City bikes, leisure bikes, racing bikes. Jerseys, t-shirts, sweaters. And a red armband. Or a red cap on the head. They were the Red Cyclists. Pioneers of Resistance.

From an inaccessible tool to a means of transportation, the bicycle had become rebellious, revolutionary, even suspicious. In the summer of 1894, the Milanese Association of Socialist Cyclists participated in cycling races to conduct electoral propaganda. In 1898, also in Milan, during the popular riots against hunger, General Bava Beccaris had prohibited the circulation of "bicycles, tricycles and tandems" to prevent them from becoming a precious communication tool among the insurgents. Other active groups were the Forza e Costanza cycling section of Brescia cooperatives and the Avanti Cycling Club in Rome. Only thanks to the Red Cyclists did the fourth national socialist congress, held in Florence from July 11 to 13, 1896, put the issue of sport on the agenda. On July 26, 1903, the first regional cycling conference was held in Cervia, with delegates from the Marche region, to emphasize the importance of bicycles for spreading Giuseppe Mazzini's revolutionary ideas. Another conference of Marchigian and Romagnol republicans was held in the Republic of San Marino in August 1904.

On June 12, 1905, on the initiative of the socialists of Reggio Emilia, the first group of Red Cyclists was founded: in front of the Cooperative of Prato di Correggio, cycling teams from Reggio, Bagnolo, Correggio, Rubiera, and San Martino in Rio met. The meeting was promoted by the local Chamber of Labor to provide "a rapid means of conversation for the great workers' battles". On April 10, 1906, in Carpi, in the province of Modena, the Socialist Sports Union was established, open to Socialist Party members owning a bicycle, with the aim of "benefiting the Socialist Party in electoral struggles, organizing propaganda and pleasure trips, socialist processions". In May 1906, the Union members organized a conference against excessive bicycle taxation, and on June 3, 1907, a rally of almost 500 cyclists from Reggio Emilia and Correggio was held in Carpi. In Reggio Emilia, the Red Cyclists counted four thousand members, divided into teams for each municipal district, distinguished by a red cap, and two thousand of them participated in the May 1st, 1906 parade. The cyclists' role was also to provide a rapid movement order service for demonstrations and processions. The Red Cyclists also organized floral cycling competitions and tourist trips. Leading the group was the Veloce Club band.

Resistance on bicycles had thus been born. Then the couriers, especially women, to supply partisans, Gino Bartali hiding and delivering forged identity cards to give a new identity to persecuted Jews, Alfredo Martini and Renzo Zanazzi transporting weapons to be delivered to partisans, Alfredo Pasotti who escaped - it was his specialty - but this time from a bathroom and then from a prison cornice in Pavia, a hundred meters of running and his cousin was there to load him on the bicycle handlebars, the two avoided fascist gunfire and crossed the Po bridge, then Pasotti escaped again, this time in the mountains.

The stories of the Red Cyclists are told - among others - in "La bicicletta nella Resistenza" by Franco Giannantoni and Ibio Paolucci (Edizioni arterigere, 2008, 256 pages, 12 euros), "Storia sociale della bicicletta" by Stefano Pivato (il Mulino, 2019, 280 pages, 22 euros), and "Biciclette partigiane. Venti storie di ciclismo e Resistenza" by Sergio Giuntini (Bolis, 2022, 142 pages, 16 euros) and on the website http://www.andreagaddini.it/ciclisti_rossi.html