There could not have been a more perfect location than the Vigorelli velodrome for the launch of a book that tells the stories of world champions and rock stars united by their love for two wheels.

Today at the historic Milan facility, Antonio Colombo and Giacomo Pellizzari presented A.C. Confidential. My Life Between Art, Bicycle and Design. A hybrid entrepreneurial venture that revolutionized the very idea of cycling, available in bookstores starting tomorrow thanks to Ediciclo Editore, and applauded today by Rome 1960 gold medalist Marino Vigna and many other figures from the world of two wheels.

«If a steel tube, beyond being crafted to perfection, cold-drawn with our machinery, also carries with it a bit of Aristotle and Keith Richards, it certainly doesn't hurt». It is with this disruptive vision that Antonio Colombo changed the history of cycling, design and art. Written jointly with writer Giacomo Pellizzari, the book traces the stages of an intense and unique existence, which today the two authors recounted in a pleasant conversation full of tasty anecdotes with the director of tuttoBICI Pier Augusto Stagi and singer Fabio Treves, harmonica player and Colombo's schoolmate.

Son of Angelo Luigi Colombo, who in 1932 obtained the exclusive rights to manufacture steel tube furniture for Zurich's Wohnbedarf based on architect Marcel Breuer's design—one of the main exponents of the Bauhaus and creator of the famous Wassily chair—young Antonio fled Milan to immerse himself in the London of the British Invasion and the counterculture of the late 1960s. Upon his return to Italy during the Years of Lead, he intuited that his family's vocation could become a means of artistic expression and that the bicycle was the link between matter and art.

After (re)founding Columbus tubes in 1976 and acquiring the Cinelli brand in 1978, Colombo triggered three revolutions in the European market:

- Design Innovation: he transformed the bicycle into a true icon. He introduced Europe's first mountain bike (the famous "Rampichino" in 1985), launched the first continental BMX, the first gravel bike and the first fixed-gear bicycle, intuitions that anticipated the market by years. In 1991, the Laser model won the Compasso d'Oro, the most important award in Italian design: the first case in bicycle history.

- Epic Cycling: the giants of two wheels pedaled on his steel bicycles. The pinnacle was the Voladora, the frame with which Francesco Moser set, twice consecutively within three days, the hour record on the track in 1984, an achievement still considered historic today.

- Pop and Artistic Community: around Colombo-Cinelli bikes gathered a community of internationally renowned creatives, including Keith Haring, Mario Schifano, Alessandro Mendini, Russ Pope, Mike Giant and Barry McGee, who transformed frames into true traveling works of art. A new aesthetic that also conquered world icons like Steve Jobs and Fidel Castro and music stars like Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Jovanotti, Nannini and Ligabue.

Today the protagonist's hybrid vocation has found a home in Colombo's Gallery (since 1998) and in Colombo's Archive (located in the original former facilities on via dei Pestagalli in Milan), places where his three souls coexist: art, bicycle and design.

This pedaled life between industry and beauty is now beautifully told across 208 precious pages waiting to be explored. Happy reading.