RICORDO DI LIGURIA

By VITTI Cycling

We had traveled to Ventimiglia, a small town in Italy right on the border of France to ride bikes and to shoot for our fledgling brand. We were there to begin our story, to collect all the small moments. The people were warm and welcoming, as familiar as family. Church bells greeted us the moment we got into town, they seemed to always be ringing.

It felt like home, the way home feels after having been away for much much too long.

What I remember most was the smell of the place.

It sounds strange to say considering it was beautiful around every single corner. Everywhere a painting of ochre and yellow with pink walls and green shutters and narrow cobbled streets opening to small hidden courtyards.

It was the smell of wild rosemary wafting down the hillside combined with the salt of the sea. The smell of strong espresso spilling out of cafes, the smell of the panetteria and the hot loaves of bread and pastries

Too early the first morning we pulled ourselves out of bed and made coffee… a lot of coffee, then built the bikes up. We rolled down the wet streets barely wide enough to walk two abreast on, being careful around corners to not ride into any of the local residents going about their day. We ended up at the bottom of the hill in the newer part of town near the train station where we stopped to get our bearings.

After a few miles of flat roads the climbing started. The road always went up, corner after corner slowly revealing the valley below. The air was crisp and damp with a slight breeze, occasionally we could smell a fire from a home burning leaves. Wild thyme and rosemary bushes grew to the size of Fiats on the sides of the greenest hillsides we had ever seen.

We were there to begin our story. We made pictures as we went, capturing what felt right and what it meant for us to be there. This time was for us to share our love of this cycling life and how it connects us to the world and each other and eventually, back to ourselves.