Partisan bicycle workshop. The sign, all in capital letters, beneath a balcony, above a shop-workshop, at Corso Piemonte 29, in Saluzzo. Standing, the two cyclists, the two Frusso brothers: on the left Lorenzo, born in 1919, his right hand resting on a cylinder, his left at his side, seems to gaze at the photographer's lens; on the right Rino, born in 1924, hands in his pockets, a beret on his head, looking to the left, perhaps distracted or drawn by someone or something more interesting. Both wearing mechanic's overalls.

The photograph, in black and white toned almost to sepia by the years, by age, by distance, was posted the other day by Patrizia Frusso, Rino's daughter, on the Facebook page of the Anpi Borgo San Dalmazzo and Valli group, an area that during the Second World War belonged to the partisans and which today is also devoted to cycling. Memory navigates social media, reappears, resurfaces, emerges again, does not get lost. In this mission, which is also a destiny, social media reveal their value as messengers and archivists.

“The Workshop – Patrizia recounts – was born immediately after the end of the Second World War. Our grandfather died early, our grandmother was left alone, the four children were forced to abandon their studies and work to earn a living, my father and Uncle Lorenzo opened that shop to sell and repair bicycles, then also motorcycles and scooters”. A family – one can infer from the sign – of partisans: “The two of them in the XV Garibaldi Brigade of Saluzzo. Their sister Lucia, born in 1926, engaged as a bicycle courier, imprisoned by the Germans, three months in jail, a dramatic experience. And their brother Giuseppe, born in 1920, a soldier, on September 8th chose the Resistance, his task was to mine enemy lines, he ended up in Sicily with the Allies, returned to Saluzzo only in 1947, unaware of his family's fate”.

The Partisan Bicycle Workshop survived until the late Eighties-early Nineties: “The passion for cycling had driven my father and Uncle Lorenzo to organize, from the Fifties onwards, amateur races on the occasion of April 25th, as – sporting – celebrations of Liberation. These were the years of Bartali and Coppi, and my father's heart, here unable to choose and take sides, was divided in half between Gino and Fausto. Instead Giuseppe emigrated to Argentina, seeking his fortune, and found it by creating a bottling business”.

Patrizia Frusso, vice-president of the Saluzzo and Valle Po Anpi section, has only one regret: “Not having preserved the sign 'Partisan Bicycle Workshop.' It was thrown away. What a shame”. She has kept this photograph, faded in its tones, but not in its values. “On June 7th the Giro d'Italia women will experience its final stage right here in Saluzzo, with start and finish – says Patrizia Frusso -. An honor”. An honor that is also partisan.