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Giro d’Italia 2025. All that remains

There were no more conversations. Maybe only short sentences, broken off in the middle, like thoughts during the climb. The last block ahead of them. A mountain, another one. A valley from which you don’t want to leave. A night that doesn’t bring sleep.

From Piazzola sul Brenta everything still seems calm. Flat, ordinary. But that’s just an illusion. The further you go, the more the landscape begins to say: get ready. The road doesn’t shout. It rises. Continuously. In the shadow of the forest, in a spiral of bends that never end. San Valentino – a celebration of faith. Not the kind of prayer. Only the kind of body. When everything else has already given up. When only a voice remains, quiet, from deep in the muscles: “A little more.” Fede – faith – is not a conviction. It is a decision repeated with every breath.

You can smell thyme. Not from the garden, but from the ditches, from the stone walls that give off the scent of heated herbs all day long. It wafts through the nostrils along with the sweat mixed with grease. This is not aromatherapy. This is a sensual test of survival.

Antonio Tiberi is in the group. A young Italian. Not yet a legend. But who knows. He has stubbornness and anxiety in his eyes. As if he doesn’t quite believe that all this is really happening. As if he keeps asking himself: “will I make it?”. But he rides. Like an eagle that, when released into the air, doesn’t ask questions – it just looks for direction.

Then the vertical. The wall. It’s no longer a road, it’s verticale – verticality. A string of asphalt driven into the slope. Bormio looms somewhere high up, but it’s not a reward. It’s just a place that waits. The mountains don’t ask questions. They don’t forgive. The question lurks in every bend: should I go down or keep going?

At this stage, everything slides off – ego, pride, dreams. Only the body remains. And the cold. Because there is always a wind up there. Where yesterday they rode sideways, today they are simply trying to survive. They say that Vincenzo Nibali lost time on this road. And that it was then that he learned to win.

And again flat. It seems easier, but there is no easier way. Morbegno to Cesano Maderno. A landscape like wallpaper in an office: roundabouts, petrol stations, bus stops without people. Here comes the abbandono – abandonment. The body rides. The soul is left behind. Even the wind seems bored. But no one stops. Maybe because there is no reason to anymore. Or because they have to.

This is the moment when some people get off their bikes. Maybe one of the favourites. Maybe someone who yesterday they called the new eagle of the Apennines. But maybe the one who rides on – in silence – will turn out to be a real hero. Not the one on the posters. Only from the road.

Champoluc is not a city. This is the end of the world. Biella is unfastened from civilization like an old button. Even breathing is lonely here. Solitudine – solitude – does not mean the absence of people. It is their presence that changes nothing. The cyclist rides next to others, but inside there is only emptiness. Entering the valley, you can feel the changeability of the air – the dampness of the spruces, the smell of lavender from the balconies, the smoke from the first furnaces. All this is mixed with sweat, fatigue and something else – some old dream that you cannot remember.

Maybe Damiano Caruso rode this way once. Maybe he still remembers that lonely rally in the Dolomites. Or maybe he doesn’t remember anything anymore – because the Giro teaches you to forget in order to survive.

And then one more thing. Finestre. The last wall. Destino – destiny. Where else could you still pretend. Not here. Here, everyone knows who they are. The gravel slides under the wheels, the heart rate beats like a drum. And in front of you only Sestriere. And in your head only the question: “did it all make sense?” Maybe it didn’t. But you have to get there anyway.

And then Rome. The Vatican. The square from which they leave for the last time. Fine – the end. But one that has no line, no explosion, no anthem. The cyclists ride quietly. Side by side. Some laugh. Others cry. Piazza Venezia. The Colosseum. The Roman Forum. The stones don’t comment. The stones just watch. They know that everything ends.
This last stage – quietly, without competition – was to be dedicated to someone who also believes in the journey. In simplicity. In silence. Pope Francis – the son of Argentina, the bishop of Rome – never shouted. He spoke of hope, of poverty, of perseverance. Maybe that is why his name was mentioned on the route, by commentators, in a message to the world. Because who, if not him, would understand fatigue? Who would know better than him that being last can be harder than being first?

Someone will eat real gelato in a side street. Someone will drink espresso by a wall full of old photos. And then only one day of silence remains. And back. To a life that is not the Giro. To a world that knows no climbs. No mountains. And does not know what it means to survive.