It seems a bit tough in hindsight, but Luigi Ganna was tenacious. The young seventeen year old mason rode every day with his bicycle from his hometown to Milan and back. Whatever the weather conditions were, brute heat, rain or snow, Luigi mounted his bike and pedalled, a bag hanging from his handlebar, containing a loaf of bread and a bottle of sugared water, stretched with a bit of wine. Day in day out Ganna covered 100km on dirt roads.
It was probably a good training, at least it proved the commitment that the young rider made when it came to his work. His attitude and the hours in the saddle paid off, when young Luigi started to enter bicycle races. In 1905 he finally decided to give a career as sportsman a go.

Soon it became clear that Ganna was one of the most talented riders in Europe and his list of palmarès grew longer. Every year he won more races and every year the cycling sport became more popular, with Ganna emerging as one of the early Italian stars. In 1909 he was able to win Milan-San Remo and the Giro d'Italia. His success allowed him to buy a house and a workshop which he started to use as a manufacture for bicycles.
When he won the notorious '600 kilometers race' on one of his own bikes in 1912, the demand for the machines from Varese exploded. Within a few years, the workshop turned into a small production hall.
In 1914 he stopped racing and instead devoted himself to the establishment of the first team "Ganna". The team was very successful for several decades and in 1951 Fiorenzo Magni won the Giro on a Ganna bike.

The bike we present here is far older than Magnis's Maglia Rosa. Our Ganna Tipo Giro d'Italia comes straight from the 1930s. It is equipped with one of the earliest shifting sytems from Italy. The Margherita Vittoria Shifting. This so branded mechanism of the Brothers Nieddu was the little gadget which helped to secure about a dozen of world championship titles.

The frame was specially modified for the owner and a usual chain oiler braze-on was not installed. Instead he got a pair of pump pegs. Otherwise this refurbished beauty demonstrates, how elegant a Ganna racer looked like with the typical rear dropouts and plated lugs.

The bike has been checked and is completely ridable.