Bianchi

The story behind the Italian marque that's managed to maintain a winning habit for 125 years

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Bianchi have been a staple of Italian cycling and racing for more than a century, with a long list of legends riding to victory on their 'celeste' bikes - a colour as synonymous with the Milanese bike makers as rosso (red) is with Ferrari. Think Marco Pantani in celeste dominating the mountains of France and Italy to win both of those countries' major tours in 1998, Felice Gimondi's epic battles with Eddy Merckx or iconic pictures of Fausto Coppi aboard his steel Bianchi. But company founder Edoardo Bianchi's story is about more than bicycles and pro racing - it's part of the history of engineering in Italy over the past 140 years.

Edoardo was born in 1865 in Milan and raised in an orphanage. He began as an engineer's apprentice before opening a workshop at 7 via Nirone in 1885, specialising in producing velocipedes and boneshakers for the wealthy Milanese. Europe was becoming increasingly dependent on bicycles, and Bianchi wanted to produce a model that would be easier to ride than big-wheel, penny-farthing style bikes.

Groundbreaking designs

He was at first influenced by Ernest Michaux's bicycle, where the smaller wheel was mounted at the front rather than the rear. Bianchi, though, wanted a bike with wheels of equal dimensions (which would help with production and costs). This design was then copied by other makers in Italy's Lombardy region, and so started the Italian bike industry as we know it.

Racing of bicycles began almost as early as their invention, and in 1897 Bianchi entered this scene with rider Gian Ferdinando Tommaselli on board. Victory was secured in the Italian championships on a bike fitted with John Boyd Dunlop's then-revolutionary air-filled tyres. Rider and bike also won the prestigious 1899 French Grand Prix.