"Look, mom! I can ride a bicycle without putting my feet on the pedals".

"Be careful, Albertino! Be prudent!".

"Look, mom, I can ride without hands!".

"Be careful, Albertino, it's dangerous!".

"Ouch, mom, it hurts my teeth!".

It's never too late, Albertino. Alberto. Alberto Manzi. Teacher, pedagogist, writer, the host of that program - "It's Never Too Late" - which was on TV between 1960 and 1968, a kind of open elementary school with methods different from traditional ones. A patient, good, enlightened teacher. Who instead of a blackboard used a large block of paper sheets, and instead of chalk used a charcoal stick.

From February 22nd to March 8th, students from Ignazio Vian high school in Bracciano, Cultura Movens, and the Alberto Manzi Center are proposing an exhibition in the spaces of the Municipal Archive in Piazza Mazzini in Bracciano, a series of panels about the life and activity of the former teacher on the centenary of his birth, with the presentation of the book by his daughter Giulia Manzi (February 28th) and a conference with Beatrice Boggi, Patrizia D'Antonio, Roberto Farnè, and Renata Puleo (March 1st). Admission is free.

On January 12th, 1962, to teach the letter B, Manzi invited two giants of B to the studio: baritone Gino Bechi, who sang the cavatina from Figaro with B as "Barbiere di Siviglia", and Gino Bartali, who remembered B for bicycle. In an excerpt from the broadcast from RAI Archives, around minute 17'30", Manzi announced the presence of a special guest. And Bartali took control of the situation.

After some archival footage and others from the Giro dell'Emilia that Gino won in 1953, Bartali was already at the block of paper sheets to write his own surname. "You're stealing my job," Manzi affectionately told him. Gino announced he would make a "little speech" he had never made before to all his friends "who knows how many times we've seen each other on the roads of Italy": "You have seen how much effort and sacrifice we must make to reach a goal", "in my career I have reached many goals", "but I believe that the goal of studying is more important for you, which never ends, lasts a whole life", "while in sports a goal, a victory, lasts a few days, can last a year, but then is forgotten". Finally, a recommendation: "Try to learn well", "the sacrifices you must make are stronger than those I made on the bicycle", "commit fully", "do it with great willpower". "And so the autograph, next time" – Bartali said goodbye to his viewers – "when we meet on all the roads of Italy, you will do it to me".

In the panels of the exhibition in Bracciano, there is another cycling reference: on a panel dedicated to literacy, among many girls and boys, women and men bent over desks, among curious dogs and cats, a couple of donkeys and some cows, two small boats and – at the top, at the height of the Alps - a blackboard with uppercase letters A B C, at the top of everything, there is a man with a hat on a bicycle. The Italian.