As you walk through the spacious rooms of the Hotel Tritone and pay attention to the details, you will notice some real historical gems that make our hotel unique. There are five vintage bicycles that bear witness to memorable traditions and skills, the memory of which should be kept alive, even decades later.

Why display the two wheels of trades of the past?

Walter Poli, the General Manager, collects these bikes and values their stories. Each of them is a travelling shop with everything needed to do a job: tools of the trade, raw materials, and even weapons. In fact, two of these bikes are military and belonged to two soldiers: one Italian and one Swiss.

These relics also have a fascinating complexity in common, which manifests itself in modest but surprising details. With the aim of bringing these operational aspects to the surface, together with the tiring lives of these enterprising workers and indefatigable soldiers, Walter Poli collects and exhibits these bikes at the Hotel.

Let’s discover their secrets.

The aroma that surrounded the vehicle used by the coffee seller

The first relic can be admired in the area between the reception and the restaurant. The coffee seller pedalled to bring the scent of the precious beans into homes. On the bike, you can still see everything needed to roast and grind “Biffi coffee”.

This bicycle, along with the others, was found and assembled by Walter Poli with the help of a well-known Rimini collector, Delfo Aldini.

The cooper: memories of a craft lost in time

The cooper (or bottaro) was someone who fixed barrels: a profession that has since disappeared. The cooper’s bike is located next to the coffee seller’s, and is the one our General Manager appreciates the most, due to its wealth of detail. The way the tools and accessories are attached to each other shows how these professionals had to be ingenious in order to recreate the workshop around their bike.

Many of these objects have been recovered over years: as collectors know, it takes time to reconstruct or reassemble a vintage bike. It’s a painstaking job that requires a good deal of patience to search through antique dealers and enthusiasts for all the original parts.

Conquering the knife-grinder’s interesting bike

The knife-grinder’s bike is located in one of the hotel’s corridors. Here, too, the owner’s resourcefulness is revealed when you observe the relic up close. The simple but functional mechanism allowed the grinder to detach the bike’s chain and attach the grinding wheel to it, which worked with a small tank that wet the wheel.

This antique was bought by Walter Poli from a collector in Florence, who only agreed to part with it after a grappa-flavoured chat and testing our General Manager’s strong passion for these vintage objects.

The brilliant technology of the fireman’s bike

This bike is located next to the windows overlooking part of the garden, along the corridor that also houses the military bikes. It’s an English bicycle from the 1900s, equipped with carbide lights and an ingenious mechanism that uses the energy produced by the dynamo to operate the siren.

The innovation of the early 1900s in the Italian soldier’s bike

Dating from the First World War, this bicycle is packed with accessories and technology that was advanced for the time. Probably belonging to a cycling bersagliere (a sharpshooter in the Italian army), this vehicle folded in half to allow the soldier to carry it on his shoulder. It is also equipped with puncture-proof solid tyres and is shock-absorbent.

In keeping with its history, this bike is also made up of original parts or faithful reproductions – a fidelity that has made it difficult to bring this piece back to life. It took around fifteen years to assemble all the parts, and it was pure luck that led to finding a missing accessory, the Carcano rifle, at a trade fair in Bologna.

The Swiss soldier’s vehicle

This period object is also rich in components. Of particular interest is the small bag under the post, which was used to hold documents, the gun, and tools for repairing the bike.

These are not the only relics that Walter Poli collects, but they are the only ones to find a place in the spacious areas of the Hotel Tritone. Patience and attention to detail, the hallmarks of the collector, are qualities that our General Manager does not lack. Not only does he use them to collect and put together these heirlooms, but also – and we know that this does not escape our Guests’ notice – to manage the Hotel Tritone.

To stay at the Hotel Tritone and discover all its secrets, write to us here or call us on (+39) 049 866 8099