It's a popular novel. It's a family saga. It's a sentimental guide. It's a film that begins sepia-toned, grows in black and white, and matures in color. It's a photographic album. It's a book that tastes of blood, sweat, and tears, of joys and sorrows, of smiles and grimaces, of records and memories. But the title does not do justice to the work. "Milano Sport System" seems to have come from a marketing research or an IT bulletin, and does not correspond to those "places, portraits, and stories of a long popular passion", as the subtitle explains.

Gino Cervi and Sergio Giuntini are the authors (with contributions from Claudio Arrigoni and Claudio Sanfilippo and previous contributions, in the 2012 edition, from Silvano Calzini and Sergio Meda), About Cities the publishing house, 448 pages, 34x25 format and about 3 kg in weight, the price of 49.90 - considering the richness of the work - reasonable. Twenty chapters: track and field, baseball, basketball, boxing, football, cycling, American football, ice snow mountain, gymnastics, horse racing, motors, volleyball, words and sports, rugby, fencing, multi-sport societies, water sports, Paralympic sports, sports and university, tennis. Additional pages dedicated to street sports. And an introduction ("Milan, sports and the time machine") signed by Cervi. More photos, more graphs, more posters, more covers, more than 300. Plus the bibliography.

Cycling occupies pages 164 to 199. It tells of Milan as the cradle of pedal machines, and then of the races baptized here, from Milano-Sanremo to the Giro d'Italia, and then of a special place, the Vigorelli, and another, the Palazzo dello Sport in Piazza VI Febbraio, where the Six Days were held, and then the portraits of two track giants, Antonio Maspes and Nando Terruzzi. As in the structure identical to all chapters, there are journalistic citations (Mario Fossati on Fausto Coppi, Gianni Brera on Walter Chiari and Camilla Cederna in the Six Days parterre), historical curiosities (the Beatles at Vigorelli in 1965), historical gratifications (for the Milanese Marino Vigna) and artistic illustrations (the poster by Gino Boccasile for the Milano-Sanremo on the Vigorelli track in 1936).

Milan had its heart in hand, and sports made it beat strongly. Chills and breathlessness. There is no sport in Milan that has not experienced memorable days, but also days one way or another, days of daily life, days of community life, days that gave belonging, solidarity, even moral solidity, because sports are, by their very nature, ethical. Milan has given much, received much, changed much, is still changing, even now. The great popular novel now seems linked only to football, Inter and Milan, the rest belongs to clans and clubs, circles and cenacles, small brave societies that stand only thanks to will and volunteerism, tradition and dedication, moreover, to devotion, a personal commitment more than a public one, a Guinness of private achievements rather than records. Digging, one would still discover diamonds and gems.

The book by Cervi and Giuntini illustrates and suggests, reminds and exhumes, a good basis for restarting to delve into city stories and metropolitan geographies, human and architectural maps, ancient grammars that, far from being a "system", continue to give meaning to all this running, all this pedaling, all this tackling, identifying a finish line, a basket, a goal, and a difficult but honest, loyal way to try to arrive.