Gino Bartali used to say that when you go to the other side, you arrive naked, or perhaps in a garment, a habit, a robe, but without pockets. Ivano Carrozzino presented himself this morning, but still with a dream, a desire, a project: to transform, for once in history, the Apennine Tour into the Cycling World Championship.

Carrozzino had turned 87 a month ago. He was a small great man, made even smaller by age. But his willpower, which was also faith - and it was unclear whether willpower fueled faith or faith produced willpower - was great, like that of a young adventurer. Life had forged and strengthened him, more internally than externally. Third grade, then work, a retailer, essentially a merchant in Pontedecimo, an industrial suburb of Genoa. His first bike at 14: a track bike, adapted for the road, with brakes, because dreaming is good but better with eyes wide open. A Coppi enthusiast, Carrozzino remembered seeing Fausto in Pontedecimo, accompanied by Sandrino Carrea and Ettore Milano, his guardian angels, on a small hill, getting off the bike to visit a spastic child. Perhaps he was pointed out by Luigi Ghiglione, patron of the Apennine Tour (then called the Apennine Circuit).

Cycling ignited in Carrozzino in 1971, when he sponsored the San Quirico Sports Club, and exploded when, in 2002, he was elected - unanimously, a consumed stratagem to prevent him from backing down - president of the Pontedecimo Sports Union. His first Apennine Tour in 2003, and almost to celebrate its baptism, on the Bocchetta Gibo Simoni climb he improved Marco Pantani's record: 21'54", two seconds less than Marco Pantani in 1995 and Pavel Tonkov in 1996. From then on, he was there, as a patron but also as a laborer, directing and representing but also moving chairs or barriers.

Carrozzino had a somewhat particular face, partly because he saw Genoa every day, partly because his face was a mix between Eduardo De Filippo and Alfredo Martini. He also had a climber's physique; they could have called him the "Bocchetta Flea" if he had raced professionally, but instead he pedaled only for passion, instinct, inspiration. Alps, Apennines, Pyrenees. He told me that of the most prestigious climbs, three were missing: the Stelvio, "which I want to do before I die" - though I don't think he did it - the Zoncolan and the Mortirolo, "which I don't want to do, otherwise I'll die". The others, from Izoard to Aubisque, from Ventoux to Tourmalet, all reached standing on the pedals. On the Agnello, he almost didn't make it. He confided: "A sudden snowstorm in the middle of summer almost froze us. Imerio Massignan saved us, in a small van, warming us, massaging us, and giving us chocolate to eat". As for "his" Bocchetta, he first tackled it at 60, and last at 76. Up there, at the top, the Bocchetta gives everyone a unique sensation: feeling like masters of the world. And perhaps this was the reason that drove old Ivano to care for, still and always, that precious, hard-earned, Coppi-like legacy.