INSIDE ITALY’S DARKEST DAYS

I’m in Turin, a couple of hours west of the epicentre. However, Italian bike racing history is my job and passion, and as such I know a lot of people in and around Bergamo and Brescia. The corridor either side of the A4 motorway has always been the Italian cycling stronghold, and nobody there hasn’t been touched by it. Just last month I spoke to Pierino Gavazzi for

Procycling, about his win at Milan-San Remo. As I write he’s fighting for his life.

The virus is all around us, and the lockdown was total pretty much from the off. There’s no cycling whatsoever, and no anything else. At first, amateur riders tried to interpret the decree to the effect that solo riding was necessary for ‘mental health’. Then Vincenzo Nibali and Davide Cassani, the leaders of the Italian cycling movement, made it plain that to risk hospitalising oneself in these circumstances would be profoundly, indescribably selfish.

It would be nice to think that as a species we’ll be much the better for it. However, all we really know is that we’ll be poorer, and there will fewer of us. In a cycling context, races and teams will go to the wall. Our sport relies on sponsorship and public money, so while ASO and RCS have deep pockets, the below stairs of the calendar will contract and a lot of the ‘punctuation marks’ of the season will disappear. Communities which have hosted races for decades are going to lose them.

That said, cycling has survived two World Wars, the doping tsunami and a century of profound behavioural and cultural change. It’s survived the car and its own catastrophic governance, and one way or another it will survive this. Long after the internal combustion engine has disappeared – and for as long as we inhabit this planet – the bike will still be around, and where there are bikes there are races. Bike sales always increase in times of recession and so, as we keep reminding ourselves, andrà tutto bene. Everything will be alright. Forza ciclismo.