of those they were helping. Bartali used to leave Florence in the morning, pretending to train, ride to Assisi where many Jews were hiding in the Franciscan convents, collect their photographs and ride back to Nissim. At Assisi Bartali was in direct contact with Rufino Niccacci. Bartali also used his position to learn about raids on safehouses. Bartali was eventually taken to Villa Triste in Florence. The SD and the Italian RSS official Mario Carità questioned Bartali, threatening his life. In spite of any threats, Bartali did not reveal what he had done. Even after the war he never boasted his merits; he used to say: "The good is done, but it is not said. And certain medals hang on the soul, not on the jacket." Bartali continued working with the Assisi Network. In 1943, he led Jewish refugees towards the Swiss Alps himself. He cycled, pulling a wagon with a secret compartment, telling patrols it was just part of his training. Bartali told his son Andrea only that "One does these things and then that's that". In June 2012, a book about Bartali's wartime activities, Road To Valor by Aili and Andres McConnon, was published. In 2013, Yad Vashem awarded Gino Bartali the honour Righteous Among the Nations. He is a central figure in the 2014 documentary My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes. In 2007, the script for a movie based on Bartali during World War II, called Lion Man of Tuscany was on the Black List, a survey of the "most liked" un-produced scripts in Hollywood. In 2017, research by Michele Sarfatti questioned Bartali's efforts to save Jewish lives, referring to the very limited sources and contradicting that Bartali would have described this in his diaries. In 2021, Marco and Stefano Pivato corroborated this stance by Sarfatti, calling the whole story 'invented' ('una storia inventata'). Riding style and legacy Bartali was a good climber and a pioneer of derailleur gears. His style was unusual: he rarely danced on the pedals and often stayed in the saddle throughout a 15 km climb. When others attacked, he stayed in the saddle but changed up a gear, to a sprocket three teeth smaller. He rode smoothly on mountains but every now and then freewheeled, always with his right foot lowered with his weight on it. Then a second or two later he would start pedalling again. Bartali's feat of winning three