Giro-E meets… FLY Cycling Team-CDI that for the third year in a row will be one of the protagonists of the Giro-E. The have brought liveliness, professionalism, and a very important message to the Giro-E: cycling is not only good for your health but also helps treat some diseases. We talk about this with Dr. Fulvio Ferrara, director of the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Medical Genetics and Pathological Anatomy of the CDI (Italian Diagnostic Centre), and with Amedeo Tabini, captain of the team that will take part in the Giro-E and president of FLY Cycling Team.
TABINI – “It is with great pleasure that we are once again participating in the Giro-E, an event that is gaining momentum. Our message is important and beautiful. We do have something to say, and the Giro-E allows us to do so, reaching a wide audience.”
FERRARA – “This adventure for us at CDI began with a sponsor-team relationship, and over time it has become a close friendship. It enables us to convey not one, but two very important messages – sport as health prevention and wellbeing and, above all, sport as a way to treat chronic diseases, such as diabetes, which definitely benefit from physical activity. This year in particular, the Giro-E has an additional significance for us because it represents new-found freedom. We no longer have clouds on the horizon, but hope for sunshine, free from the problems associated with the pandemic. This will be the first of our three participations in the Giro-E where we will not be restricted by Covid.”
TABINI – “Riding a bike to keep on being healthy and improve wellbeing. But that is not all. Improving the health of the planet through cycling. The bicycle is eco-sustainability, environmental protection, cycle paths, sustainable mobility. The bicycle – the mode of transport of the past – is also the mode of transport of the future. Everyone who has ridden with us has become passionate about cycling if they weren’t already. Considering our first year at the Giro-E, which ended earlier than planned, we have had over a hundred guests cycling, most of them with chronic illnesses. I would like to remember Claudio Dirani, the drummer of the band Modà, who after having suffered from illness found his rebirth in cycling. We have also had many doctors from the Italian Diagnostic Centre who have bicycled with us.”
FERRARA – “And not only doctors. We have also been able to involve administrative staff, technicians, many people who are not directly involved in clinical work. The Giro-E has brought about two discoveries. We have discovered that cycling is great, but riding a pedal-assisted bicycle is better, because it lets you face rides that would normally be beyond your reach. Back to Covid, if I think of something good out of it, well, it forced us to go back to nature, to pedalling, to walking, to watching the beauty around us, maybe even a few kilometres from home, because we were forced to do so. Now I hear more and more people going for walks or bike rides in their neighbourhoods. They used to take the car to go to the sea or the mountains.”
TABINI – “But you have not yet ridden a bike at the Giro-E, doc…”.
FERRARA – “I will this year. I have booked my place at the start from Catania.”
TABINI – “The caravan will not set off until Dr. Ferrara clips in! We have new bikes that will help you. We have picked an Italian almost handmade bicycle. It is a new brand called PARKPRE. The manufacturing is in Tuscany, the engines are Polini. We have several sponsors that support us and we have chosen them all for their being in line with the overall project. We collaborate with rh+ that ‘dresses’ us from head to toe, the Klyma eyewear is made of Eco Grilamid and the fabrics of the Bike collection are made with nylon fibres from recycled PET bottles. The water bottles we use are produced by Andriolo, a company that offsets CO2 emissions during the processing by planting trees… You need to be consistent even in sport.”
