{"id":15868,"date":"2024-06-14T11:17:18","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T09:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/?p=15868"},"modified":"2025-05-07T16:59:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T14:59:05","slug":"the-polish-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/the-polish-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Polish Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

A curious story, made up\u00a0of hard-to-pronounce names and heroic feats,\u00a0comes to us from Poland, taking us back in time and telling us of a victorious connection between Stelio Belletti and the Polish Cycling Federation<\/strong>. A victory we celebrate on its 50th anniversary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is the beginning of 1975\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Stelio Belletti<\/strong> has not even two years ago officially started the activity of bike frame maker under the Stelbel brand name in his workshop in Rodano<\/strong>, on the outskirts of Milan. The method of making frames with TIG welds intrigues<\/strong> and, although some are still skeptical about\u00a0the choice of\u00a0making bicycles without\u00a0lugs, his creations\u00a0are admired\u00a0by enthusiasts and professionals who appreciate their\u00a0lightness, rigidity, and reliability, qualities that are certainly ideal for racing. But this is the stuff of cycling exegeses: the production is still – and always will remain – refined, cared for, and\u00a0limited.<\/p>\n

At the same time, but a thousand kilometers away, behind the Iron Curtain, the Polish Cycling Federation was in search of a frame supplier.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Polish Cycling Federation<\/strong> president W\u0142odzimierz Go\u0142\u0119biewski and Vice President of Sports Henryk R\u00f3\u017cycki tasked Osvaldo Cazzaniga, a mechanic of the federation, who had his workshop in Gorgonzola (and later founder of the OSCA brand), with finding better frames.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cazzaniga takes up the challenge, gets behind the wheel of his station wagon, and heads straight for Italy, knocking on the door of the Stelbel workshop: \u2018Stelio, they tell me your frames are a blast!\u00a0I’d like\u00a0to commission a set from you for my riders:\u00a0we’re aiming\u00a0for the World Championship in Belgium\u2019<\/em>.
\nIt must\u00a0be remembered\u00a0that, in those glorious days, the road races were the prerogative of the various Belgians Merckx, Maertens, and\u00a0De Vlaeminck, who wanted to make a good impression at home<\/strong>. But the team time trial is the prerogative of the teams\u00a0that come\u00a0from Eastern Europe and \u2018pull\u2019 like trains: the Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.<\/p>\n

Belletti, of a calm nature, thinks about it for a while: his company is taking its first steps, time is short and the risk is great. But – what the heck! – he has never shied away from a challenge. Aware of his ability and inspired by the media coverage that such an event could bring to Stelbel, he accepted and set to work immediately, producing the required frames in a very short time.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0led to 27 August 1975. In the town of Yvoir (which\u00a0together with\u00a0Mettet\u00a0hosts the competition), riders Tadeusz Mytnik, Mieczys\u0142aw Nowicki, Ryszard Szurkowski, and Stanislaw Szozda <\/strong>are lined up at the start on Stelbel bicycles, ready for the team time trial.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"The<\/p>\n

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Their white and red\u00a0Integrale bikes, tig-welded, featuring custom-built forks and dropouts welded directly onto the chain stays, stand out among\u00a0a myriad of\u00a0other bikes and attract the stares of fans and opponents alike.\u00a0Ahead of them is a 100 km\u00a0route on roads that wind\u00a0through the countryside, between cultivated fields and gentle slopes.<\/p>\n

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Stelio is\u00a0proud,\u00a0but also a little worried: Cazzaniga arrived in Belgium with the frames loaded into the boot of his station wagon the night before the start and assembled the bikes for the riders overnight.<\/p>\n

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There was not much time for extensive testing; how will the Stelbel frames perform in a Team time trial race at full speed?\u00a0In an international race with the best cyclists of the world fighting each other over such an important medal.<\/p>\n

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The group sets off compactly under the Walloon summer\u00a0sun,\u00a0between two wings of cheering spectators. In the sights of the Poles is the Soviet Union, the team to beat. The Stelbel frames, compared to those used previously, are much\u00a0stiffer,\u00a0and\u00a0very effective in a time trial like that.<\/p>\n

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\u2018It was a blink of an eye,\u2019 recalls Mieczyslaw Nowicki. \u2018At one\u00a0point\u00a0Staszek Szozda broke a wheel spoke. Luckily, thanks to Mieczys\u0142aw Nowicki velodrome experience, spokes were tied and soldered. It didn’t bother him much, but he felt\u00a0a bit\u00a0uncomfortable and wanted to stop and replace the wheel.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

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But we were running on thin ice\u00a0and\u00a0I remember that my reprimand was harsh because there was no time to lose. I shouted at\u00a0him:\u00a0\u201eRelease the brake caliper and Keep pedaling!\u2019\u00a0And that’s how we got to the finish line,\u00a0without\u00a0any\u00a0further issues.<\/p>\n

The decision not to\u00a0make the wheel change\u00a0was providential: the Polish team stopped the clock with a 5.5-second lead over the Soviet Union. A whisker.<\/p>\n

World Champions!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"The<\/p>\n

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The white and red of the Polish flag fluttered in the wind, higher than anyone else; the gold medal glittered around the necks of the four standard bearers who had come from behind the Iron Curtain to take Stelbel to the\u00a0top step of the podium.<\/p>\n

Stelbel frames were also used throughout the 1976 season,<\/strong> when the Polish team – again consisting of Tadeusz Mytnik, Mieczys\u0142aw Nowicki, Stanis\u0142aw Szozda, and Ryszard Szurkowski – won the silver medal at the Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada. But that’s another story…<\/p>\n

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Irek R\u00f2\u017aycki, son of the same Henryk R\u00f2\u017aycki who in 1975 commissioned Cazzaniga to find the best frames in existence, has set up a museum where one of the bikes used by the Polish team<\/strong> in the 1975 time trial in Belgium\u00a0is kept.<\/p>\n

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The white frame, with simple red bands on the down and upright tubes and a small logo on the head tube, is equipped with the best Campagnolo components of the time: Record groupset with lightened and drilled details.<\/p>\n

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The example\u00a0is restored;\u00a0it was\u00a0originally\u00a0fitted\u00a0with an Everest lightened\u00a0chain,\u00a0\u00a0Everest Titanium cassette, and the wheels featured high-flange hubs and Sheereen aluminum rims.<\/p>\n

This article was made possible thanks to the valuable contributions of passionate cyclists and collectors from Poland.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d like to extend a special thank you to Kamil B\u0142achnio<\/strong>\u2014don\u2019t forget to check out his project Polonika.cc<\/a> and give him a follow!<\/p>\n

A big thank you as well to @adasaniewska<\/strong> for the beautiful photographs featured in this article.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re also deeply grateful to Bartek Kulesza (IG: czarnetrampki)<\/strong> for sharing his knowledge and an extraordinary selection of historical photos, some of which weren\u2019t included in the article but are still of great value to us and our archive.<\/p>\n

We are truly thankful for all the love we\u2019ve received from Poland\u2014a nation with an incredible passion for road cycling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A curious story, made up\u00a0of hard-to-pronounce names and heroic feats,\u00a0comes to us from Poland, taking us back in time and telling us of a victorious connection between Stelio Belletti and the Polish Cycling Federation. A victory we celebrate on its…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[981,983,52],"class_list":["post-15868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senza-categoria-en","tag-polish-cycling-federation","tag-polish-stelbel-en","tag-stelbel-en"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stelbel.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}