Bianca, her real name was Tiziana Bonazzola, her grandfather was a Garibaldian. On her Bianchi, a Savoy water-green color, during the Resistance she ensured connections between the periphery and the underground operational center in Milan, her specialty was bypassing roadblocks on routes considered strategic due to the presence of numerous military factories.

Sandra, her real name was Onorina Brambilla, she also had a Bianchi. She was arrested with Valsesia partisans, imprisoned in Monza, deported to the Bolzano labor camp, released before being sent to extermination camps, she walked back to Milan and - miraculously - found her bicycle.

Gabriella, her real name was Tina Anselmi, would become a deputy and then minister, the first woman minister in our Republic, of Labor and Social Security. When she witnessed the hanging of some young partisans, she joined the partisan bicycle couriers and rode back and forth so much that she wore out the tires to the point of causing inner tube ruptures.

And a partisan courier was also Augusta Fornasari, she didn't have a battle name but a cyclist nickname, they called her "the runner" because before the war she pedaled hard, had to deliver fish for her fishmonger father, and after the war would race and win, including the Italian championship in 1948 and the Sea Race (Bologna-Pesaro) in 1949.

Bianca, Sandra, Gabriella and the runner, women on bicycles during the Resistance, are among the protagonists of "When Alfonsina Was a Seamstress" (Hever, 272 pages, 20 euros), a book in which Paolo Ghiggio mainly tells the stories of Piedmontese women, by birth or adoption, by passion or competition, with pedal-powered stories. From partisans to rice workers, from Alfonsina Strada to the White Lady, from Elisa Balsamo to Vittoria Bussi, starting with Paola Gianotti who, in the preface, argues that women and bicycles have been "a perfect combination forever, but now more than ever" and explains that "today countless women mount their bicycles to travel the world, take their children to school, climb mountains, travel, work. But above all to be free. Because the bicycle is precisely this: freedom".

If "Women on Bicycles" by Antonella Stelitano (Ediciclo) has a historical approach, if "I Wanted to Be a Racer" by Gianluca Alzati about Morena Tartagni (Ediciclo) and "Mary Cressari - The Woman of Records" by Paolo Venturini (Compagnia della Stampa Massetti Rodella) are biographical testimonies, as well as "The Roaring Years of Alfonsina Strada" by Paolo Facchinetti (Ediciclo), if "Alfonsina and the Road" by Simona Baldelli (Sellerio) has the charm of a novel, "When Alfonsina Was a Seamstress" is a territorial journalistic investigation where historical perspective and biographical testimonies sometimes have the charm of a novel. The right opportunity to rediscover the art of Margherita Beltramo, wife of frame maker Lino: her task was to spoke wheels before the spokes were brazed together with tin, but also - so it seems - the author of Azzurro Beltramo, a delicate shade of sky on a full moon night, obtained by mixing blue with silver dust. Or the right opportunity to highlight the talent of Anna Maria Succio, champion in road, cross, and mountain bike, who always made loyalty and transparency her banner. Thus we discover that Gianni Motta not only supplied her with discounted Polish tubulars but also procured her a bike labeled Gianni Motta. And when Anna was grateful for the thought but disappointed by the francolino hazelnut color, Motta immediately had it dismantled and reassembled on a blue Maserati frame.