If you love cycling you have to do Eroica in your life!!
Cycling on the Eroica path has been running for twenty years on the white roads of Chianti in Tuscany.
This is not only a bicycle race but many things together.
It is a dip back in time, an environmental protection that has allowed to keep the roads unpaved and intact.
Many of the areas that make Tuscany the Tuscany of postcards
It is a Woodstock of vintage cycling. A series of ageless emotions where everything magically returns to black and white, where the jerseys are still those of coarse wool, the changes on the barrel, the bottles attached to the handlebars and the spare tires rolled up on the shoulders.
It was the cycling that was, that of dust, of ancient faces and big hands, of “hello mom” and of the gags of champions to the music-maker.
Bartali and Coppi, Gino and Fausto two pieces of Italy against each other, a bit for fun and a bit seriously, in a head-to-head that has become history and that brings back with a touch of melancholy to the sweet controversies of once. Today is a whole different story.
The Eroica that has been run for twenty years on the hills of Tuscany, strictly with the bikes of the past, is made of 200 kilometers back in history.
Two hundred kilometers of dirt roads that from Gaiole in Chianti to the Arbia valley, the Orcia valley reach Montalcino.
Cycling between farmhouses and vineyards. They have also become a way to save them. To preserve a heritage that the mayors would have gladly sacrificed for progress. Which means asphalt, perhaps faster roads, traffic, urbanization with all the pros and cons that it entails.
It happened like this everywhere and it should have happened in these parts as well, but thanks also to nostalgic and somewhat obsessed cyclists, they have stood still over time.
My last consideration is about this amazing gravel roads:
“Strade Bianche”
Cycling on the Eroica path
Are you looking for a guided bike tour on the “Strade Bianche”? click here
Where time seems to have stopped, where we can enjoy the magical moments discovering unique panoramas in the world. When you take a dirt road in a few meters you are engulfed by unspoiled nature. In my opinion this is an experience to try at least once in a lifetime.
Meanwhile, the moment you try it you won’t be able to do without it ……
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