Eroica cycling races through the world, head held high, enjoying the countryside, passing through places nestled in beauty and animated by the intense passion of the people who live there, whose history and traditions make them unique.

On the morning of L’Eroica, riders, with dew on their faces, cycle through the last nighttime hours before stopping to listen to the poetry of the sun as it spreads its rays over the countryside.

As bicycle tyres make their mark on the white roads, we remember that we all learned to ride a bike when we were young. For this reason, in Eroica cycling, sport is fun without competition.

Flying along, you salute someone you know on a climb in Britain and hug them again at a food stop in Gaiole a year later; people without borders with whom you sweated, shared a laugh and some fun on the other side of the world, with all the passion that is in you. Together with these same people, you wait for registration for a new Eroica to open, perhaps in a country that you’ve never visited, so that you can push yourself beyond your own horizons and find yourself among friends enjoying a new experience.

The definitive answer to the question “why have an Eroica on the other side of the world?” is simple and was suggested to me by an elderly lady from Palermo that I met on a cliff in Bigsur, when I was on my way to Cambria from San Francisco for Eroica California, on my Bianchi: “It’s worth coming here. It is so beautiful. Actually, the whole world is beautiful!”.

Cristina Rauso