It is just after four in the morning.
The cyclist leaves the house.
The air is so heavy it feels like breathing through water.
He pedals slowly.
There is no one around.
After an hour he reaches the foot of a climb he hasn’t ridden in a long time.
It is steeper than he remembers.
He shifts into his last gear.
His legs slow down.
Every metre seems to ask permission from the next.
He cannot lose his focus.
If he thinks too much, he loses his rhythm.
If he looks too far ahead, the climb grows taller.
So he keeps his eyes on the patch of road just beyond his front wheel.
One metre.
Then another.
Then another.
Sweat runs into his eyes.
Breathe.
Pedal.
Breathe.
Pedal.
Halfway up, he notices that the air has changed.
It has become cooler.
The effort is the same.
He is the one who has changed.
A little farther on he sees an old man sitting at the side of the road.
No bicycle.
No backpack.
He seems to be waiting for someone.
As the cyclist rides past, the old man says only one word.
“Finally.”
The cyclist continues for a few metres, then turns around.
“Finally… what?”
The old man is gone.
There is no path.
No trees to hide behind.
Only the road climbing into the morning.
The cyclist keeps riding.
For the rest of the climb, that single word stays with him.
Finally.
When he reaches the top, he feels no sense of victory.
Only silence.
He keeps pedalling.
It is only on the way home that he understands who the old man had been waiting for.
Not him.
His effort.
Because the effort was never the obstacle.
It was the appointment.
He arrives home just after half past eight.
His legs are tired.
His jersey is soaked with sweat.
And he is wearing a smile as wide as the sky.
Because that morning he imagined nothing.
He simply lived.
Riccardo 