| The VeloBase.com History of Wilier |
From: http://www.wilier.it/en/history/
Wilier was born in 1906 thanks
to the brilliant idea of a trader from Bassano, Pietro Dal Molin, of
building bicycles on his own account. His forge or \"Steel horses\" rose
as a small workshop along the banks of the river Brenta, at Bassano del
Grappa, and it became more and more successful by keeping up with the
increasing demand for bicycles. In the first post-war period, Mario,
one of Dal Molin's sons, gained the leadership of Wilier and he began a
constant perfectioning of the bicycles through chromium and
nickel-plating. Under his leadership, the production increased
considerably and the firm, which came unsmirched out of the II World
War, after the Armistice, started again its activity.
Those were the
years of the Reconstruction, when the bicycle was the most important
means of transportation as well as cycling, together with football,
became the most popular sport. For this reason, Dal Molin determined to
set up a professional team captained by the triestin Giordano Cottur,
well-know for succeding no less than Gino Bartali during the
Bassano-Monte Grappa lap for amateurs. In the same time, according to
the common feeling of uneasiness about the fate of Trieste, Dal Molin
decided to associate the name of this julian town to that of his own
firm. In this way, in Autumn 1945 the Wilier
Triestina was born, distinguished by its red copper-coloured
bicycles, which later became an authentic trade-mark.
The following
year the team took to the first Tour of Italy of the post-war period,
cutting in the duel between two great champions, Coppi and Bartali, and
gaining flattering victories in several laps. After all those successful
races, Wilier became part of the most important Italian cycling: this
big industrial boom involved an enlargement both of the plant and of the
staff, in the order to meet the increasing demand; so, the production
reached 200 bicycles a day, employing 300 workers.
Strong in its
success and thanks to the prestige it had gained, in 1947 Wilier bought
up a promising young cyclist: Fiorenzo Magni, this one, instead of being
crushed in the challenge between Coppi and Bartali, found out the right
system to become the third great protagonist of Italian cycling, by
winning the Tour of Italy in 1948. This is the same year Wilier spread
its intense activity in South America too, where a small team of local
professional cyclist collected dozens of wins. In the following season,
the team, reconfirmed for its great performances, won several national
races, until it became successful in 1949 and in 1950 in the Tour of
Flanders and the Tour de France.
Unfortunately, after the first
enrapturing phase of national reconstruction, in the early '50s, came
the period of the economic miracle: people gave up bicycles to discover
scooters and motorbike. Cycle firms suffered the damage of progress, and
in 1952 Wilier Triestina had to shut down and leave its agonistic
activity. Nowadays, the glorious story of this firm and of its
\"copper-coloured jewel\" lives again thanks to the Gastaldello brothers
from Rossano Veneto, who bought the Wilier
Triestina mark in 1969, proud to bring again great favour to one
of the best known Italian cycle houses and providing dozens of
professional and dilettantish Italian and foreign teams with their
bicycles.
|
