I've found more info....
1950 was the start of the "Gran Premio Ciclomotoristico delle Nazioni" which, as Aldo indicates, was a mix of a bike race and a motor paced bike ROAD race. I found, through a MOTO GUZZI photo collection, that by 1958 the riders were riding behind Moto Guzzi motorcycles...those Lambrettas may have been too slow (smile). So this type of racing lasted more than one year....
Angel Garcia Long Valley NJ
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: aldoross4 <aldoross4@siscom.net> Date: Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 9:19 AM Subject: [CR] more on Roma-Napoli-Roma To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
I found this in the archives:
Roma-Napoli-Roma was raced from 1902 through 1914, 1919 through 1930, = and again in 1934. There was then a 16 year gap. The 1950 Race was the = post-war "inaugural" event, and was again an annual until the final race = in 1961.
The 1950 race had an interesting formula...=20
Stage 1a was an 81 km Individual Time Trial, motorpaced behind Lambretta = motor scooters (won bu Robic, from Fausto Coppi and Rik Van = Steenbergen). =20
Stage 1b was a 145 km conventional road race (won by Serse Coppi, from = Luciano Maggini and Virgilio Salimbeni). =20
Stage 2a was a 168 km motor-paced road race behind Lambrettas (won by = Fausto Coppi,from Nedo Logli and Robic).
Finally, Stage 2b was 77 km Team Time Trial, AGAIN behind motor-paced by = a Lambretta! (won by Robic's team, from Coppi's team, with Van = Steenbergen's team and Louison Bobet's teams tied for third). =20 Must have been a noisy, fascinating event, especially if you like = Lambrettas. However, it looks like they discontinued use of the = motor-scooter-pacers after one year.
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