THAT TIME… RENATA, DAUGHTER OF THE FOUNDER OF THE MANDELLI GROUP, SHARES HER CHILDHOOD MEMORIES.

by Dora Marraffa

She arrives with a quick ticking sound that heralds her lively spirit. And the smile with which she sits down confirms Renata Mandelli's brightness and vitality: the daughter of the founder of the Mandelli Group seems to truly embody all the joy that defines the soul of the BRERA brand.

We asked Mrs. Renata – as everyone in the company calls her – to share her childhood memories to delve into the most intimate origins of a business family whose destiny is the bicycle .

Home and shop.

"Well, my father started after the war with a mechanical workshop attached to a gas station, and then, little by little, he became a wholesaler: we lived above his office, and I perfectly remember the smell of the warehouse and the tapping of the rims that I would hear at night when I was in bed as a child. I have to admit, I was a little scared of it."

That fear turns into nostalgia in Mrs. Renata’s words as she recalls her father, always out making deliveries... "Often, I would go with him and my mom, and I have a vivid memory of that time when my mom made a terrible stop because I had suddenly flung open the door of our little truck while we were on our way to deliver some bicycles."

Yes, because Riccardo Mandelli, Renata's father, not only repaired cars and motorcycles in his workshop, but he also fixed and sold bicycles.

A big heart.

And here Renata recalls how, as a child, she once knocked over an entire row of bicycles. "I don’t know how I did it, but they all fell down, one after the other." She smiles with her eyes at the memory of her father’s reaction to her disaster and then goes on to talk about how big-hearted he was.

“Dad was a dynamic person; he worked his whole life. His work was his passion, but he was also a very generous man: even today, people thank me because, without his help, they wouldn’t have made it.” Now that Mrs. Renata is 68 years old (carrying her youthful freshness enviably), and still works in the company, she continues to remind her children, who now run the Mandelli Group, to keep their grandfather Riccardo’s legacy alive. “Even if we must keep up with the times, never forget a little humanity."

How many peels.

Then Renata goes on to talk about her falls on the bike. "Kids today don’t scrape their knees like we used to, while we were always out on our bicycles... I will never forget the time I tumbled into the ditch." Also etched in her memory is the freezing cold she endured in the winter when cycling to school. "Oh, the cold, the cold! Back then, we didn’t have thermal jackets like we do today!"

The baptism of the flower bed.

From her childhood bicycle to the Malaguti Dribbling as a teenager, and now to her current Broadway bike, Renata has never stopped riding on two wheels. "Now I enjoy cycling around with my friends and riding a motorcycle (still a Malaguti!) with my husband." But more than anything else in the world, as a grandmother, she loves watching her grandchildren zoom down the garage slope like madmen, crashing into the flowerbed. "Never without a helmet, though!".