Since we are at shoes. There was a shoemaker in Lunata, in the outskirts of Lucca, by the name Colombini, highly specialized on cycling shoes. He did make them for three generations of athletes, the most famous of the pack: from Bartali to Saronni, as I was told.
Those shoes were the traditional design, with heavy soles and cleats nailed onto them.. After Colombini passed away the business got in the hands of his family, it quickly lost flavor, switched to new materials and it turned to far-eastern suibcontractors.
What is left there is only a pale remembrance of the past.
Sergio
Pisa