Description
Newspaper Translation
(Rough translation by Google)
He climbed four thousand passes to defeat bad luck
The extraordinary adventure of Davide Senoner from Val Gardena, who has had polio since birth, shows what a person can do when supported by courage and will. His latest great feat is a bicycle tour along the roads of Europe.
He has a single, great ambition, to be mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records. With what record. To have climbed, the only man in the world, four thousand mountain passes by bicycle. Only seventeen are missing, and the goal is within reach.
The protagonist of this extraordinary story is Davide Senoner, a young man from Ortisei in Val Gardena. For sixty years he has carried an exceptional weight, the one that life assigned to him at birth. He has faced it as a normal person would. To fully understand Davide’s feat, it helps to know that he has had polio since birth and even now he has difficulty walking. Watching him move you would never guess he has the strength to pedal uphill and downhill for hours.
His story is a miracle of will, tenacity, pride, and love of life. He has become an example for many, learning to become a man just like all the others, as they used to say, although he is severely disabled.
As a boy he found within himself the strength to be proud of who he was, to free himself from a destiny that seemed already written, and to show others that you can live well not by defeating adversity, but by surpassing it.
To find himself, to measure himself against the attention of others, to become an example as he deserved, he chose simple tools, the bicycle and the backpack. On the bicycle he climbed, with Bartali’s determination, the mountain passes around Ortisei. Day after day he became a climber worthy of respect.
Then the bicycle, how much it has meant to Davide. With it he began to travel the world. Thousands of kilometers in a program that has already taken him across much of Europe. The Gardena Pass, the Pordoi, the Stelvio, the Ghisallo are now familiar names to him.
When he set out on his most recent journey across Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Romania, 22 Stages, 22 mountains passes crossed for a total of 2,480 kilometers. During his trip he experienced both solitude and small joys. In Hungary and Romania he felt fear in front of groups of Roma youths who recovered the coins he had in his pocket, although others helped him generously.
Davide, who is a friend of Francesco Moser and of Maria Canins and who has data from many champions of the sport, has another program for next year. It will be his last, because he is going to retire the old bike. Then he will attack the bicycle with his eyes.
But he, the small and very dear Davide, will have the greatest joy of all, to know that for many people he has been an example. His story will end in the book of records. His adventure will have an extraordinary continuation because it began only recently.
FAUSTO RUGGERA
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Bar Augusto
Bar Augusto, located in Alme (Bergamo), Italy, was renowned for its support of cycling teams and its world-class bicycle racing collection that focused on trophies and race-worn jerseys. A family-owned business, the bar and its attached inn flourished in the 1970s and 1980s. Augusto Gotti, the enterprise’s face, welcomed amateur national teams to stay at Bar Augusto while the riders trained and raced in the region. Many Western and Eastern Bloc national teams embraced the Gotti family’s welcoming spirit and were among the most ardent supporters.
Bar Augusto 1966
Augusto Gotti (Center) with Edy Schütz (Left), Luxembourg National Champion and winner of the 1966 Tour of Luxembourg, and an unknown third person pictured in the interior of the famous watering hole.
Augusto was a devoted cycling fan and astute collector of jerseys. Active and retired professional and amateur riders gave the bar hundreds of jerseys, all hung with pride on the walls of the storied bar. The jersey collection read like a venerable who’s who of the cycling world from the 1950s through the 1980s. Coppi, Gimondi, Motta, Merckx, Anquetil, Van Looy, Altig, and hundreds more professional jerseys hung alongside the best of the best Eastern Bloc riders. Given its incredible diversity, depth, and breadth, it would be challenging, if not impossible, to build the same collection today.
With time, Augusto decided to retire, close the bar, and enjoy a more relaxed pace of life in his autumn years. A year or so before Augusto passed away, and with the help of former Polish and US National Team Coach Eddie Borysewicz, we were honored to acquire the Gotti Collection. Augusto’s and our collection combined beautifully, and between the two, there were only two overlapping items: an Eddy Merckx maillot jaune and a Bernard Hinault Renault team jersey. To this day, our collection is what is thanks in no small measure to a quaint bar and inn tucked into a picturesque valley in Northern Italy.
By Brett Horton, Jan 2021
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Each jersey is one of a kind; please look carefully at the photos to determine the condition.
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