"As a boy I was a bicycle racer. It was my heroic time, I adored the rustle of the light tires on the asphalt, the harsh odor of smoke, wetness, earth that I absorbed, my head tucked into my shoulders, bending over the handlebars through the towns, the countryside, the loose cobblestones in a sprint. Climbing up the hills at that time was dusty, exhausting work under the sun. Only someone who has fought for a long time on the roads can understand all of its poetry."

"I remember those years as a succcession of long sprints along dusty country roads, in the rain and the cold, because I even went out in the winter, I loved it so. I gave an epic content to that lyrical sense of life, youth, discovery that I had in my heart. The world was all there to know, all there to paint. In this way, little by little, my painting The Cyclist was born."

The pictures of cyclists, too, should be considered as part of the theme of sports which occupies such conspicuous and abundant space in his overall production.