The Chapel By Joe Lindsey Fabio Casartelli's bicycle from his fatal 1995 Tour de France crash. He hit a concrete barrier on the descent following the Col du Portet. At the top we removed our sweaty helmets, and like boys nervously combing their hair on the doorstep of a date's house, we tried to make ourselves presentable to the Madonna.
Many chapels have statues of canonized saints in the alcoves lining the sanctuary.
The famous Cathedral of Saint Michael in Brussels, Belgium, has them lining the rows of pews from the rear of the chapel all the way to the pulpit. While St. Michael's dwarfs the tiny chapel of the Madonna in Magr glio, I had the same sense of being watched. However, instead of marble statuary, the saints of cycling are represented by their equipment. Casartelli later died from his injuries. Not all of the chapel's remembrances are so macabre.