At home with il Principe

Girovagando 2024: If Gianni Savio can't make it to the Giro, we'll go to Gianni...

Daniel with Gianni Savio at his home.

The Giro’s opening stage finished in Turin, the city of Juventus (and Torino), the Fiat-owning Agnelli family, and – perhaps most iconically – il Principe, Gianni Savio.

Unfortunately, Gianni missed the grande partenza in his home city because he’s housebound recovering after a fall while running a few weeks ago.

The Giro without Gianni, who has managed a team at the race, on-and-off, for more than 30 years, is almost unthinkable. So, as Gianni couldn’t make it to the Giro, Daniel went to see Gianni at his home, as you’ll have heard in Sunday’s stage two episode.

For any listeners who are not familiar with Gianni Savio, have a listen to an episode from our KM0 vault. Il Principe / The Prince was made by Daniel at the 2018 Giro, explaining how Savio had become almost a cult figure on the race.

From the KM0 Vault: Il Principe / The Prince

Herbie’s classic maglia rosa collection

by Lionel Birnie

The last time the Giro d’Italia was in Turin, two years ago, Simon Yates won the stage and Richard Carapaz took the maglia rosa from Juan Pedro Lopez, who had worn it for ten days. It sticks in my mind for several reasons, partly because it was my last day on the race and there were a few loose ends to tie up before heading home.

Brian and I went for a very nice lunch at an unpretentious little restaurant to record a conversation for an episode of KM0, I gave Ciro Scognamiglio a cup made by Stacy Snyder, and Stacy – who was at the race – met Pascal Eenkhoorn, another recipient of one of her cups, at the Jumbo-Visma team bus. Daniel, Brian and I then recorded the episode outside a bar next to a busy crossroads. The Giro always feels slightly un-Giro-like on the relatively rare occasions it ventures into a major city.

Anyway, Daniel and Brian were staying in some mountain hideaway an hour or so away from the city and I wanted to avoid the hassle of getting a cab from a remote village the next day so I decided to get myself a hotel room in Turin. Unfortunately, not only was the Giro in town but the Juventus Stadium was hosting the women’s Champions League final between Barcelona and Lyon so hotel accommodation was at a premium. I eventually found a place in a suburb quite some distance in the wrong direction. I’m not sure my two teammates were too thrilled at the hour-long detour, especially when their mountain hideaway was also a winery. When you pull out of a grand tour before the end, you’re supposed to just head to the airport with your head down…

As the neighbourhoods got less and less suited to il Barone’s tastes, he said: ‘Hey, Lionel, I thought you said you were staying in Turin.’

I had the map up on my phone and was tracing the journey. Still 3.8km to my destination. ‘Not far now, just a few more blocks,’ I said with a stiff smile.

The hotel was unpretentious, although not in the same charming way the restaurant where we’d had lunch had been. It was unpretentious in the sort of way that the light in the corridor didn’t work and there were cigarette burns on the carpet.

The next morning I took the metro back into the city to meet Herbie Sykes. I was making an episode of KM0 called In Fair Verona, which was about the denouement to the 1984 Giro, when Francesco Moser turned the tables on Laurent Fignon in the final time trial in Verona. Herbie has lived in Turin for years – he’s a Torino supporter, as you’ll have heard in the recent episode Grande Torino – and he has an enviable collection of genuine race-worn cycling jerseys from the 1950s to the 1990s.

They’re all packed beautifully in plastic bags and stored in mid-20th century chests of drawers in his office. There’s jerseys worn by Merckx, Coppi, Anquetil, Bobet, Moser and he has a collection of pink jerseys that tell the story of the Giro’s history in subtly variable shades of rosa.

For me, it was like stepping into an Aladdin’s cave of cycling history, and as he showed me the collection, I switched on my recorder…

The Girovagando case from DVine Cellars

The first of the six wines in the 2024 Girovagando case, curated by our friends at DVine Cellars, is paired with today’s third stage. It’s the Summer Wolff GioGio Freisa from Monteferrato in Piedmonte. The DVine Cellars collection is a highlight of any grand tour and UK-based listeners can order a case today.

The complete Stacy Snyder grand tour collection

Tadej Pogačar joined the list of riders to have won stages of all three grand tours at Oropa yesterday (Sunday). Earlier in the day, Stacy Snyder’s 2024 Giro d’Italia cups went on sale – and sold out in under two minutes.

Last week, I asked for photos of any complete sets and Friend of the Podcast Cathy Kay from Los Angeles sent this (thank you, Cathy), showing a cup from the Giro, Tour and Vuelta. As she says, the next one on her wish list is a cup from the Tour de France Femmes.

Stacy has been creating these beautiful cups to celebrate The Cycling Podcast’s grand tour coverage since 2019. The next collection will go on sale in late June, to coincide with the grand départ of the Tour de France.

Proceeds from the sale of the cups will go towards a worthy cause and if you have any ideas please email us at contact@thecyclingpodcast.com

Enter the Slipstream – UK theatrical premiere next week

Enter the Slipstream, directed by Ted Youngs and produced by Matt Rogers and Alexis Steinman, was made in the most challenging circumstances imaginable. It followed the EF Pro Cycling team during the 2020 ‘lockdown’ Tour de France when Covid restrictions made cross-border travel difficult.

Given the restrictions, the finished film is an astonishingly intimate portrait of what the Tour was like as the world dealt with the pandemic.

The film has its UK theatrical premiere in London next week (Thursday, May 16) with subsequent showings in Alderley Edge, near Manchester, and Glasgow over the weekend.

We made an episode of KM0 called Shooting the Tour last summer, telling the story of the challenges the filmmakers overcame. The film featured contributions from Richard Moore and François Thomazeau and so has a special place in The Cycling Podcast’s hearts too.

If you want to see the film, which I recommend, you can buy tickets for all three screenings below.

London – Via Atelier on Thursday, May 16 at 6pm
18-19 Stable Street, London
Tickets

Alderley Edge – Velo Edge on Saturday, May 18 at 5.30pm
48a London Road, Alderley Edge
Tickets

Glasgow – Drygate Brewery on Sunday, May 19 at 5.30pm
85 Drygate, Glasgow
Tickets

Listen to Shooting the Tour, last summer’s episode of KM0 telling the story of the making of the film.

Stage 3 of Girovagando, our coverage of the 2024 Giro d’Italia, supported by maap will be online this evening. Also, listen out for Arrivée, covering La Vuelta Femenina coming in the next day or so.