After reporting the first races of the season on the French Riviera, I took an overnight ferry to Corsica and then a smaller boat to Sardinia before riding around the island’s northeast coast. Sardinia may be part of Italy but historically it’s an island closer to Africa than Europe and peopled by Iberians and Phoenicians rather than Italians and French. It’s one of the wildest parts of Europe, notorious for bandits in the mountains and famed for its stunning scenery. In the summer it welcomes growing numbers of tourists, but in the late winter of 1969 it played host to the world’s best professional cyclists in the Giro di Sardegna.
I joined the race at the end of its second day after a ride that ended with 2,000 feet of climbing to a place called Lanusei. This remote village’s one hotel was booked by the French pro team, Frimatic, so I was glad to get a spare room in a nearby house before watching the uphill finish to stage 2. The win (and the race leadership) was taken in a two-man sprint by the Bic team’s French climber Gilbert Bellone ahead of Molteni’s Italian allrounder Giancarlo Polidori. All the teams went back to hotels on the coast except for Frimatic, so I spent a pleasant evening with its English climber, Derek Harrison, and his French team director, Louis Caput.
We talked about the upcoming mountain stage to Nuoro. The route was almost identical to one a year earlier when a young Eddy Merckx stunned his star rivals by recklessly breaking away on a descent made icy by snow and frost to take a solo stage win and confirm his overall victory. That wintry weather would be repeated in this 1969 edition, and the results would be just as catastrophic to the bulk of the field, with men like reigning Tour de France champion Jan Janssen destined to finish more than 20 minutes back.
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The day began with bright sunshine, followed by lashing rain, and then more sunshine when I called at the Lanusei hotel to wish the Frimatic riders good fortune. There were few signs of the drama to come as they departed by bike down the 12-mile descent to the start in Tortoli. Those same miles, uphill, would be the first of the stage, with the high point coming 23 miles later at the summit of the Arcu Correboi Pass (4,088 feet above sea level). It took me most of the morning to reach that summit, but the climb and the continuation to Nuoro were among the most unforgettable bike rides of my life.
Away from Lanusei, the road continued climbing steeply for 3 miles with a series of hairpin bends. There were even a few pine trees here, sheltering the road from the savage wind that was bringing the bad weather. Some blue sky still lit the distant sea, but dark clouds were gathering in the mountains ahead. The prospect was even less palatable when I reached the last part of this initial rise, as I was almost stopped in my tracks by a super-strong gust of wind.
The next 13 miles looked almost flat on the map, with a rise of only 18 meters (58 feet), but they turned out to be up and down the whole way, with several steep ramps and innumerable bends. On the first long rise, winding away from a grey reservoir, rather grandly named the Lago Alto Flumendosa, I stopped to eat some of my iron rations: sweet biscuits, cheese, chocolate and fruit.
I was momentarily sheltered from the wind by a fold in the grassy hills and it was surprisingly warm sitting there on a convenient rock. Hardly a sound could be heard in this desolate spot, and there was a peculiar, unreal appearance of the odd publicity van that would honk its way past to advertise the race. Traffic was an intrusion in this pristine landscape.
On my bike again, I shortly passed through a short valley that was just like a transplant from Scotland; but the two wild boars scrubbing around on the roadside were true Sardinian, just like the rifle-toting shepherds I later saw sitting around a brushwood fire. On one bumpy descent, I was surprised to pass through a small frontier-like village called Villanova Strisaili, which was a collection of timber-built houses, huge piles of lumber and a line of faces out to see the coridorri.
Shortly afterward, the drizzle that had started to fall turned to a blinding shower of rain and hail. I was toiling through this storm, up a long hill, with the road already shining wet, when a carload of bulky Italian journalists cruised by in the luxury of a heated limousine. In contrast (and I could not really say I envied them), I took to the shelter of a huge rock, huddled cross-legged under my yellow cycling cape. I thought of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and how this scene would make a perfect “blasted heath” for the Three Witches. The wind had become even stronger, the rain heavier, and a strange mist was hanging over the stunted growth of gorse and oak…when there was a sudden flash of lightning before a long, low rumble of thunder broke the silence.
The storm quickly passed, and the weather improved enough for me to de-cape after another few miles along this wildly beautiful road. Six miles remained to the summit of the pass, which was now climbing again in earnest up the right side of a desolate valley. Across the ever-deepening chasm rose a wall of rocky scree, with the peaks of the Gennargentu Mountains (the highest on the island) showing themselves above, when the clouds allowed.
There was snow lying at the edges of the road, and halfway up came a renewed onslaught of wind and hail. My cape was donned once more, and I plugged on into the tempest as fast as I could, half expecting race leader Bellone to come by at any minute. But the race, too, was suffering from “weather sickness” and was well behind schedule.
The climb’s final stretch doubled back across the side of a ridge. There was deep snow on the roadsides here, and 200 yards from the prime banner I stopped and pushed my bike into the snow to prop it against a post. There was a big shout from the hardy group of spectators above, so I continued up to where they were standing. It was a surprise to see so many people at this godforsaken spot. There were khaki-clad police and cassocked priests, oil-skinned road workers and muffled pressmen. One of them gave me two swigs from a flask of cognac, another said they thought I was a racer by the speed I had been climbing (ha-ha!). By the time I had fished my cameras from the saddlebag, the hail had turned to snow, which soon put a white covering over the bumpy road.
The riders themselves could not be long now, and there was an expectancy among the tifosi when judges and timekeepers drove up. A keen sprint was hoped for, because there were time bonuses of 30, 20 and 10 seconds for the first three over the top. Eventually, two figures appeared from the gloom to contest the sprint. It was a very closely fought affair, with Giuseppe Fezzardi from the Sanson team just holding off the taller Claudio Michelotto of Max Meyer; 50 seconds later came a pursuing figure in brown. It was Polidori, who finished second the day before. The minutes then ticked away—where were the others? Two, three, four…it was finally five minutes before the expected Bellone came by, vainly defending his leader’s jersey.
It turned out that the Frenchman had been in the stranglehold of the largely Italian peloton from the moment Fezzardi had attacked after that initial steep climb through Lanusei. Bellone had only been released a mile from the top, and he had already dropped them for nearly a minute. The bunch itself was led over by Harrison, obviously riding up to his team manager’s expectations. But he would have a difficult task to maintain that position on the descent. Thick snow is very difficult to see through for a man wearing glasses.
It had been a bizarre experience to watch a cycle race in these conditions. The first three riders were still in their regular team uniforms; the rest, however, were indistinguishable in wooly hats, racing capes, tracksuit tops and thick gloves. Only two or three were off the back; the others had already packed it in and came by in the sag wagon—including the Belgian sprinters Ward Sels and Guido Reybrouck.
By the time I was ready to continue riding, the snow had thickened steadily, and half an inch had already settled on the steep descent, where a deep valley fell away to the right. The wind was even stronger on this windward side of the pass, blowing the snow hard into my face. In order to see, I had to close one eye, leave the other only half open and screw my head around at an angle. I thought how lucky the racers had been to have crossed before this ultimate blizzard. My feet, hands and face were slowly freezing, and I was beginning to wonder whether I would ever get down from these rugged heights.
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As I had that thought, a booming sound came from right behind me and a huge wall of metal loomed into my peripheral vision. It was a snowplow attached to the front of a massive truck. The driver slowed down and waved me over. My bike was in the back in a trice, and I was soon sitting snugly in the warmth of the heated cab. There were already three others there, who said they had seen me riding up the pass earlier. The cold and danger were soon forgotten, and my mind refocused on catching the race.
The wipers were having a hard job keeping the windshield clear of the snow that was still teeming down. But I could tell that the riders were not far in front, as their wheel tracks were clearly visible in the snow. They made a crazy crisscross pattern all the way to Fonni, 10 miles from the top, where the snow was still falling. This was as far as my “rescuers” were going, so they dropped me off, giving me my bike from the back, and I was soon the center of a group of curious villagers.
A well-dressed businessman came up and said he could speak French. He took me (bike and all) into the bar opposite and treated me to another tot of brandy! He said this was the highest village on the island (1,000 meters, or 3,100 feet, above sea level) and there had been 50 centimeters (20 inches) of snow lying in the village just two weeks before, with a two-meter (6-foot-6) covering on the top of the pass. When I told him I was going on to Nuoro, he assured me there would only be rain below Fonni and the road was wide and well-surfaced all the way. This proved to be correct—except that the rain turned to hail on one occasion, and the wind hardly eased the whole 20 miles.
I heard later from the riders that conditions were just as bad on the more indirect route they had taken. Harrison told me that the bunch completely split just after Fonni, where five-time Tour de France winner Jacques Anquetil was leading the chase for his Bic teammate Bellone. They had hit a particularly bad stretch of road, and only the strongest were left in contention. Frimatic’s Jean-Claude Lebaube said that he finished at the back with Janssen, who had stopped several times to clean his glasses and scrounge a pair of woolen gloves. The French rider added that they’d been further delayed by a brief storm that covered the road an inch deep in hailstones. Eventually, the Anquetil group (with Bellone and the Italian stars Michele Dancelli, Gianni Motta, Vittorio Adorni, Franco Bitossi and Marino Basso) finished 4:29 down on the stage winner, while Harrison finished in the main bunch at 12:26.
Out front, Polidori caught the other two leaders on the descent, as their gap was cut to less than three minutes. But it widened again on the mainly uphill miles to the finish, where poor Fezzardi lost contact, losing 2:44 before the line. The two leaders fought a close tussle up into Nuoro, where Polidori just gained the edge to make up for his disappointment of the day before. But it was Michelotto who took over the race leadership [and would keep it to the end of the week], because Polidori had lost almost two minutes on the opening day, when there were several mass pileups in the closing miles.
It was still raining when I reached Nuoro. My wild ride was over. I had covered only 48 miles, compared to the 78 of the pros. But they had not been much faster, for the winner had completed the stage in 4 hours 6 minutes 11 seconds (less than 19 mph). I envied the pro racers who went straight to their hotels for a hot bath, massage and meal, while I ended up in the “one-dollar-for-the-night” Ristorante Toscano; it wasn’t glamorous, but at least it was dry.
Over a journalism career that has spanned six decades, former VeloNews editor John Wilcockson has reported on hundreds of events in more than 25 countries, with plenty of stories along the way.
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