SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER… AND THE WHEEL TURNS AGAIN
A journey into the cycles that transform the way we ride and live.
November: the month when everything slows down, but nothing truly stops.
Some months speak for themselves, and November is one of them. It’s the month of my birthday and, at the same time, the moment when the touring season closes.
The air changes, the light fades, the suitcases remain still for a while, and the frantic pace of summer gives way to a silence that seems almost necessary. From the outside, it might look like a break, but it never truly is. When the road stops, the invisible work begins.
November is the month when I put my hands back on the maps, open up the notes accumulated during the season, and reread the observations written late at night in hotels, when the exhaustion was heavy but the mind was still awake. This is the moment for planning: we start from the past to shape the future, we reflect on what worked, what to improve, and what new routes to build for the next season.
Looking back to truly understand where I am going
Every time I look back fifteen years, I see myself on my first touring bike, ready for my first real solo experience. I was driven by a mix of curiosity and uncertainty, and a great desire to discover what lay beyond the next bend. I couldn’t imagine that this choice would completely change my professional life.
What had started as a game, a personal challenge, slowly began to transform into something much bigger. Year after year, season after season, that passion became a job, then a mission, and finally a deep part of my identity. They have been years of sacrifices, of early morning starts, of continuous travel, of seasons lived far from home, working with international tour operators and tackling professional realities that required commitment, competence, and adaptability.
It wasn’t easy, and it isn’t easy today. But it was authentic. And it is precisely this authenticity that has defined the way I experience cycle tourism: not as a service, but as an experience of transformation, connection, and discovery, both for myself and for those I accompany on the road.
Miles, people, places, and sweat
If I think of the miles covered over these years, the people I’ve met, the landscapes I’ve traversed, and all the sweat left on the road, I realize that these are not isolated memories: they are the fuel that continues to push me forward. The long climbs that seemed endless, the descents that returned a sense of absolute freedom, the moments shared with participants during dinner, the tired but happy looks at the end of an intense day—these are all images that remain within me and give a deep meaning to my work.
They are simple, yet powerful, moments. They remind me why I chose this path and why I continue to follow it. It is the combination of miles, effort, encounters, and beauty that motivates me every year to create new experiences and enthusiastically face the challenges that await me.
When the road stops, the invisible work begins.
November is the month when I put my hands back on the maps, open up the notes accumulated during the season, and reread the observations written late at night in hotels, when the exhaustion was heavy but the mind was still awake. This is the moment for planning: we start from the past to shape the future, we reflect on what worked, what to improve, and what new routes to build for the next season.
A challenging year, and precisely for this reason, precious.
This past year has been particularly demanding, more so than I had anticipated. There were complex projects, unexpected situations, tight deadlines, and days when I wished I had more hours to dedicate to everything that needed to be done. And yet, despite the exhaustion, it was one of the richest years of my career.
Seeing an event come to life, accompanying a tour that unfolds exactly as planned, receiving messages from participants who share how deeply the experience impacted them: all of this transforms tiredness into satisfaction. The road hasn’t always been easy, but every difficulty had a purpose, and every obstacle carried a lesson.
Seasons, cycles, and a wheel that keeps turning
I often think about a film I love during this time of year: “Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring Again” by Kim Ki-duk. It is a work that tells the story of life’s cycles, the returns, the silent transformations. It shows how we can find ourselves in the same place, seemingly identical, but actually profoundly changed by what we have experienced. It is an image that I feel is very close to the world of cycle tourism: a wheel that completes its turn and returns to the starting point, but in the meantime has moved forward, gathered experiences, and changed something.
For me, November is exactly this. The season closes, but a new one is already taking shape. It is a moment of calm that encourages us to observe the path taken, to understand how accumulated experiences can guide the future direction. Looking back does not mean standing still: it is the necessary step to understand how to move forward.
Towards the Next Season
And here I am again, between what I have lived and what I still have to create. On one side, I carry with me the weight—intense and precious—of the accumulated experiences; on the other, the lightness of the future, made up of new ideas, projects that are being born, and routes yet to be imagined. The wheel keeps turning, and even if from the outside it seems like I always return to the same point, I know that every turn takes me a little further ahead.
Looking back, I see how much I have changed. Looking forward, I feel, with the same curiosity as my first trip, that the best is yet to come
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