By Leone Belotti
1 – the scoop
The Rosti Bar opens tonight with a scoop: Andrea Vendrame, the Italian rider of AG2R Citroen, has a secret button. A micro-mega technology hidden in one of the pins that fix the race number to the jersey. He confessed it himself when talking to us at the Rosti Bar. To be precise, it is the eighth pin that fixes the number applied to the left dorsal, the last to be worn in the starting procedure, the last pin that Vendrame puts on. If you look carefully, unlike all the others, it is black.
What is this black pin hiding? What is it for? Why does Vendrame need a mysterious black pin?
You'll find out just by reading.
2 - The Joker
“Because I’m a crazy person,” says Vendrame.
In the environment they call him the Joker. Andrea Vendrame is the atypical unpredictable runner, you never know what he will do, every race he could win or retire.
«I can attack with 30km to go or wait for the sprint, it depends on how I feel».
In reality, Vendrame is unpredictable because he cannot be classified, not even his agent can say what kind of cyclist he is. Depending on the day, he can be a climber, a rouleur, a finisher, a sprinter.
"During the race, I don't even know what I'll decide in five minutes."
With this configuration, Vendrame was already winning a stage of the Giro d'Italia when he was still wearing the Androni jersey. But then someone more unpredictable than him, Lady Luck, made him drop the chain. Not once, but twice. Appointment postponed.
3 - show your face
Vendrame is used to putting his face on the line. His story says so.
«As an amateur, the first two years were quite soft, I also had school. 2015 in Zalf changed everything, I started winning, it was the beginning of my career. And then we arrive at 2016, the accident... »
A day of training on the roads of his home. A car cuts him off. He smashes his head through the window. A thousand shards of glass in his face, many operations, many scars. An ordeal. But he doesn't give up.
«On a bike I'm a revolutionary, that's why I went racing in France, where they know about revolutions...»
So, after three years in Androni, in 2019 he decided to move to AG2R. Always wearing Rosti jerseys, he found himself in a World Tour team. Among the French teams in activity, the longest-running.
«Of course, if they give me tasks, I do them... but then everything depends on how I feel... maybe before leaving I don't feel well, then from one moment to the next everything changes, and then you don't know what can happen...»
And instead it happens that, even more unpredictable than any unexpected event, covid arrives.
4 – use your head
After the accident, after the victory that slipped away because of the chain, after the pandemic, Vendrame is ready to relaunch his challenge. But the credit accumulated with bad luck is not over yet. In 2020, still in training, he gets punched in the face by a bike-hater, a cyclist hater, that sub-category of drivers with problems that includes at least 10% of the people behind the wheel, 10% of whom don't just hate you, but risk killing you by overtaking you in anger, nipping at your heels. And 10% of them, after overtaking you, look at you in the mirror to see if, due to the adrenaline-fear rush, you have some automatic reaction of anger, gesture or voice: and at that point they brake, get out and come towards you to knock you down with a punch in the face, like in a combat video game. They are the most dangerous. If you do the math, you'll encounter one in a thousand cars. What happened to Vendrame, who was punched in the face by a motorist of that kind, seems incredible, but anyone who rides a bike knows that stories like this are more frequent than you might think.
You have to use your head, not react, stay lucid, have the coolness and readiness to take his license plate. And then show your face by reporting the aggressor, without fear. Opposing civilization to barbarism, that's the Vendrame lesson. Use your head. And if a crazy head like Vendrame does it, you can do it too.
5 – Romagna Bath
And finally last year the triumph in the super stage of the Giro d'Italia in Bagno di Romagna.
«Of course, the image that says it all is the one of arriving with my hands in the sky, when I let everything go with a scream... but if I have to say the decisive moment of the race, then I think of the last climb, the Passo del Carnaio, when I attacked to show that I was feeling good that day and wanted to win».
On this occasion Vendrame shows off his entire range, escape, climb, descent, sprint duel. And today he reveals something we don't expect.
"The night before I stayed up late with the coach, he knew the stage well, we prepared it in every detail. Today the riders exploit the strength factor, but I say that 95% of the strength comes from mental strength."
A crazy head has a coach? A mental coach? It actually doesn't seem like a bad idea.
"The coach is part of my staff, with the approval of the team. I needed someone who was not part of the team, also for language reasons, someone I could vent to, someone who could give me solutions on every point"
6 – have respect
Today Vendrame is not just any figure, a significant character: a crazy head, who breaks his face and does not give up, is attacked and uses his head, falls and gets up again, wins and makes himself available for civil battles on safety and respect for cyclists.
"It's strange that a country like Italy doesn't adapt to the civilized behaviors common elsewhere, like in Spain, where they don't overtake you, they stay behind for half an hour calmly..."
«The first few times I was surprised, I felt like moving away if I heard a car behind me... because if they pass you at 30 cm like they do here, the fines are hefty... »
«We have initiatives from the runners' association, like the signs that invite people to keep their distance, but if they don't become strict and punishable regulations, they remain suggestions that people ignore...»
So what can we do Andrea? What do you have in mind?
«Covid stopped us, but the ideas are there... the problem is that you need to be supported by someone big, to make an impactful action at global media level... the idea was for a commercial with people from Formula One, Lecrec and Bottas are available, Bottas has a partner who races in a professional team, it would be fantastic, bikes and cars, it would be the right thing»
Yes, that would really be the right thing to do. We need to talk to motorists in a new, strong way. I wonder what Citroen thinks about it?
7 – Put your heart and soul into it
We like Andrea Vendrame for many reasons, as a runner and as a man. Whether he wins or loses, he is someone who puts his face, his heart, his head, his legs, his liver and even his soul into it.
As a child he used to ride a small bicycle in the yard, and the postman told him he would become a champion. When he was older he went to his local sports association to be weaned, he discovered he already knew the coach: it was the postman!
We ask him if he has a photo from those years, when he was walking around the courtyard, we would like to publish it.
«I have it somewhere, but it's not digitalized, I have to look for it, as soon as I find it I'll send it to you».
The soul is the bond with your history, your origins. You understand this when he says that the most beautiful thing is to pedal through the hills of his land, among the Prosecco vineyards.
But someone born breathing prosecco, who runs for a French team... We ask him: have you ever had the courage to let someone who drinks champagne try prosecco? How did it go?
"When I won the stage at the Giro, I said: tonight we drink prosecco! They looked at me terrified, but in the end they were all happy."
8 – the eighth pin
«A victory is worth more than ten placings».
Thinking about the season that is about to begin, we ask him if there is a race he dreams of winning.
«The Amstel Gold Race has inspired me since I was a child. And as an Italian, I am intrigued by Sanremo, in two editions I got there, in the first 20...»
So how does this secret button, this little black pin, work?
He laughs. He talks about superstition. But we know that there is much more in that pin. There is the contact to turn on mental control, the strength that comes from the psyche, from your history, from your wounds and how you have overcome them.
The glass in the face, the punch in the face, the stab in the heart when you're about to win and the chain falls...
Scars on the face, in the soul, in the heart.
The secret, the magic of the Joker is this: if you have the courage to turn the card, in your wounds you can find your superpowers. And the marks that the wounds leave you, inside and out, become your personal code of strength, your true strength. The spark that in certain races, in certain conditions, can make you unbeatable and make you win races.
Here is the black pin technology. The real secret.
Empower the soul.