By Sophie
Pedaling, and continuing to pedal, running away from thoughts, running away from yourself, as if there were no tomorrow, because that's the only way it can pass... That all-consuming anxiety, that scream inside you, that makes your head empty, and your heart like lead, and your legs explosive.
You feel like you're in pieces, and you're going really fast. When you arrive you want to shout to the world how bad you feel, but how can you, everyone finds you in such an exceptional state of shape! But what scientific methods, but what dieticians, but what secrets. Anger, desperation, madness. And fear of bursting into tears. Somewhere in your brain a stupid song, that you don't like, and that won't leave you alone. You want to get back on the saddle right away. Call it passion, if you want.
What is “Questo Giro”.
Hello Giovanni, hello Rosti! “Questo Giro” is the live account of what goes on in the minds and hearts of nameless riders, who must remain so for a series of problems that you can imagine. During the winter I contacted and interviewed riders from different teams; the question I asked was: what does a cyclist think about while pedaling for hours and hours? Nothing, is the first answer. The second answer is: the race, the route, the times, the legs, the opponents, the teammates, the team strategies. The third answer is the one that struck me: I think about my life, my story, the things that really matter to me, I think about all those things that I normally don't allow myself to think about.
Here, this is the theme of the experimental report that I will do for Rosti in this Giro. The inner life of the rider while he runs the Giro. I can't tell you who my sources are, what team they race for, how I will be in daily contact with them, you understand, it would be problems. So with this disclaimer I take full responsibility, and I declare "This Giro" a work of fiction, the fruit of my imagination. Therefore, the states of mind and the anxieties parallel to the story of the race cannot be traced back to real subjects. This will not prevent the reader, the cyclist, from recognizing himself in the story.
I will send you “Questo Giro” as a novel in installments, every 4-5 stages, 4-5 installments in total, to be read in the evening, as a diary of the race, in addition to the daily news.
What I want is to give voice to the deep, the unconscious, the impulses, the energy of the mind and the viscera that is unleashed when you get on the saddle. I am not interested in understanding whether the "power of thought, or of feelings" makes you go faster, but on the contrary, whether riding a bike is a way to "give way" to your psychological and emotional dimension, to imprisoned thoughts, to blocked feelings.
Bye, see you soon! Sophie!