Lucio Di Federico’s cycling escapes

The pink race is a tour of memories and dreams, adventures and misadventures, businesses and crises, stories and passions. Another round is the column by Marco Pastonesi who will accompany us along the roads of the Giro d’Italia 2023.

The Tour of Italy 1978 was the last for Felice Gimondi and Franco Bitossi, champions, the first and last for Lucius DiFedericogregarious.

Origin from Abruzzo: “Born in Pescara, but from San Silvestro, the only fraction of Pescara, three kilometers from the sea”. Peasant roots: “Farmer father, peasant mother”. Practical studies: “Elementary, middle, then professional, electrician and radio technician, no diploma but a certificate”. And the bike: “The first, my father’s, I went around the country, I came home and I took them because I hadn’t asked for permission, I knew that permission would never be given to me”. Then, finally, his bike: “It was a friend’s bike, who had raced with Vito Taccone. I paid him nine thousand lire. She was in the attic, forgotten, rusty, dusty. I repainted it with the brush. And I started running on that one”. The races also run: “Merit of the old men of the village. They were sitting at the tables of a bar, playing cards, they saw me pedalling, they offered me to join a team”. The first team: “Adriatica Arredamenti, today Aram, directed by another who had raced with Taccone, but as a professional, Silvestro La Cioppa, a climber who came from the sea, from Francavilla, before another climber who came from sea, Marco Pantani, from Cesenatico. We woke up at 4 in the morning, loaded up an A112, or a 124 when it went well, went to Tuscany or Emilia, and returned at night”.

Prodigy boy, Di Federico: “I lived for the bike. I only thought about the bike. I slept with the bike. The first year, since I didn’t know how to stay in a group, I always went on the breakaway, the breakaway never reached the finish line, but in the meantime I was building my bones, that is, my muscles and determination. So much so that the second year I won 12. Then the years as an amateur, the happiest the last, in 1976, when I won 19, including the Piccola Sanremo and a stage of the Giro d’Italia. I was the most victorious Italian amateur”. At that point, a crossroads: “Moving to Del Tongo, another year as an amateur, then the debut among the professionals, all with a check for 50 million. Or switch to Jolljceramica, immediately among the professionals. Since I couldn’t wait to pass among the professionals, I chose Jolljceramica. And it wasn’t the right choice.”

The first months were happy: “The gathering, the retreat, the training sessions, the companions. I felt like I was dreaming. On the climbs I detached them. ‘Go slower’, the captains ordered me. ‘Never put your wheels ahead of the captains’, the other wingmen advised themselves. Then the races: the Giro di Sardegna, the Tirreno-Adriatico, the Milan-Sanremo. An adventurous world between escapes and chases, dreams of glory and days of water and snow. But before the Giro d’Italia the team went bankrupt and I found myself out and about”.

In 1978 he moved to Gis Gelati: “Marino Basso was in the team, very good, he saved himself uphill to conserve energy for the sprints, then he would cling to my shorts, but so hard that he ripped them off. And there was Franco Bitossi, very good, he was no longer ‘Cuore matto’, and there was no longer any waiting for him when he stopped, in crisis, at the side of the road. And there was Tino Conti, very good. And finally the Giro d’Italia. With Bitossi retired and Basso disqualified, I had the green light. I went on the run, I seem to remember, the third to last stage, Alpine, from Mezzolombardo to Sarezzo. One hundred and fifty kilometers of escape. There were two of us, but only I was shooting, because Franco Cribiori, Stefano D’Arcangelo’s sporting director, had ordered him not to. But at the flying goals D’Arcangelo sprinted to win them. Oh no, not that. I won the flying finish line, but we were caught by the peloton.” He finished that Giro in fifty-eighth place, two hours, two minutes and 12 seconds behind the winner, the Belgian Johan De Muynck, who at the (winner’s) average of over 35 per hour, means a gap of 150 kilometres.

End of year, end of career: “But I loved the bike more than myself. I continued to run as an amateur, I won even without training. And I began to manage teams, first the boys, including Danilo Di Luca and Moreno Di Biase, then the girls, Team Di Federico. Again, now, always. With my son Edoardo and his partner Silvia Trovellesi. First I teach how to lose, and then, with the right workouts and the right diet, with words and computers, with the internet and mobile phones, to try to win. Because the bike is life. I am 70 years old, but inside it is as if I were 20. The same spirit as before, indeed, more than before”.