The cycle traveller

The pedal shops: when shoemaker, photographer, priest and tailor came by bicycle

by Manlio Pisu

6 March 2026

6' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

6' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

A cycle journey back in time, when the economy in the territories was based on two wheels: crafts and services of all kinds were carried out at home, directly on specially prepared bicycles. Three museums between Lazio and Marche tell of a world of creativity and ingenuity on pedals.

Mestieri d’Italia a pedali
Photogallery26 foto

This is the story of a very particular cycle journey, which moves backwards in time rather than in the space of a territory to be explored. Here, the exploration is in the collective memory of a country that in the last eighty years has experienced such a whirlwind economic and social development that the small ancient world of the way we were seems like a distant past. In reality, that world, now close to the abyss of oblivion, belongs to the recent past of our history and laid the foundations of what we are today.

Italy's post-World War II boom was rooted, among other things, in a widespread micro-entrepreneurship that often started out of poverty or even hunger: so many tiny individual start-ups, which rode bicycles. The luckiest could afford the 'mosquito', the auxiliary motor invented by Garelli that in fact marked the birth of the first pedal-assisted bicycles. Thus the enormous heritage of Italia's craftsmanship arrived in the most remote cottages, in small and large villages and even in the cities. Equipped with ingenuity and skill, those bikes became pedal-assisted pedal workshops

Economic pedal-powered miracle

The Made in Italy phenomenon, linked to the economic miracle, was born and became great this way too, on the two wheels of a bicycle. Until the 1960s, it was still possible to see a few artisans around the Bel Paese offering goods and services, riding their bikes. In some parts of Italia they remained on the road even longer, until just before Italy joined the G7, the club of the world's richest industrialised countries, in 1975. They were heavy and very slow bikes. They could weigh up to 50 kilos. All unique pieces, different from each other.

Almost everything has been lost from this little old world, which on closer inspection is not so old. After years of honourable service, bicycles, which in the initial phase of a company's life constituted the main asset of the company's capital, were often put aside, abandoned. They became the testimony of a past that many, after having successfully made the qualitative and dimensional leap, did not like to remember, because they evoked the unregretful times of the 'pats on the ass'.

From micro-enterprise to SME

Within little more than a generation, the pedal shops died out. They were no longer pedal-powered and they were no longer hawkers. They had taken up permanent residence. They had established themselves as shops, as productive and commercial activities of various kinds.

The self-made man, who started from nothing, had collaborators and employees. From the bicycle he had moved on to the Vespa or the Lambretta; then to the Ape and finally to the van. For himself and his family there were the Millecento, the Giulietta, the Fulvia and the Flavia, at the time jewels of the national car industry. Someone, kissed by fortune, drove around in a Ferrari.

The Tale of How We Were

Something, however, has been saved from that world. Partly by chance and partly through the obstinacy of a few collectors who, with passion and determination, have tried to recover and safeguard this piece of our country's historical memory.

In Civitella d'Agliano, a village in the Viterbo area clinging to a cliff overlooking the Tiber Valley with a view over the hills of Umbria as far as the Sibillini Mountains, Daniele Agulli, a keen cyclist, is one of those who have invested time and money to collect some rare and precious examples of pedal workshops. It is a story that deserves to be told, also because it contains a story within a story, evoking Peppone and Don Camillo by Giovannino Guareschi.

Peppone and Don Camillo on the Tiber

Agulli's private collection is exhibited in the 'Mulino dei Mestieri', a former oil mill that was owned by the town's parish priest until the early 1950s. At that time, national and local political life was dominated by the opposition between the DC and PCI.

In Civitella - so the story goes, handed down from mouth to mouth in the village - the parish priest and the communist mayor vied for souls and consensus, just like in Guareschi's Brescello. But shortly before his death, in 1953, the parish priest decided to leave his property to the municipality, i.e. in the hands of his opponent, whom he evidently trusted.

The priest's family home has become the hospice in the centre of the small village, while the oil mill now houses the collection of vintage work bikes. "We want to tell the story of a time gone by," comments Agulli, "to leave a testimony for young people of the world we come from.

Father and son together in the saddle

Among the most valuable examples on display in Civitella is the shoemaker's bike, an emotional and moving piece. The second saddle, mounted on the frame barrel, stands out. It is a child's saddle. Yes, because the shoemaker also took his little son along to teach him the trade. And from daddy's toolbox sprouts a small car carved out of wood: a sign that in the scraps of time father and son also managed to produce some poor toy for the child's delight.

The puppeteer's bike was also beautiful. On the rear wheel was mounted a puppet theatre. On the front wheel a mandolin and an accordion. And what about the priest's bike? A woman's frame for pedalling with a cassock, but a man's 'large' size. On the handlebar a very ingenious acetylene lamp. In the box are the sacred vestments and everything needed for the various circumstances of life, from baptism to extreme unction.

In Civitella, you can admire the photographer's bike with its camera, tripod, darkroom, plates and acids for developing negatives and even the enamelling machine. Also travelling by bike were the midwife with her forceps to assist women in labour and the carder, who gave new life to the wool of mattresses. And then of course the knife-grinder and the postman.

But the barber's bike and the butcher's bike are no less impressive. Each bike tells a story. And they are all fascinating.

The abandoned bicycles of Montefano

Other important collections in central Italia are those in the Marche: the Ciclo Museo in Montefano (Macerata) and the Museo delle Arti e dei Mestieri in Bicicletta in Fabriano (Ancona). The driving force behind the Montefano museum is the bicycle and motorbike workshop run by Sandro Braconi, who carries on the activity of his father Giovanni, the creator of the collection. A hundred or so rare and interesting specimens. "People used to take their bikes there and leave them. They no longer had any interest,' Braconi recalls.

Even today, his workshop is a reference point in the area for the restoration of old bikes and vintage motorbikes such as Vespas and Guzzis. "The young people who come to visit are amazed," comments Marco Bragaglia, president of the museum.

The exhibits also include the bicycle of the 'strillone', which was part of the film set of 'Un uomo e una voce', a 2017 film on the life of Beniamino Gigli, a native of Recanati, the son of a shoemaker and one of the greatest tenors of the 20th century. In the film, the head crier breaks the news of the outbreak of the Libyan war in 1911. Beautiful is the tailor's bike with the sewing machine mounted on the front wheel. The mason's, the boilermaker's, the barber's and the watchmaker's bicycles, as well as the midwife's, are remarkable.

Stracciaroli, madonnari, cantastorie a Fabriano

In Fabriano, 70 pieces on display, one can admire the bicycle of a typical figure of the paper capital: the stracciarolo, who went around retrieving old rags to obtain the raw material to be used in paper production. The initiative here is by Luciano Pellegrini, son of a stracciarolo. He too used to cycle with his father to collect rags.

From that activity came medium-sized enterprises that have created wealth and development in the area. "They started from scratch and did something important," observes Valentino Agostinelli, who runs the museum. "They are small stories. But they deserve to be passed on. If not, they are lost".

Stracciarolo

The old trade bikes, he adds, can become a driving force for promoting tourism in the area.

Bersagliere

Not to be missed in Fabriano is the bersagliere's bike, with a two-wheel suspension: in fact the forerunner of modern mountain bikes. Then there is the bike of the madonnaro, who sold santini, rosaries and holy images in front of sanctuaries in Marche and Umbria, between Loreto and Assisi. There are also the splendid bikes of the storyteller with the gramophone mounted on the front wheel, the doctor, the distiller, the blacksmith, the fireman and the sciuscià, the shoeshine boy.