Ortelli 50’s

Description

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Vito Ortelli was born in Faenza in 1921. In 1938 he left the workshop where he worked with his father and where he was already welding the frames at the age of 15, to undertake the career of runner during which he was a total of four times Italian champion: two on the road , as a student and a professional and two on the track, beating Fausto Coppi both times. In the Giro d’Italia he got a third and a fourth place, wearing the pink jersey for a total of 11 days. During the war, like Bartali and other cyclists, he collaborated with the Resistance, while in 1948 he acted himself in the film “Totò in the Giro d’Italia” together with the champions of the time. In 1952 he retired from competitions due to serious physical problems in the leg, but remained close to the world of cycling and, together with his friends Magni and Cinelli, committed himself to defending the trade union rights of runners by founding the “Italian Professional Cyclist Racers Association”, of which Ortelli he has been deputy director for over twenty years.

Around the mid-1950s, with a recent past as a great champion behind him, Vito returned to Faenza to work with his father in the workshop which in the meantime had been rebuilt from the destruction of the bombings thanks to the money earned from his sporting victories. There are many famous riders who founded a bicycle brand in their own name, rarer champions such as Ortelli who also built them with their own hands, the most skilled also made the workshop tools themselves, such as the plan of feedback that Vito Ortelli obtained from the door of a German armored car of the Second World War abandoned near home. Ortelli collaborated with Cino Cinelli and with Tullio Campagnolo. In the 1980s, given his advanced age, he was helped by Umberto Patelli from Bologna to assemble the frames. He stopped welding when he ran out of pipes.

Bike with elegant geometries, Ortelli has always been very attentive to the aesthetic side, has been restored with a new painting faithful to the original. It mounts bottom bracket and Magistroni crankset. Campagnolo record headset. Campagnolo Gran Sport rear derailleur, front derailleur and hubs. Universal pat. 453949 brakes and brake levers. Sheffield Sprint pedals. San Marco leather saddle. Nisi rims. The bike is ready to be pedaled.