August 10, 2021 / Personal Projects Photography
Bikepacking outdoor adventure on a gravel bike
I’m way more than just a wedding photographer!!!
Bikepacking outdoor adventure on a gravel bike
Warning! Long post ahead!
This is a story about a fool and a brilliant idea born from the foolish mind of my great friend Giorgio.
He was thinking about traveling around the region where we were born: UMBRIA
Bikepacking outdoor adventure on a gravel bike
Everything stems from the need to bring a message of inclusion and integration for all children with disabilities. He was dreaming to appear in municipal administrations in a way totally out of the ordinary and bring new proposals and new ideas.
He couldn’t do it alone, so he asked his best friends of a lifetime to be his partners in crime 😅 Federico, Marco, Massimiliano, and then me.
We have all obviously joined this madness and we have set in motion an organizational machine that lasted about six/seven months, calling on friends, companies, institutions, associations, and anyone who could be of help!
May 1st – May 9th our adventure really took place 🖤
About 900 kilometers done in 9 days, around the beautiful scenery of our region Umbria, a place that hides many small pearls set in the green!!!
An experience that allowed us to meet loads of municipal administrations and associations who welcomed us and gave us the opportunity to express our ideas and bring a breath of fresh air.
We faced a very delicate topic such as disability so lightly, having fun, showing seriousness, and the huge will to change things. We put our head, our legs, all our energy into it, but above all, we put our heart into it!!!
We met important people. We met new friends. We learned so many things by listening to the experiences of real people in their realities.
900 kilometers in the pouring rain, under the sun, constantly pedaling against the wind that has never abandoned us, but we had a clear goal to achieve: we claimed to face the issue of disability from his human side, the human sphere of disabled people and we do it our way! The topics to discuss are disability and inclusion!
A journey made up of encounters, stories, constructive discussions, teachings.
A journey made up of smiles, long talks, long long days on the saddle with all our stuff packed in our bicycles. Everything we needed was with us.
A journey during which, at times, we also had to try to carve out small microscopic spaces for our work as a short and nice call with a couple for a wedding 🙂 …Yes, because each of us has a job and in those 9 days we put everything almost aside to dedicate ourselves body and soul to this initiative.
The results went beyond all expectations and the wonderful thing is that all of this was achieved with smiles, complicity, and simple looks that were sometimes more than enough to make a decision.
Maybe we could have done more and reached a much wider audience, but you never stop learning in life!
We certainly didn’t just go for a “bike ride” as some people thought.
Without many of you, all this would not have been possible !!!
Bikepacking outdoor adventure on a gravel bike
short nerd corner: all the following photos have been shot by me with a little awesome jewel called Fuji X100V. I loved it from our very first moment! I think it’s the perfect camera to take with us while traveling. Many other photos were instead taken with a GoPro. The perfect action camera to have while you are in uncomfortable situations.
Umbria Coast to Coast – Popy on the Road
