been obligated to make use of the Tremendous Champion—besides the Italians, who might use the Vittoria.
The Vittoria Margherita was nonetheless obtainable into the Fifties, though its interval of primacy was from the mid-Nineteen Thirties to late Nineteen Forties, however the brothers’ partnership didn’t final as long as they went their separate methods in 1943. Amodeo continued to run the corporate, together with numerous components and equipment within the agency’s catalogue, however Tommaso was the mechanically-minded of the 2 so innovation stopped and the corporate regularly wound down by the Seventies.
Tommaso and his sons did go on to patent one other related shifting system, the Cervino, and got here up with different intelligent concepts, together with the rubber hoods discovered on brake levers, an concept we nonetheless make the most of right this moment. There was additionally a prototype that allowed ease in altering sprockets on a freewheel, a precursor to right this moment’s cassette system, and the sprockets even had ramps to help shifting—shades of Hyperglide! One other shifting concept allowed the management of each the entrance and rear derailleurs from a single shift lever, one thing licensed by a German agency and used into the Sixties. And maybe the final nice success of Tommaso Nieddu was the invention of the Unicanitor saddle, launched in 1960 and distributed by Cinelli till the mid-Seventies, supplanting the heavy leather-based saddles of the previous and requiring no arduous break-in.
“Vittoria!” options many interval pictures, whether or not of the expertise of Fratelli Nieddu or the racers who used the system. The brothers concerned with racing not in Italy, together with having their very own groups, however the Tour de France noticed their presence giving technical assist. The ebook affords household photographs and reminiscences and the writer clearly noticed it as a labour of affection. The publishers too have produced a high-quality ebook that may be a pleasure to skim by means of. It’s an atmospheric reflection of motorbike racing in Italy in these memorable a long time previous.
“Vittoria” is now obtainable in English (in each bodily and e-book variations) by means of Viennese writer Verlag Hollinek. Hollinek, established in 1872, focuses on books about transportation, whether or not automobiles, airplanes, bikes or bicycles. Considered one of our favorite German-language biking books, “Wiener Mechanikerfahräder 1930-1980,” revealed in 2013 and reviewed right here (https://pezcyclingnews.com/options/pez-bookshelf-wiener-mechanikerrader-1930-1980-retro-bikes/), is lengthy bought out however there are plans to launch it once more in 2024.
“Vittoria! The Story of Tommaso Nieddu, the Shifting Programs, His Household and His Innovations”
by Francesco Di Sario
126 pp., profusely illustrated, softbound
Verlag Hollinek, Vienna, Austria, 2024
ISBN 978-3-85119-393-0
The ebook is obtainable by means of Verlag Hollinek’s web site, which takes PayPal, with ordering info right here:
- The worth for the printed ebook is €34.90 from:
hollinek.at. - The worth for the e-book is €20.00 from: hollinek.at.
The submit PEZ Bookshelf: Vittoria! appeared first on PezCycling Information.
