Interviews with Italian bikepacking pioneers on their enthusiasm
Overview
“Beyond the Italy Divide” is a collection of interviews with Italian bikepacking pioneers of all kinds: gravel, MTB, road, and an attempt to informally summarize a decade of the movement’s development (2014–2024). Moreover, is is a book about enthusiasm, creativity and freedom in any endeavor be it sport, education, social projects, and others.
The title refers to the main bikepacking event covering the whole country from Naples to lake Garda, but immediately goes far beyond it through all 20 regions. Organizers of popular and little-known regional events — Sardinia Divide, Two Volcano Sprint, Basilicata Bike Trail, Trail dei Papi, Abruzzo Gravel, Tuscany Trail, Piemont Gravel, and others — talk about everything but the technical details of the routes. It’s a human story, not a classic guide or “how-to” instructions about traveling on a bike in Italy, although you will find a map, a calendar, routes data, and more in the book. In other words, it is an Italian bikepacking in the first person, not the third.
The book is aimed both at those who are already passionate about bikepacking and those who are just about to take up this trendy sport. It will also be of interest to any traveler, not just on a bicycle, because they could see the country from an unusual angle. Not least of all, it is a book for anyone who plan to make their own event or something creative and properly communicate with the community that will inevitably emerge from it.
At the end of the bike ride we always come back different, tired, but enriched with something what we can’t even understand right away.
— Domenico Errigo, organizer of All Round Calabria and other events in the Calabria region
Authors
Ivan Kuznetsov — outdoor journalist, editor and writer, co-founder of Panoramica creative studio.
The son of a member of the USSR Youth Cycling Team, training for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Russia, he started cycling in March 2013 in Lamon, the Belluno Dolomites, Veneto, where the final stages of the 2019 Giro d’Italia took place, on an old mountain bike without rear brakes — there was no other bike. At that time he was volunteering in a year-long ecological project of Legambiente, the largest environmental association in Italy. After riding all the high mountain roads around the town, he went to the neighboring Passo Croce d’Aune and further to Monte Avena, 1,454 m, and Monte Grappa, 1,775 m; Passo Rolle, 1,984 m; Passo Pordoi, 2,239 m; and then all of the written below with Irina.
As a journalist, he has authored more than 200 interviews in total with various famous and local people on travel, outdoors, creativity, communities, and other related topics. Thanks to internet, his range of work spans the globe for leading media and blogs, and his other books.
Irina Kudres — outdoor photographer, photojournalist and visual storyteller, co-founder of Panoramica creative studio.
She first tried cycling and bikepacking in the mountains in May 2019 in the same Lamon, climbing Passo Brocon, 1,616 m (finish of stage 17 of the 2024 Giro d’Italia) in the Lagorai range on a regular mountain bike. Since that time, she climbed many other passes all over the Italian Alps: Passo San Marco, 1,992 m; Passo Zambla, 1,264 m; Passo Gavia, 2,621 m; Passo Duron, 1,076 m. Her list of bikepacking adventures includes road, MTB, and gravel rides to Campo Imperatore in Abruzzo, Strade Bianche in Tuscany, Via Claudia Augusta in Veneto, two long ciclovias Valbrembana and Valtelina in Lombardy, and Via Francigena in Lazio and Campania, not speaking about Processo and Franciacorta hilly vineyard areas, and riding around all five major lakes in northern Italy.
As a journalist, with this book she is doing her first major work, but she has recorded individual interviews and short series before, working on other projects about startups, well-being, and migration.
All formats
Highlights
• 20 regions
• 25+ bikepacking events organizers
• 135 questions and answers
• 30 color photos
• Infographics and practical info
Contents
Authors
Map
Infographics
Glossary
Introduction
1. Islands
Amos Cardia, Sardinia Divide
Stefano La Sala, Trail del Barocco Siciliano
2. South
Domenico Errigo, All Round Calabria
Alfredo Russo, Salento Trail Apulia
Simon Laurenzana, Basilicata Bike Trail
Juliana Buhring, Two Volcano Sprint
Giuseppe Gallina, Molise Randonnée
Maurizio Scardetta, Abruzzo Trail MAGS
3. Center
Riccardo La Bella, Trail dei Papi Lazio
Alessandra Cristalli, VIC Bikepacking Marche
Lorenzo Sensi, Augh Umbria Bikepacking
Andrea Borchi, Tuscany Trail
4. North-west
Fabio del Becaro, Liguria Bike Trail
Alessandro Ippolito, Piemonte Nord Ovest Divide
Tazio Chiomio, Piemont Gravel
Valerio Fava and Serena Curno, 150 S-miles Piemonte
Paolo Ciaberta, Erratico Gravel Canavese
Marco Nicoletti, Aosta Tour dei Rü
Gianluca Gravino, Gerundium Trail Lombardia
5. North-east
Roberto Malandrino, Emilia Gravel
Giovanni Toldo, Nulla di Gravel Trentino
Raphael Albrecht, Sneak Peaks Dolomites
Andrea Securo, Veneto Trail
Stefano Ferigo, Inchino al Friuli
6. Italy
Paolo Laureti, Empire Lands
Fabio Del Becaro, Italy Unite Wild Trail
Giacomo Bianchi, Italy Divide
Conclusion
Afterword by Andrea Benesso, BAM! festival
Letter of intent
Bikepacking Italy calendar
Technical info
Acknowledgements
Catalog
All book data
• Title: Beyond the Italy Divide: Interviews with Italian bikepacking pioneers on their enthusiasm
• Authors: Irina Kudres, Ivan Kuznetsov
• Publisher: Panoramica
• Date of first publication: december 1, 2024
• Language: English
• Translation from Italian and Russian to English: Ivan Kuznetsov
• Layout design: Ivan Kuznetsov
• E-book: mobi, epub with 30 color photos
• Paper book: soft cover / hard cover, b&w print with 30 b&w photos
• Print run: print-on-demand
• Foreign rights: available for all languages, countries and formats, write to us at ciao@panoramica.studio
This book is also available in Italian.
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Go to Irina’s and Ivan’s profile pages or to the all Books page.