Il Lombardia

The morning came up cool, and I rolled out of Cantù with a buff and a pair of borrowed arm warmers, in the middle of a big crowd and more than ten minutes behind the scheduled time. The first image I’ll never forget came early: four peaks standing out of the mist, a postcard worth the trip on its own. I warmed up first, then broke my legs getting to the Muro di Sormano on a nicely rolling course — and here’s a note only someone who rode the Eroica the week before will understand: after a whole race on a classic bike on the sterrato, fighting with downtube shifters, or with the lack of gears altogether, going back to a normal wide-range drivetrain was pure luxury.

The climb to the Sormano starts in earnest after a church on the left, and I attacked it at a good rhythm. Hard, with one forced foot down when a curtain of spectators closed in front of me, that climb did me a world of good: traction the whole way, calm enough not to hit the redline, out of the saddle only in the last few meters to rest my legs. And up at the top, the Sormano astronomical observatory.

A thing or two at the feed, the vest back on, and I threw myself at the descent — an extremely long one. Against my usual habit, I didn’t push it: everything was very wet and I decided not to risk it. And that was when the landscape lived up to the name of the race — the fallen leaves, the low light, all of it beautiful, along the shore of Lake Como.

And then we got to the heart of the day: the climb to the Madonna del Ghisallo, the chapel of the patron saint of cyclists, with another of those enormous views. I’d visited it the day before, along with the fantastic cycling museum right next door. The bikes of the champions, the maillots, the photographs, the feeling bordering on the divine when you walk in — every person who loves cycling has to live that. I know who would have stayed in there a good long while.

But back to the race: right on the straight below the chapel I dropped two gears and the chain came off in grand style, exactly at the critical part, the part where the difference gets made and the matches get burned. Damn! Stop, put the chain back on, get going and pull as hard as I could to the top. The Madonna was done.

Then a feed, a moment, and on to another long descent. I got into a good group, TGV mode, and even did a ten-minute pull on the front. After that it was in and out of villages on good surfaces, with a short 10 percent climb in the middle to calm everybody down, and leg-breaking rolling terrain over the last twelve miles. The final climb to the Piazza Garibaldi in Cantù. The fifth Monument.