We will become friends on our bicycles. On the steepest climbs, on the scariest descents, if a flat tire stops us; a cyclist anonymous until a moment ago will stop for us. We know it, we all do it, because we know what loneliness on the road feels like.
Peace is born of small acts of solidarity. It is not only about dismantling the atom or stopping the sale of weapons. Every day is an open front: fifty-one declared conflicts and the silent wars of economic injustice. Choosing peace means refusing to get used to tragedies; it is a world awakening without walls or barbed wire. The white flag is not a sign of surrender but the courage to take the first steps toward others. Peace is relationship, training our gaze on a different future. To gunfire we respond with one pedal stroke after another, one step after another; we speak of peace through a simple gesture.
We choose peace the moment we see ourselves when we look at others.
Peace is when we leave the passing lane to ride alongside a stranger and ask how they are; peace is not knowing whether it was Bartali or Coppi who passed the water bottle to whom—we will never know, the gesture alone is enough.
This is what the Maratona is: thousands of stories meeting and breathing at the same altitude, where the mountain becomes a symbol of fairness. We are small, but our task is immense: to think peace, to speak of it and to act, and we will do so with every turn of the pedals. Because peace is a dream we can make real, a road we can travel together, a place where we can truly go in peace.
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” — M. L. King
Michil Costa
