“For 40 years I have led a sedentary lifestyle, I smoke, drink and eat too much.”
“The idea of cycling 100 km is almost inconceivable to me.”
“I willingly submit to this experiment.”
“Bergamo, former Brembana Valley railway. At the first slight ups and downs my legs already feel stiff, the temptation to turn back immediately, I'm no longer old enough, I'm not in shape, I can't do it. But then a sign appears that says: you are in the town of Gimondi”.
“Suddenly, another world. The road, the cars, the warehouses are no longer visible. It seems like being in the small ancient world of the Markliin trains. The little station, the barn, the terraced vineyard, the geese, the cobblestone paths. The route of the old railway winds softly halfway up the hill following the bends of the river”.
“In 50 km, 40 tunnels and 100 bridges and small bridges. Welcome to your childhood”
“Late Seventies, I had the orange Saltafoss, up and down Bergamo Alta and hills. On the roads you occasionally came across teams of riders in training. But for the rest of the time you only saw children in the park and old people in the villages of the lower part of the city on bikes”
“At 14 you had to have a moped, at 16 a motorbike, at 18 a driving licence and a car. In a few years you burned the myth of 100 km/h and then 200 km/h. Formula One was Marlboro, motorbikes were Lucky Strike. On TV you drank Glen Grant commercials”.
“Smoking and drinking were mandatory, speed cameras and breathalyzer tests didn’t exist, no one would have dreamed of riding a bike.”
“It wasn’t all our fault. When we turned 14 they took our bikes away forever.”
“Many of the problems of Generation X, the lost generation, began there.”
“But maybe even before, with powdered milk in the bottle instead of mom’s breast.
“The time to become men, and already they were throwing the first bottle-bottled breasts in our faces”
“Then they made us dream about how paradise was a place called Silicon Valley”
“In this mythical place that anyone could reach by locking themselves in a garage with a computer, then in an office, we made the IT revolution.”
“The first personal computers, the first video games, the first cell phones. Digital photography, management programs. The first connections, the first chats. We were convinced we were making an intelligent, creative revolution, for a future of freedom and the diffusion of knowledge”.
“We thought we were breaking old chains, we were creating new ones”
“Now, we want the bike back”
“We pass through the underground cement factory and under the Sedrina viaduct to the mythical 5 bridges of Zogno, one above the other and all over the ravine. An archi-fantasy of futurist antiquities, almost a remix of Piranesi's invented prisons and Sant'Elia's machine city.”
“Here two hundred years ago the reckless Pacì Paciana, the brigand of the Brembana Valley, hunted by the gendarmes, managed to escape by throwing himself into the river. He became an idol, a legend, elusive, generous, a friend of the oppressed, a new Robin Hood”
“Pacì Paciana then went to hide in the mountains, in the cabin of one of his most loyal followers who instead betrayed him to pocket the reward. He was hanged at the Fara in Bergamo Alta, and left exposed there for the whole summer, to be eaten by the crows, as a warning to all rebels”
“In San Pellegrino the outline of the new mega concrete bridge tagged with the mineral water brand. Wide, long, massive, intrusive, gray, it doesn't convey much lightness, on the contrary. The Spa's kiosk-totem in the style of a gas pump is beautiful, slender, with the San Pellegrino red star logo and the inevitable Atalan graffiti”.
“Bridges of wood, metal, concrete, brick, stone.”
“On the plateau between Lenna and Piazza Brembana, a very wide radius, panoramic curve to soften the climb, just like those on model railways”.
“Over 40km. Last effort to reach the Cassiglio lake”
“Crystal clear waters, all green around. It could be a lagoon lost in the tropics. If it weren't for the fact that the water is frozen”
“I did 50 km. How was that possible? If I can go back it will be 100”.
“The same valley, the same itinerary, 50 km up the Brembo from Bergamo to Piazza Brembana, but they are two completely different places, whether you do them behind the wheel or on the pedals”.
“What you see from the car windows, between viaducts, traffic lights, queues, roundabouts and large tunnels, is a busy, built-up valley, similar to many others in the north-east, a little depressed and a little tacky, between America and the Balkans”.
“What you discover by pedaling on the “recycled” track of the old railway abandoned for 50 years, is a fairytale valley, a fantasy adventure landscape, immersed in greenery, carved into the rock, overlooking the river. With sudden flashes of history, glimpses, views, artifacts, ruins, details, traces, mysteries, presences”.
“The medium is the message! McLuhan’s dogma on the means of communication also applies to means of transport.”
“The experiment went well. You're right, Sophie. The application that is needed is the one that records and transcribes things that are more important than numbers, data, kilometers. The thoughts that come to you, the emotions you feel while riding your bike.”
“Today the bicycle is the solution to every problem of mobility and health, both personal and public, from stress to traffic, which is in fact the cholesterol of the road arteries”.
“At home I have a mug with a racing bike drawn on it and the words “free your mind and your legs will follow”.
“But the right concept is exactly the opposite, that is, ‘free your legs, and your mind will follow.’
Do sports, and your thoughts will clear up. Now I know.”