MEALTIME. CYCLING YES, BUT UNCLE-STYLE

BOOKS | 10/01/2025 | 08:18
di Marco Pastonesi
Few in the world know cycling like him. Because he lived it as a rider, as a sports director, as a team manager, as a league president. Because he experienced it as if he were a lawyer, or a journalist, or an advertiser, or a talent scout. Because he worked in it before people even talked about marketing and merchandising, targets and missions, feedback and audience.
He did it for passion and for money. Because he always understood cycling as a profession, a passionate and passionate profession, but still a profession, not a pastime, and teams as companies, not clubs, essentially doing "a job that is my passion" but according to the principle that "when there are families to support you must also think about earning", even though he confides that "I would have paid to do this job".
The Uncle. Bruno Reverberi. Sixty years of cycling, sixty-seven if you consider that he rode his first race at fifteen years old, and now he is over eighty-two. And not to celebrate them, but to remember them - premise: "For the satisfaction that sport has given me, I am very happy with what I have achieved"; clarification: "I also made my stupid mistakes, but that's okay: to not repeat them, you would need to live twice, maybe three times" - he wrote "My First 80 Years" (Kriss, 224 pages, 15 euros, preface by Davide Cassani), with the masterful help of Angelo Costa.
The result is a book written in the first person, in which the Uncle says, declares, reveals, explains his life and his cycling with his words, his tones, his volumes. The birth: in Bibbiano, province of Reggio Emilia, capital of Parmigiano Reggiano, meant as Grana.
Childhood: "The word misery is an understatement: actually, there was nothing", "In the evening we would go to the stables", "To live, we would manage". School: "Finished elementary school". Work: apprentice, mechanic, at 19 he decided to open his own workshop. Sports: first football, then athletics, long jump, then cycling. The bike: the first, a Torpado with a rod gear, modified with a wheel gear, a Simplex with five speeds. The races: the first without a license, then with Coop Manfredi and Bagnolese Vittadello. The victories: the first, in Nonantola, on a circuit, a two-person breakaway, initially skipping some gears, then feeling better and doing his part, an uncontested sprint, the reproach from the sports director who was convinced he had been clever, to which he replied in his own way: "If I were someone who had already won twenty races, I would have left this one: but it was the first!" Then the technical career: from 1964 to today, tomorrow, who knows when, assisted by his son Roberto, leading a Professional team and moreover with an overwhelming majority of Italian riders.
The teams Termolan, Santini, Selca, Italbonifica, Navigare, Scrigno, Panaria, Csf Inox Group, Colnago, Bardiani... The bikes: Alan, Conti, Moser, Viner, Battaglin, Colnago, Cipollini, De Rosa... And the riders: from Caroli to Moro, from Allocchio to Zanini, from Cassani to Petacchi, from Pagnin to Fontanelli, from Podenzana to Guerini, from Mazzanti to Perez Cuapio, from Guidi to Casagrande, from Colbrelli to Belletti, from Battaglin to Modolo, from Pirazzi to Pozzovivo, from Frapporti to Canola, from Pasqualon to Coledan, from Ciccone to Maestri, from Zana to Pellizzari...
The Uncle tells of moments of glory and dark days, selects the races won and lost, the rules and protests, even some doping episodes. He tells of when he fired the Dutchman René Koppert because he had taken the team car without asking permission, waited for him until 11 PM in front of the hotel to satisfy himself by announcing that "tomorrow morning you pack your bags and go home", and the man started crying. He also tells of Marco Pantani at the 2000 Giro d'Italia, when the Uncle swore "if he wins, I'll tear up my card and you won't see me at races anymore", when he prophesied to him "you'll be lucky if you finish on the rise, then go to the Tour: there you can have your say", when at the San Pellegrino in Alpe stage he anticipated that he would take between seven and eight minutes and it was seven twenty. He also tells of Madonna di Campiglio in 1999, when he told the Giro patron, Carmine Castellano: "I wouldn't have put him out: he's the number one of the race, two stages from the end and you know well that everyone uses certain substances because they can't be found". Without fear of transgressing regulations.
The Uncle won't be a saint, and he himself confesses to having a "pretty tough and not easy" character. He gets angry easily, but doesn't hold a grudge. He wants to always be right, but even if with difficulty, admits when he is wrong. He can be, perhaps involuntarily, even self-ironic (or not?), like when to that saint (Giuliana) of his wife he repeats that, since he is always right, it's useless to waste time in discussions. And his way of expressing himself: "I go slow on my own, if you invite me to slow down, what am I running for?" to his mom who recommended caution; "Today we separate the males from the females" before a tough race; "We've been at the Giro for two weeks and your name hasn't been heard yet: at least throw yourself to the ground, so the radio will say you fell and we'll hear your name" to his Colombian Felipe Laverde. Today's cycling is from another planet. Not even in the last sentence of the book does the Uncle hide: "If there will still be cycling, what will it be?". It will be a cycling, sooner or later we'll have to surrender to the idea, without him. A cycling less Parmigiano Reggiano.