“I go so hard uphill to shorten my agony”. This is how Marco Pantani tried to explain the meaning of what he did: the vertigo of the climb. When the Pirata sprinted, Italy stopped. His sprints had become a sort of mass orgiastic ritual. The bandana was off, the head down, the hands on the handlebars in the sprint position, the grimace of pain that looked like a bitter smile. In the climb, ever since cycling was born - in this extraordinarily close to mountaineering - there is the highest moment of a sport that speaks with sweat, muscles and heart as well as wheels and pedals. An absurd claim to try to conquer the climbs. A challenge to one's own limits and to fatigue, which for a strange alchemy, physical but also inner, is transformed into elation and intimate joy only on arrival. At the top. Where the infinitely small becomes everything.