Feel The Race: Tasting Saremo

And we hungrily throw ourselves into its 293 km, after a winter that for five months has slowly starved us of cycling. The true cycling of the Classics.

293 km is a classic Italian portion. However hungry you are when you sit down, you can be sure that you will be sated and full at the end.

Milan-San Remo is a meal with a lengthy menu, made up of an infinite number of dishes. The truly delicious dishes come at the end. You have to be careful at the beginning, not to be too greedy. You have to leave some room for dessert, otherwise you’ll go home with a bitter taste in your mouth.

Milan-San Remo is like the delicious Ligurian Focaccia. Seems easy right? It’s just water, flour and yeast. But you try making it like they do.

Milan-San Remo has the taste of rice cakes and sandwiches with jam and cream cheese. It’s the nauseous sweetness of energy gels and Maltodextrin. It’s eating when you’re not hungry and drinking when you’re not thirsty.

The Capo Mele, Capo Cervo, Capo Berta, Cipressa and Poggio are a row of shots on the flat counter of the bar. Bum. Bum, bum, one after the other, until your head starts spinning and only one is left standing.

Pogačar on the Poggio was like a chef grappling with a T-bone steak. Full searing heat, turning it over often to grill everything inside and out. They were nearly all well done but, unfortunately for him, someone was still fresh.

The Poggio has the taste of blood in your mouth after 10 minutes at 1300 VAM. Coming after seven hours of racing.

Whoever launches the sprint in Via Roma is the one who orders a last round of drinks, when everyone is done in. But it’s also the intense flavor of an Italian espresso that in a few meters, a few drops, pumps you with the charge of caffeine.

Winning a Milan-Sanremo with a dropper post is an experiment of fusion cuisine. It brings together road and mountain bike. You wouldn’t expect them to go together and yet, they’re perfect together. Like cheese and pears, caviar and white chocolate.

Milan-San Remo can be as sweet as honey if it smiles on you or salty like seawater if it betrays you.

Milan-San Remo tastes like a good Negroni. A third - sharp and pungent, like the Campari of the start in Milan. A third - demanding and complex like the Vermouth. A third - springlike, like a fresh and floral gin. The perfect Italian aperitif for Classics season, whilst we wait for the main dishes of the upcoming weeks.