Stamatima from Castel del Monte in Abruzzo, hundreds of fourth edition of Nova Eroica Gran Sasso. Which is not just a challenge between cyclists, an adventure in Gravel, a repatriation of “heroics”, a ride in a small corner of paradise. Heroica Gran Sasso is a world in itself, “a world apart” would be said by remembering a film, in which the bike is the perfect tool to deal, on an equal footing, between nothing and the infinite.
The heroic was born in Gaiole in Chianti, everything began from there, but on the Gran Sasso it is as if it is reborn Because there is no other corner of the world as heroic as this. Castel del Monte, Campo Imperatore, Barisciano, Santo Stefano di Sessanio put this world together here, the Tibet of Italy as he had christened him in the thirties Fosco Maraini. A place of the soul, remained as it was. Majesty, intact, silent, imposing, without vegetation, a plateau at almost 1,700 meters which loses sight of the eye for about twenty kilometers with the great horn in the background, the highest peak of the Apennines. Without constructions, with the only shacks of the shepherds who sell the cheeses, with a few bright furnaces for the arrosticini, with a few kiosk that gives refreshment to those who arrive so far, with the astronomical observatory, with the ailments of the red hotel where the carabinieri in 1943 brought the prisoner Benito Mussolini then freed from a German commando that landed a few meters from the top and brought him to the top of the peak, Marco Pantani who in 1999 saw the pirate make the void in the stage of the Giro starting from Pescara.
A challenge that looks more like a journey through nine villages that have remained faithful to time: “Each village has something to tell- the organizers explained a few days ago Marco Capoferri By presenting the fourth edition in L’Aquila in the “Celestino V” room of Palazzo Silone- they are real protagonists and the pride of our event. Each will set up a refreshment point where participants will be able to taste the typical local products, from the arrosticini to the bean of the legendary Trinity. The streets will be animated by popular music with songs and dances … “. Last year in the square of Rocca Calascio, to welcome the cyclists there was the mayor with a tricolor band that tightened his hands to everyone and who, to offer hot coffee with some Ferratella, had mobilized his 150 fellow citizens who had put the mocha on the stoves.
The heroic passing by here is the perfect opportunity to redeem a territory, To make it known, to relaunch it and make it appreciated as it has already happened elsewhere. White roads on the trail of the old rips, the streets that traveled the shepherds to move the flocks from the mountains to the sea, which are a dream of hundreds of kilometers long long On the largest plateau in Italy, which seems to never end, where there is no shelter, where the wind seems to push you backwards, where you always seem to be pending at the mercy of a nature that you hope will remain friend. It only happens here in these places where to live is often effort, that I know the essence of a simple, mild and passionate way of life, perhaps an escape route. Nova Eroica Gran Sasso is all these things together. It affects the heart for its beauty, in a strong and courteous land that does not deny itself and that knows how to be welcoming without too many manfrines. Heroic went to look for the Gran Sasso. And luckily he found it. Too bad not to be there …