For those with an interest in cycling technology, changes have come so rapidly in the last thirty years that one loses sight of what came before. We enjoy our carbon frames, tubeless tires, clipless pedals and near-near faultless shifting over a wide range of gears commanded by wireless electronics, taking most of it for granted (well, minus the price!). But historians of racing cycling have not only looked at the great competitions and athletes of the past but also their equipment and the story is variable gearing is a fascinating one. A charming new book by Francesco Di Sario looks at one of the most successful of these pre-World War II efforts. “Vittoria! The Story of Tommaso Nieddu, the Shifting Systems, His Family and Inventions” shows how a small family concern’s innovations helped set the stage for what we enjoy today.
This year’s Giro d’Italia began in the vicinity of Turin, which is a nice coincidence given that the subject of this book, Tommaso Nieddu, was born in that city in 1892. The author notes:
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“The Turin cycling scene has produced numerous champions and can tell many stories….However, there is another Turin cycling story that has received little or no attention: that of the craftsmen and small business owners from Turin. With their passion and masterful craftsmanship they played a significant role in the great successes of cycling….Tommaso Nieddu significantly shaped the history of cycling with his knowledge and skills.”
A keen cyclist, and a talented amateur racer, Tommaso enjoyed some impressive adventures on the bike, including a trip from Turin to Rome in 1914—a feat he relived in 1968 when he was 75 years old, also completing the journey in three days as he did aged 22. During World War I he joined the Italian air force, flying as a co-pilot on bomber missions, then post-war got married and opened a bicycle shop in his wife’s hometown. The shop closed in 1921 and the family returned to Turin, where he found employment in the post office.
With a steady job, he nonetheless found time to pursue his passion for cycling and tinkering led to his first patent in 1922, followed by improved one in 1924, for what is essentially a variable gear system by maintaining chain tension by shifting the rear wheel in its dropout. This was an idea taken up later by Campagnolo in 1943 with the Cambio Corsa shifter. Tommaso, on the other hand, changed his thinking to focus on leaving the rear wheel in position while finding another way to maintain chain tension. This became the Vittoria shifting system, patented in 1930 after three years of trials. Tommaso had retained his contacts in the bike racing world and found willing testers.
Early versions of the Vittoria required some dexterity as it operated by pushing a big lever located above the chainset to loosen the chain, which then allowed the rider to use either a heel or fingers to push the chain to a different sprocket while pedalling backwards. Over time this was improved so that a metal fork did the pushing in the 1934 Vittoria Margherita version. The system was simple and lightweight and clearly a huge improvement over stopping to loosen wingnuts to flip around a wheel or otherwise change gear.
There are numerous videos online showing how Campagnolo’s Cambio Corsa works but not much on the Vittoria. This little YouTube video will give some idea:
Variable gear systems had existed for some years but were aimed more at tourists as they were found to be too fragile for the rigours of racing. Tommaso’s brother Amodeo came in as a partner and they were able to take advantage of his business and marketing abilities and soon the Vittoria gear system found its way onto the bicycles of Italy’s best riders. In the 1932 World Championships the great Alfredo Binda conquered the course in Rome, taking the Rainbow Jersey for the third time, while his amateur counterpart, also using the Vittoria, was Giuseppe Martano, who won the World’s for the second time on that occasion.
The Fratelli Nieddu went from strength to strength as their shifting system gained wide acceptance in the conservative racing community following Binda’s success. As the book shows, it was favoured by riders as notable as Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi and was exported. Swiss ex-pro Oscar Egg had the distribution rights for France and his Super Champion gear system was to show some similarities. When the Tour de France finally allowed variable gearing systems in 1937, all riders were obligated to use the Super Champion—except the Italians, who could use the Vittoria.
The Vittoria Margherita was still available into the 1950s, although its period of primacy was from the mid-1930s to late 1940s, but the brothers’ partnership did not last so long as they went their separate ways in 1943. Amodeo continued to run the company, including various parts and accessories in the firm’s catalogue, but Tommaso was the mechanically-minded of the two so innovation stopped and the company gradually wound down by the 1970s.
Tommaso and his sons did go on to patent another similar shifting system, the Cervino, and came up with other clever ideas, including the rubber hoods found on brake levers, an idea we still utilize today. There was also a prototype that allowed ease in changing sprockets on a freewheel, a precursor to today’s cassette system, and the sprockets even had ramps to assist shifting—shades of Hyperglide! Another shifting idea allowed the control of both the front and rear derailleurs from a single shift lever, something licensed by a German firm and used into the 1960s. And perhaps the last great success of Tommaso Nieddu was the invention of the Unicanitor saddle, introduced in 1960 and distributed by Cinelli until the mid-1970s, supplanting the heavy leather saddles of the past and requiring no arduous break-in.
“Vittoria!” features many period images, whether of the technology of Fratelli Nieddu or the racers who used the system. The brothers involved with racing not in Italy, including having their own teams, but the Tour de France saw their presence giving technical support. The book offers family photos and reminiscences and the author clearly saw it as a labour of love. The publishers too have produced a fine book that is a pleasure to skim through. It is an atmospheric reflection of bike racing in Italy in those memorable decades past.
“Vittoria” is now available in English (in both physical and e-book versions) through Viennese publisher Verlag Hollinek. Hollinek, established in 1872, specializes in books about transportation, whether cars, airplanes, motorcycles or bicycles. One of our favourite German-language cycling books, “Wiener Mechanikerfahräder 1930-1980,” published in 2013 and reviewed here (https://pezcyclingnews.com/features/pez-bookshelf-wiener-mechanikerrader-1930-1980-retro-bikes/), is long sold out but there are plans to release it again in 2024.
“Vittoria! The Story of Tommaso Nieddu, the Shifting Systems, His Family and His Inventions”
by Francesco Di Sario
126 pp., profusely illustrated, softbound
Verlag Hollinek, Vienna, Austria, 2024
ISBN 978-3-85119-393-0
The book is available through Verlag Hollinek’s website, which takes PayPal, with ordering information here:
- The price for the printed book is €34.90 from:
hollinek.at. - The price for the e-book is €20.00 from: hollinek.at.
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