Beyond the Italy Divide

“Beyond the Italy Divide” is a collection of interviews with Italian bikepacking pioneers with all kinds of bikes: gravel, MTB, road, and an attempt to informally summarize a decade of the movement’s development in Italy (~2014–2024). Moreover, it 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 with the book you immediately go far beyond it, through all 20 regions. Organizers of popular and little-known regional events: Amos Cardia (Sardinia Divide), Juliana Buhring (Two Volcano Sprint), Andrea Borchi (Tuscany Trail), Tazio Chiomio (Piemont Gravel), Andrea Securo (Veneto Trail)... talk about everything but the technical details of the routes. It’s a human story, not a classic guide to traveling on a bicycle in Italy. 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 try this trendy sport. It will also be of interest to any modern traveler, not only on a bike, because they could see the country from an unusual angle. Not least of all, it is a book for anyone who plans 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 ride you always come back different, tired, but enriched with something that, at that moment, you cannot even understand right away”. — Domenico Errigo, organizer of the All Round Calabria and other events in the region