What captivates cycling enthusiasts? Great achievements, perhaps. Important victories, certainly. Great champions, of course. Each of us, lovers of this beautiful sport, has our own answer. Today, if we may, we try to give ours. For us, who have the fortune of telling the story of cycling for a living, what captivates us are the stories, the achievements, the anecdotes told by those who lived them firsthand.

This is why we will never stop thanking Pietro Algeri for wanting to share with us - and with all the enthusiasts who have read and will read his book - his stories and the emotions he experienced over fifty years in cycling.

"My Long Race", this is the title of the work that the former professional cyclist, track rider and Bergamo-based coach has published (first edition April 2025), is the account that Algeri, born in 1950, gives of his love for the bicycle.  The bicycle, as Pietro writes in the opening pages of the book, is "a passion that has not yet abandoned me" and which led him to win Italian championships, world track championships and also participate in the Olympic Games, before becoming a professional and later guiding many champions of the '80s, '90s and 2000s from the team car.

In the book Algeri alternates accounts of sporting events with anecdotes and more personal stories. It starts with the Esordienti category, the category in which Pietro began racing, and continues year after year, chapter after chapter, team after team.

Yes, because the author chose to divide the chapters by years, pairing them with the teams he raced for and coached: we find La Cima in 1969 but Domus in the 1971-1972 biennium (in the Italian national jersey as world champion in team pursuit on the Varese Velodrome track and the five-ring experience in Munich, editor's note).

Page after page, pedal stroke after pedal stroke, Pietro Algeri tells of his early years as a professional alongside Gimondi in the Bianchi-Campagnolo team and the subsequent seasons with the jerseys of GBC Itla, Intercontinentale, Sapa and Amici della Pista.

The track, or rather the velodromes, and the six-day races: in this case too there are no shortage of stories and anecdotes all worth reading.

After concluding his racing career, Algeri moved to the team car. Pietro writes in the book: "In July 1982...I received a phone call from Ernesto Colnago who asked me to come to his office. We talked about the misfortune that had befallen Chiappano the day before...Colnago unexpectedly asked me if I wanted to take his place at Del Tongo Colnago...".

The following chapters are full of memories, accounts of races and triumphs with the champions Pietro guided: Saronni, Tonkov and Simoni, winners of three Giro d'Italia titles; but also Ballerini, Bugno, Bramati, Tafi, Museeuw, Camenzind, Serpellini, Missaglia and many others.

In the final part of the publication, Pietro Algeri recounts his last years in the peloton, those in which he guided the Shimano neutral support team. An experience that concluded at the Lombardia 2022.

"My Long Race" is a book that cannot be missing from the shelves of a cycling enthusiast: it can be read but also simply browsed to admire the many photos; there are the lineups of the various teams and some interesting statistics. But above all, on every page you find the simplicity and dignity that have always been some of the distinctive traits of the author.

PIETRO ALGERI – "MY LONG RACE": 50 years of cycling" 419 pages (with preface by Pier Bergonzi) Photo: the cover (from amazon)