Of these 192 pages, six in number, but five in space, and the space is that of a pocket-sized book, they tell of cycling. Yet these six, or rather, five pages are more than enough for a bicycle lover to remember, consult, learn, ruminate, and dig into their depth (and for a non-lover to fall in love).

The little chapter is titled "Giro d'Italia", the work "La Gloria", the author is Aurelio Picca, the publisher Baldini+Castoldi, the price is 17 euros, the only condition required is to dedicate some time to read the entire booklet, because besides this little but abundant cycling, there are also football, horses, motors, boxing, weightlifting.

"La Gloria" is written in the first person. The opening of "Giro d'Italia" is striking: "The teacher asks the student in the back row: 'What is light?'. The child answers: 'The Giro d'Italia'. That child was me". How true: the light. Even in the rain, even in the fog, even in a tunnel.

Picca recounts: "At 2 years old, my grandfather had given me a tricycle blood-pigeon red. Perhaps Ferrari red. Or Alfa Romeo red". The color of speed. Which is, precisely, light. "I would ride through the legs of big men with golden teeth, without arms and legs, being invalids from the last war. There was a smell of wine and hard-boiled eggs; of salt and pepper. The drinkers wore worn-out jackets but sewn by a tailor; white shirts with a frayed collar but with buttons that would never come off, so perfect was the stem".

What does this have to do with it? It does. It does. "The patrons would smile at me, and I imagine they were rooting for Bartali and Coppi. The riders in black and white up the unpaved climbs with steel mountains. Skinny as birds ready to die from the effort. Yet they never died. The bicycle riders I didn't yet know, I had never even seen on TV. It seemed they were pushing wheel to wheel, side by side like boxers, not cyclists".

I don't want to reproduce the entire chapter, I believe there are also copyright issues to respect, five minutes later they'll track you down to ask for damages, and the damages are fines to pay. I don't want to reproduce it also to not immediately reveal the surprise, the plot, the landscapes. Cheering for Gianni Motta and not for Felice Gimondi, and then anyway for Gimondi, the challenges with Eddy Merckx, the appearance of Marco Pantani, the coincidence of having slept in a room at the Le Rose residence where the Pirate died "as if someone had used disproportionate violence to harm a small, enormous man".

And above all, the Giro d'Italia. I can't resist the temptation and quote, hoping for the court's clemency: "The Giro d'Italia is a journey through the body of the homeland. I always imagined it upside down. With wheels up and cyclist bodies down. It's an aerial journey while staying attached to the ground. Sometimes it's the roads that twist the bicycles; sometimes the bell towers that make them small; other times it's the rivers and seas that make them disappear or swallow them".

Well, thank you.