L’AQUILA – In the heart of the Gran Sasso, on its asphalt strips that disappear into the horizon, you may come across a group of women pedaling on their racing bikes. To guide them, on a bike journey and within themselves, there is Ilaria Ianni. Born in Aquila, born in 1986, during the pandemic she resigned from her previous job and founded the Vado Libera association, “a project of female freedom and well-being on bicycles and in life, dedicated to women and their personal growth”.
“I grew up with the idea that I had to do something else, that becoming a lawyer or judge could be the right thing for me.” The years of her studies, however, were accompanied by an underlying restlessness until one day Ilaria, after the 2009 earthquake, got on her bike: “I wasn’t an athlete, yet I immediately felt at ease.”
And Ilaria began to pedal, to explore her world and to get to know each other. Pedal after pedal, kilometer after kilometre, she discovered sides of herself that she didn’t know. She became aware of knowing how to face a climb, of knowing how to resist the winds and react to unexpected events, of being able to get up after a fall, of having the strength to overcome fragility, the real ones and those induced by certain ways of thinking.
He chose to listen to himself and in some desk drawer he placed that idea of himself that he felt was so distant and tried to combine his passion with his profession. He started in a well-known large-scale sports distribution chain which shortly after offered him to move to Emilia-Romagna. Challenge accepted. A year later a new move to Alto Adige with a role in the management of the branch.
But something still made her restless. The turning point comes with a trip to India, in Ladakh cycling on some of the highest carriage passes in the world up to around 5500 meters above sea level. During that trip Ilaria felt that she could also inspire others and in particular women: “I was a highly insecure person, on a bike I found incredible strength, I discovered the ability to face and overcome challenges, to go to new places even when you don’t know the way”.
During the pandemic, the choice to return to L’Aquila and found the Asd Vado Libera which helps women experience growth in the retreats that the association organises, multi-day trips to Abruzzo but not only: “The bicycle is a metaphor for life which has its ups and downs. It’s an opportunity to get involved with yourself, it’s a way to observe yourself, to work on your self-esteem and safety, cycling is freedom.”
In the trips organized by Ilaria there is no obsession with speed and performance. He pedals by listening to each other, each at his own pace and our mountains are a special place to do it.
There is a strange matter in which Gran Sasso is rich, an impalpable force that gets under your skin, a substance neither dense nor light that seems to have a beneficial effect on those who come into contact with it: “It is the ideal place to experience a journey with yourself in an intimate atmosphere that welcomes you and which is not easy to find for those who choose to cycle on the road! You are at altitude but the view is open and extensive, you are in the middle of nowhere but you immediately feel like you are in the place where you were supposed to be, Gran Sasso opens your mind and heart, allows you to broaden your gaze and create a new perspective“.
The women who participate in the Vado Libera Asd initiatives are of all ages: “They are often in a phase of important changes in their lives, they want to share their story and meet other women and our trips are an opportunity to do this but above all to discover and evolve”.
And the boys in all this? “There were some jokes, cycling is a world that is more masculine than feminine, but then they understood, and when they see our group they welcome us with enthusiasm.”
