1950s GIRO Alfonsina Morini The devil in a dress

            ALFONSINA STRADA (born Alfonsina Morini) (1891-1959) is the only female cyclist to ever compete in the Giro d'Italia (1924). She was married to the cyclist Luigi Strada.
Before Alfonsina started in the Giro, she had already won 36 races. This had not escaped to the attention of organizer Emilio Colombo - director of the newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport - inviting her to ride the 1924 Giro. The big teams didn't start*, but a female participant would again give enough attention to the biggest cycling event in Italy. Newspapers called her "The Devil in a dress".
The Giro was run over 12 stages and a distance of 3,613 km. In the end, Alfonsina finished 20 hours behind winner Giuseppe Enrici. The last stages, however, she rode out of competition, because she arrived late in one stage. The organizer thought of his newspaper and at his expense she rode on alone. She was so popular that she made more money than the overall winner Enrici.
In 1925 she wanted to start again, but she faced too much opposition from her male colleagues. They thought she was getting too much attention. She then went on to develop her cycling art as a variety act in Paris, where she made a name for herself as a "kangaroo woman". She rode along a steep wall, flipped over like on a roller coaster, and made a giant leap fifty feet through the air.
After the death (1946) of Luigi Strada, she remarried to the mechanic and cycling masseur Carlo Messori, with whom she started a racing bike shop in Milan. She passed away suddenly in 1959. (wikipedia)

*Several important riders, including Costante Girardengo, Gaetano Belloni and Giovanni Brunero refused to ride the 1924 edition in a dispute with the teams over start money.
   

Taken in: Italy / Lombardy / Milan / Cinque Vie (show map)

Taken on: May 8, 2022

Tags:

giro d'italia

1924

road cycling

cycling shop

race bike

italian cyclists « less

Sets appears in: • A Passion for Cycling

Groups appears in: • cycling • Bike Nation more » • Bicycle Racing • CYCLOMANIA • OLD BLACK & WHITE CYCLING PHOTOS • Bicycle Belles • CYCLING HISTORY: The begining to modern • in explore « less

Stats: 8,446 views / 7 comments

go back

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder