In the prelude to the 1985 Giro d'ltalia, Roberto Visentini of the Inoxpran team was told to use the radical, unusual Italian built Battaglin-FiR Pirana TT bike. The Pirana has a special might-have-been story.
Inoxpran bike sponsor Giovanni Battaglin rolled out what he hoped would be a secret weapon for team leader Roberto Visentini at the 1985 Giro d'ltalia. Battaglin and team wheel sponsor Giovanni Arrigoni had spent the last six months developing and treating a revolutionary new bicycle just for the 6.6km cronoprologo that finished in Verona's arena. Visentini was a climber and was looking for any advantage he could over World Hour Record holder Francesco Moser and Bernard Hinault.
Battaglin and Arrigoni's experiment had worked well, but the results show that Moser took that first maglia Rosa in Verona on May 15 thirty-nine years ago but not without concerns.
"We wanted to make a special bicycle that would have the best air penetration possible, the lowest Cx. We worked with an engineer that was an aerodynamic expert did some testing in a wind tunnel owned by the Gilera motorcycle company they used to test prototypes.
We were looking for a special position where the rider's position was pushed forward, like an egg. We decided to make the Pirana in carbon fiber to get the right aerodynamic shape. This was one of the first monocoque carbon fiber bicycles, but in those days, carbon fiber wasn't like it is today. It was heavier and much more expensive. And when Visentini finally road tested the Pirana three weeks before the Giro, he gained three seconds per kilometer over his regular time trial bike!
When we rolled up to the start house, the race jury saw the Pirana, they did a double-take. The swarmed around it, checking it, measuring it. Then they talked for a few minutes and came back to us, and said, 'Visentini can't race with the Pirana because it would give him an unfair advantage. We were stunned. I mean, there were not the specific rules for bicycles like there are today. So we went back and tried to convince them but there was nothing to do. We were very disappointed but that's the way it went.
So the Pirana was never raced. But we use it in all the trade shows that season and it got a lot of attention. And we learned a lot about design and working with carbon fiber."
-Giovanni Battaglin. He won the Giro-Vuelta double in 1981, winner of the mountain classification in the 1979 Tour de France and opened his bike manufacturing business in 1982, Officina Battaglin.
And who won the time trial? Visentini was second in the cronoprologo, seven seconds behind Moser.
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