The Human Locomotive (Learco Guerra) and the Forlì Electric Train (Ercole Baldini)... The trains (in a sprint) and the train-like rides (on the flat)... The old riders who would ship their bicycles by train, dismantling - just in case - at least the saddle... Romeo Venturelli capable of sending his bicycle to Turin and then boarding a train to Reggio Calabria... The Devil's Red Level Crossing at the Giro di Lombardia (in 1905), Mario Beccia's at the Flèche Wallonne (in 1982), Fabian Cancellara's at Paris-Roubaix (in 2006)... A train called Bartali, another called Coppi... Colorful wagons like "La Gazzetta dello Sport" for the Giro d'Italia... Vito Di Tano who worked as a railway worker...

There's a bit of cycling even in the Montesilvano Train Museum, a few kilometers north of Pescara, meticulously curated by the Cultural Railway Enthusiasts Association. So, between a steam locomotive and a 1950s freight car, between two mail-baggage carriages for passenger trains, one from 1929, the other from 1952, between a 1920s hydraulic column for supplying steam locomotives and a 1950s semaphore signal, between a wooden sleeper walkway and some short sections of 1940s rails, here's a model reproducing - at 1:87 scale - the old railway stations of Montesilvano. And there, leaning against a level crossing house, is a bicycle. And there, ridden by a cyclist, is another bicycle. And there, carried by hand by another cyclist, is yet another bicycle.

The marriage between train and bicycle sometimes goes, and goes really well. In regional agreements with Trenitalia, in Fiab initiatives, in old disused railway lines transformed into cycle paths, in folding bikes introduced not only on trains but also in metro systems, in the Spoleto-Norcia gravel race (on mountain bikes, on May 4th) that also runs along the old Valnerina railway. Ladies and gentlemen, boarding. Ladies and gentlemen, disembarking. Ladies and gentlemen, tickets.