Enticed by a 500 lire King of the Mountains prize on the Ghisallo climb, Binda rode from Nice to Milan in order to compete in the 1924 Tour of Lombardy. He won the prize, finished fourth in the race, and was immediately offered a contract with the Legnano professional team. The
1925 Giro d'Italia was to be the last of the legendary
campionissimo Costante Girardengo. All of Italy hoped he would prevail, and his defeat at the hands of Binda, a 23-year-old Giro debutant, was deeply unpopular. In the event Girardengo resolved to continue racing, and the two of them developed a caustic, deeply personal rivalry. As Girardengo's powers waned, Italians looked to
Domenico Piemontesi to usurp Binda but, much like everyone else, he was hopelessly out of his depth against the
fuoriclasse. In 1929 Girardengo "discovered" a prodigiously strong track rider from
Veneto,
Learco Guerra. He famously anointed him as his heir apparent, a new "anti-Binda". Guerra closely resembled Girardengo as a cyclist, and was hugely popular. He enjoyed the support of the
Italian Fascist Party, and by extension the press and wider sporting public. Binda, on the other hand, famously declared that he'd no interest in producing
spettacolo. Rather he was simply in the business of winning bike races, and each time he defeated Guerra the Italian public's antipathy grew. Whilst Guerra was homespun, expansive and open, Binda was perceived as cold and detached, pompous even. So dominant was he that the
Gazzetta dello Sport offered him 22,500 lire to miss the
Giro of 1930. Instead, he took part in that year's
Tour de France, winning two stages. Not until 1932, when he won a third
Cycling World Championship in Rome, did the public start to warm to him. By then he had redefined both training and racing methodology, and was arguably the greatest cyclist ever to have lived. All told he won the Giro a record five times in
1925,
1927,
1928,
1929 and
1933 (1933 was also the first year the Giro held a "
King of the Mountains" competition, which Binda won too). Besides the overall victories he won 41 stages (a record only broken in 2003 by
Mario Cipollini). In 1927, he won 12 out of 15 stages, and in 1929 he won 8 consecutive stages. In the
World Championships, Binda was also very successful. He won the title three times in 1927, 1930 and 1932 (a record later equalled by
Rik Van Steenbergen,
Eddy Merckx,
Óscar Freire and
Peter Sagan). In addition, he placed third in 1929. By the time he retired he had won over 120 races, including the
Italian Championships four times. == Legacy ==