Growing in poverty in rural Tuscany, Gino Bartali nonetheless rose to the top ranks of cyclists, winning the 1938 Tour de France. As World War II ravaged Europe, Bartali aided the Italian Resistance, sheltering a family of Jews and smuggling counterfeit identity documents in the frame of his bicycle. After the wartime years, the chain-smoking, Chianti-loving, 34-year-old underdog came back to win the 1948 Tour de France, and as Aili and Andres McConnon recount here, his exhilarating performance helped unite his fractured homeland.