The Green Bicycle Saves the Day: Part I
I was driving on 287 the other day when I spied a green mountain bike strapped to the back of a car. It filled me with a warming wave of nostalgia. It was the particular shade of green—celeste green—that brought the memories flooding back.
Celeste green is not a color one sees every day. It is, however, one of those special hues which come to be seen as ineffably “belonging” to a company. Jaguar “owns” British Racing Green, Ferrari has its “Red”, Tiffany its “Blue.” Celeste green belongs to Bianchi bicycles.
Bianchi racing bikes are traditionally painted Celeste (pronounced che-les-teh). In Italy, the origins of this glaucous turquoise color are a subject of intense debate. Some romantic Milanese declare it to be the infrequent but exclusive color of the sky above their beloved city, while others hold it to be the color of the eyes of a former Queen of Italy, for whom Eduardo Bianchi once fashioned a custom bicycle. Then there are the great deflators who suggest its origin is in surplus military paint—a canceled Mussolini contract.
Several ages ago, when computer science was in swaddling clothes and punch cards were cutting-edge, some American teenage boys who perhaps were not quite “naturals” to one or more of the “American Sports” were evangelizing a European alternate. That moment in time was captured beautifully by director Peter Yates in the movie “Breaking Away” (1979). It was not entirely self-evident that they would succeed. What you need to remember is that, at that time in America, the bicycle was decidedly not ascendant. The bicycle was what the unfortunate “unwashed” had to use to get about, while the “to-the-manner-born” swooshed by in magnificent chariots of chrome and steel and iridescent color. But what they had going for them was a monster.
His name was Eddy Merckx, but he was known simply as “The Cannibal” because of his competitiveness; and, he dominated the world of professional cycling from 1969 to 1975 like only Michael Jordan or Bobby Orr later would theirs. It would be an entire decade before one of those American boys would leave his mark on the sport, when in 1986 Greg Lemond won the Tour de France. The French, still smarting from Steven Spurrier’s 1976 blind wine tasting declared by the San Francisco Chronicle as “The Day When French Wines Met Their Waterloo”, could at least take comfort in the fact that “Lemond” sounded Gallic. Lance Armstrong would be the final blow. But all of that was still far into the future – Eddy Merckx reigned supreme and he was Belgian and that meant French to Americans.
Word spread and the occasional photographs of Merckx and other champions like Felice Gimondi might be tracked down between the covers of Life Magazine or Sports Illustrated. And one day, there it was: a photo of Gimondi, winner of the 1976 Giro d’Italia, astride a celeste green Bianchi Reparto Corse racing bike. The lurid color of the frame set off with platinum jewels (it would later be learned) called Campagnolo Components disturbed, unsettled, intrigued. The horrible beauty suggested a compact with the devil and yet seduced. It’s ugliness proof of mystical power. In that photo the apotheosis moment – the ugly thing became the Holy Grail of generations of would-be Merckx’s.
In a little seacoast town of New Hampshire one of those boys who had no dreams yet of being a chef, was however working in a restaurant to earn the money to buy one of these venerated bikes. And, his father with Yankee mind could only scratch his head—the thing cost nearly as much as a Rolex watch. But no one, at that time, could know that the very birth of a “Four-Star” restaurant would depend up on this bike.
Tools: Share | Ask a question
