OFFICIAL SPONSOR
FAEMA
70 YEARS OF FAEMA AN EXHIBITION A JOURNEY
It's 2015. FAEMA celebrates its 70th anniversary. A party, a journey and a beautiful exhibition. Which now becomes a small special on the website of the @MuseoGhisallo, a museum that is the home of cyclists and their memories. And FAEMA is at home at the Ghisallo Museum. The beautiful exhibition traced a history made of symbols, faces, images, objects, icons, sepia-toned technical boards. "We came across excerpts of products in the creation, conception, invention and patent stages. - wrote curator Simona Colombo * - We solicited witnesses to 70 years of history, who generously contributed to the construction of this exhibition: employees, photographers, sportsmen, curators
museums, cyclists, design enthusiasts, designers, coffee connoisseurs, journalists, collectors. Our desks have been invaded by memorabilia and sheets of paper, by ideas abandoned and then fished out, and today we are proud to welcome you back,
through an exhibition divided into major themes, the epic of a glorious brand that is always beyond modernity".
This is the magical world of FAEMA: a world that has pedalled and still pedals, with and inside the Museum. A world that is not just history, it is love for a valuable past that we like to keep alive, because it is alive. And how. It's a world that has a unique charm, so beautiful as to be up-to-date and fashionable because it offers us that light but elegant atmosphere of an era.
So don't be surprised if climbing the Passo del Ghisallo and stopping at the Museum you will find - especially during events - a van equipped with a machine that dispenses coffee to ... cyclists. They call it experience marketing, but we like to imagine to drink a coffee with the Cannibal Eddy Merckx or with one of his. Gregarious and not. Friends and champions of a time that comes back in a hurry, you just have to tell it a bit and sip a good coffee. With the right company. And atmosphere.
*Simona Colombo: GROUP MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR
CYCLING BETWEEN BRAND AND MYTH
What is the difference between a brand and a myth? What turns a name into that name whose sound, even if only hinted at, manages to arouse emotions and evoke memories of the collective and personal past? And again: what enables us to distinguish with certainty, almost instinctively, the aura surrounding a word, destined to become a legend, from the background noise raised by the trends of a season?
It is the choices made, in everyday life, by the people who fill that name with meaning. Choices that are never simple, often devoted to sacrifice, but which always conceal a deep love for progress and a confident leaning towards the future, with the strength and certainty of their own tradition. The constant need to do something more every day, something better than in the past, and to do it consistently for seventy years. In other words, the need to be unquestionably FAEMA.
A STORY THAT IS NEVER PREDICTABLE
Telling the story of a company is often a delicate task. However, one cannot ignore the involvement of the people whose work has contributed to its existence. All those names, famous or unknown, who have succeeded one another over the years under the aegis of FAEMA, are reflected today in the value of this brand. Mythical also for this.
A brand that has become great thanks to a company and its people; to its technological value and its products; a brand conveyed through sport. So the history of FAEMA is a history of attention to technology, research and development and sensitivity to human aspects, a practice not taken for granted in the 1950s. And if many remember FAEMA for the quality of its products, everyone remembers it for the successes achieved in sport.
FAEMA AND CYCLING
Wearing those charming red and white jerseys, sometimes tinged with glorious pink or yellow, were the champions of FAEMA, who brought lustre to the name of this company and made the most of it in the sporting arena.
The intense relationship between FAEMA and sport began in 1950 when Carlo Valente, the grand patron, set up the GS FAEMA, a multi-sport club that brought together successful boxers, rugby players and basketball players, as well as amateur cyclists.
After three years, the choices were geared exclusively towards cycling, the great passion of Valente who relied on Learco Guerra to set up the pro team, which according to the new rules could be called FAEMA-Guerra.
In 1956 two separate teams, FAEMA and Emi, were created. Charly Gaul was a member of FAEMA and won the Giro in the famous Monte Bondone stage on a stormy day. Gaul, this time in the Emi jersey, would also win the Giro in '59. Rik Van Looy also competed in that FAEMA, with over 100 successes, including two World Championships and two Paris-Roubaix.
There are also two great Iberians, climber Federico Bahamontes and young Miguel Poblet, a lightning bolt in the sprint.
At the same time Guerra also built the FAEMA amateur team, including the promising Gianni Motta, but Molteni would steal him away from the "biancorossi" and the disappointment led Valente to leave cycling. Four years of limbo and then the meeting with Vincenzo Giacotto, an experienced manager, who induced Valente to link the FAEMA brand to Eddy Merckx.
For three years the Belgian champion was the ace in the hole, with 122 victories, including two Tours, two Paris-Roubaix and every other major classic. The team included, among others, champions of the calibre of Vittorio Adorni, Italo Zilioli, Victor Van Schil and Patrick Sercu.
FAEMA AND THE CANNIBAL
WE HAVE A COFFEE
CHAMPIONS (FAEMA) BECOME
BORN CANNIBALS
Twenty-three years old, Eddy Merckx made his debut at the Tour de France and in 1969 he dominated all the classifications: in addition to the general classification, the mountain GP, the points classification, the Combat and the team classification. Hence the nickname of cannibal that would accompany him throughout his career.
RUNNING TALK
