"He triumphs like the heroes of Homeric cycling, dirty and wounded, suffering and proud, lonely and cunning: the" other times "have therefore remained here, and warm our hearts". Thus, Maurizio Crosetti on La Repubblica defined Sonny Colbrelli's victory at the Paris-Roubaix , a success for which the adjectives "epic" and "heroic" were even used excessively: but this time, let us say, that's okay. It's also okay to cry with Sonny at the finish line, all ideally exhausted, lying on the velodrome grass, happy and excited, hoping that moment will never end. Because winning the Roubaix is equivalent to entering the history of cycling, but winning it in this way goes beyond everything. “Look at the photograph of the three cyclists upon arrival - continues Crosetti - they look like the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the warriors who had to serve and defend him even in the Hereafter. Faceless runners, casts of dust where only the lips seem to retain human substance and tremble, rosy, in joy and misfortune, rippling in Sonny's smile and in the grimaces of the other two, the beaten ones. on the side of the road, in the grass of Roubaix.

Pier Bergonzi in the Gazzetta dello sport considers “Sonny's face the color of Roubaix, or the color of dreams. The mud of the Northern Hell is a mask that redesigns an ancient cycling face. Then when the rain incognizes the pavé sections, then the most anachronistic and fascinating of the Monument Trials becomes a novel, indeed it becomes the stage for the new heroes of Greek tragedy. Each one brings his psychological dimension on his bike, each of them struggles with falls, punctures, mechanical accidents that are never more fixed on the menu than in Roubaix.  

Francesco Moser won three times among those tremendous stones and this morning he wrote for La Stampa : "That's how Roubaix is, you have to face it without fear, with a free spirit because if in the stones, in addition to the mud, you also have fear on you, you won't mica cables. Since he won the European Championship, he has been racing in another way: now he runs the race, before he suffered it ”. Words that sound like an investiture and that mix with the emotions experienced on a Sunday in early October that we will remember for a long time; with the taste of mud and tears that for once, when mixed, becomes as sweet as sugar.

WATCH THE YOUTUBE LIVE ON PARIS-ROUBAIX   ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB9X7WuGG80

RIDE WITH SPECIALIZED ? https://www.specialized.com/it/it/shop/bikes/road-bikes/performance-road-bikes/tarmac/c/tarmac