Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart Radio and

Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all of these

amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Everybody remembers the first time they learned to ride a bike. They have memories

of spending their childhood in the saddle bars and cruising around the neighborhood.

The bicycle, though, wasn't always an instrument of glory for a Gino Bartali.

In fact, it was just a way to get to school.

Gino was born in 1914 to a working-class family in a small village in Tuscany, Italy.

By the time he was 11, he needed to find a way to get to Florence every day for school.

A car was out of the question, so Geno saved his money to buy his first bike.

He quickly fell in love with racing through the Tuscan countryside.

He started taking cycling seriously and at the age of 17 in 1931,

he won his very first bike race.

By his 20s, all those long bike rides across Tuscany began to pay off.

In 1936 at the age of 22 he biked 21 days and over 2,000 miles to win the

Giro D'Tetelia, the biggest bike race in Italy.

His fame was immediate.

Tuscans loved that they could see their champion training most days on the same country

roads that they drove.

He cemented his hometown hero status when he won the race again in 1937,

and his fame grew to a fever pitch in 1938

when he won the biggest bike race in the world, the Tour de France.

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