BarcelonaIt all started with a black and white photograph that a group of friends found on the internet. And that seed has ended up becoming a cycling race that will end on April 15 with a hundred brave people on bikes. A race that has been extended longer than expected due to the pandemic, but which, finally, will reach its final destination having succeeded in fulfilling its objective: to recover the memory of a forgotten race of 1937, when in the midst of the Civil War ran the Anti-Fascist Pedal.
“In the photo you could see the old bridge of Lleida full of cyclists. And the photo caption said that the race was the Pedal Antifascist trophy. Host, that there was a cycling race in the middle of the Civil War in 1937 shocked us. It’s true that there was a lot of sporting activity during the conflict, such as boxing or football, but we didn’t know anything about this race and we started looking for it,” explains Pau Llop, accompanied by Miquel Andreu and Francesc Florensa, the organizers of the Anti-Fascist pedal. All three understand life equally, taking sides, so they decided to organize a modern race to claim it. The race in question had been run in five stages, from 14 to 18 April 1937, on the occasion of the commemoration of the proclamation of the Republic. It was organized by the republican newspaper The flood in collaboration with the Generalitat’s Propaganda Commission and the Catalan Pro Esport Popular Committee to raise funds for Socors Roig Internacional, an international social service of a communist nature, and also to bring a message from the war front to the rear That’s why he left from an Aragonese town near the front line of fire. “The initial idea was for it to leave Barbastre, but it ended up leaving Peraltilla, as the front was moving,” explains Pau.
Back then it was normal for newspapers to organize cycling races. This is how the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia were born, in fact. the people ofThe flood had organized in 1934, 1935 and 1936 a single-stage race between Jaca and Barcelona on April 14, to remember the date of the proclamation of the Second Republic. The experience of this race helped them to push forward the Anti-Fascist Pedal in 1937. “The chronicles of the time say that the race would be an exception, as they hoped to recover the Jaca-Barcelona quickly, because they hoped to win the war” , remembers Francis. “And in the end there was neither Jaca-Barcelona, nor The flood, or Anti-Fascist Pedal, or anything, since the Francoists won the war.” The triumph of Francoism erased the memory of that race. “It is still not entirely known who the cyclists who did it were; some know everything, others don’t,” explains Pau.
80 years after Josep Fisas, a cyclist from Martorell, was the winner of the 1937 race, the race came back to life thanks to the El Nervi de la Llibertat cycling group, a group of bicycle lovers who share the passion to sweat pedaling and to have political commitment. A curious group that had been born from a defeat, when the Sabadell musician Carles Belda, a big fan of two wheels, promised to go up to Montserrat by bicycle if Barça won the League in 2014, when Gerardo Martino was technician The League was won by Atlético de Madrid, but Belda and a group of friends would still go up to see La Moreneta, and from here El Nervi de la Libertat would be born. From staying to go out to shoot, he went on to organize this race after the discovery of the photo in 2017.
A race in historical memory
Miquel Andreu, Francesc Florensa and Pau Llop still remember how they organized everything in a few months. “When we discovered the photo, we saw that it was not long before the 80th birthday, so we had to go to work,” they explain. And six years ago they planted themselves in Peraltilla, the starting point, on April 14. His idea was to redo the five stages of 1937 trying to follow a more or less similar route, as the roads have changed. Another difference was that they wanted to do one stage every year instead of doing it in five consecutive days like in 1937. “And it all started in Peraltilla. This is the region of Somontano. What did we find there? First a control of the Civil Guard at the entrance. And then, nothing. People knew nothing about the 1937 race. We left everything in Lleida, and went by bus to the town, where we arrived at 7 in the morning . People looked at us in surprise. And we started pedaling back to Lleida, stopping for refreshments in front of a church in the middle of the week. It wasn’t a good idea,” he recalls, with a laugh, Florence
That first stage was 115 km and just 20 people participated. When the second stage between Lleida and Tarragona arrived in 2018, there were already around 40. The days combined sport and history. In the first year, for example, texts by George Orwell and Manuel Ibáñez Escofet were read, and ended with an explanation by a historian about the bombing of Liceu Escolar de Lleida. The second was used to talk about the International Brigades and to visit Neus Català – the anti-fascist militant who survived the Nazi extermination camps – in her native town. The third stage was in 2019 between Tarragona and Manresa, and there was a talk about the maquis. And in 2020, more than a hundred cyclists signed up, and the fourth stage was supposed to be between Manresa and Girona, but the pandemic stopped everything. This stage could not take place until 2022, respecting the registrations of 2020. More people had already signed up, because word had spread. People from a workshop in Zaragoza, in the Valencian Country… “All respecting one idea: it wasn’t about arriving first, it was about shooting together, enjoying the experience”, explains Francesc.
And this year, on April 15, the fifth and final stage will take place between Girona and Barcelona. When registration opened a few weeks ago, it sold out within an hour. In fact, in recent years the Merchandise of the Anti-Fascist Pedal, such as jerseys, caps and posters, have been sold halfway around the world. As has been done in previous editions, this one will also be used to recover little-remembered episodes of history. In this case, the idea is to stop in Mataró to visit the Solidarity Park, a park created in memory of the International Brigades, where a talk will be held to explain the events of May 30, 1937, when a Francoist submarine attacked the City of Barcelona, a ship carrying international brigade members. It will be the end of an adventure that started with a photograph and it will be necessary to see how it continues in the future. The historical memory of that race 80 years ago has been recovered, but only in part. We still need to know who all those cyclists were in the first edition, a distant 1937.
