Cycling Vintage Postcards - Fausto Coppi Emotonico 1946

The story of Fausto Coppi has been written many times, and I've no need to try to outdo any of the authors.

When we were in Italy to see the 1995 Giro D'Italia, we found ourselves stuck in Florence on a quiet Sunday morning. We're read about a Sunday market in the hills nearby, with a bus that went to Fiesole, leaving only a 5km walk along country roads.

One of the treasures collected that day was some bike racing postcards from the 1940s and 1950s - plenty of the stall holders refused to sell us anything being foreigners, but somehow my passion for cycling won out.

This card dates from the period when Coppi was restarting his career after the war. As a prisoner in a low security environment he had enjoyed a small opportunity to get back on his bike, and came out of retirement with the minimum of sponsors, one of whom was Emotonico.

He won 3 stages of the Giro in 1945, competed in several other major races and his career, once in danger of being starved to death by the deprivations of life as a POW was reborn, with life on a major trade team.