Venice, three days dedicated to the world of cycling

It returns from May 3rd to 5th Pavè – cycling in Venice, the festival that offers talks, film screenings, sporting events and a spectacular gravel ride around the lagoon. Now in its third edition, it is conceived and organized by La Velostazione Venezia in collaboration with the M9 Museum, with the patronage of Iuav, the Veneto Region, the Municipality of Venice and Fiab.

The narrative vocation of the festival emerges in the first two days, with the program entitled We need stories which brings 26 storytellers to talk about contemporaneity around the bicycle: on Friday 3 and Saturday 4 May the appointment is at M9 – Museo del ‘900 (via Pascoli 11, Mestre), with a schedule, with free access upon registration, made up of talks , workshops, seminars and with environmentalist cinema from the Lessinia Film Festival.

On Sunday 5 May the festival moves to the San Giuliano park in Mestre for the start of the rides in the lagoon. There are three itineraries, with lengths of 140 km (La Lunga), 90 km (La Corta) and Urban (50 km). The arrival is in Punta Sabbioni, where a dedicated ferry-boat will take the tribe of pedalers back to the mainland, across the San Marco Basin. New to this edition is the space dedicated to “folding culture”, i.e. folding bicycles, with the Brompton World Championship 2024 which will take place from 11am to 1pm: cyclists from all over Europe will compete in a Criterium race on a specially designed circuit, between tweed, fun and glam in an international event.

The detailed program

Friday 3 May, M9 – Museum of the 20th century

• 2pm: a virtual trip to Switzerland, with Giona Rinaldi of the NGO Pro Velo to learn about cycling mobility in the host country of Pavè 2024.
• 2.30 pm: Susanne Romani, project manager of Svizzera Turismo, will talk about cycling excursions in Switzerland: over 12 thousand kilometers of routes including impeccable itineraries, magnificent landscapes, uncontaminated nature and cultural variety that make Switzerland a paradise for mountain bikers, leisure cyclists and e-biker.
• 3pm, Andrea Boscolo, architect, randonner and mountaineer, passionate about long distances and fast tourism: a man of innovation who will lead us to reflect on “Slow but distant”, a different cycling, not exasperated by competition, rankings, grids starting point, but no less demanding and severe.
• 3.30 pm: SO.DE., the Social Delivery with gentle pedaling, will help you discover the world of social, sustainable and solidarity-based cycle logistics.
• 4pm Stefano Munarin, Emanuele Giannotti and Luca Velo of the IUAV University of Venice: the street can and must also be thought of and designed as an eminent collective space, a support for life in common, an area of ​​co-presence and sharing that determines the quality of the city and of our social life.
• 5pm: Mikel Delagrange, founder, director and animator of Amani Project. Team Amani is a diverse cycling group, made up of the best athletes from East Africa: Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia, brought together to compete in the largest and most prestigious Gravel competitions on the planet.
• 5.30 pm Andrea Razzini, director of Veritas and professor of environmental law and workplace safety at Ca’ Foscari University, will talk about the waste collection and valorisation system in the Venetian territory.
• 6pm space for Europe Direct, the last talk of the first day of the festival before leaving space for the film.
• 6.15pm, screening of Matter out of place (Matter out of place), by Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Austria, 2022, 105 min). A documentary that shows how the problem of waste disposal is (or at least) addressed in various areas of the world.

Saturday 4 May, M9 – Museum of the 20th century

• 10am, Matteo Jarre from Decisio: the electric bicycle is not exploding, it has already exploded. One in three bicycles in Europe is now sold with an electric motor, in countries like Holland more electric vehicles are sold than muscular ones.
• 10.30 am: the beekeeper and president of Conapi, Giorgio Baracani, presents “Voci di gente invisibili”, the poetic short film taken from fifteen video testimonials of Italian beekeepers: directed by Rosy Sinicropi and Edoardo Rubatto.
• 11 am, the evolution of cycling construction materials started from wood to carbon: the mechanical engineer and entrepreneur Michele Cammisa, at 11 am, talks about a backwards choice, with the revisiting of the ancient material in an evolutionary key.
• 11.30 am: Roberto Peia, journalist, writer, pioneer and visionary will talk about people’s memories, travels, battles and hopes.
• 12pm: 130 years later, Giulia Baroncini has retraced the footsteps of Luigi Masetti, putative father of Italian cycle tourism: she will talk about her “very long journey” from Milan to Chicago, paying homage to the “two-wheel anarchist”.
• 12.30pm. Marco Ballestracci, author of “Il Veneto in bici” (Antiga Edizioni based on a project by the Veneto Region), for an excursus on what the bicycle represented for the Veneto during the twentieth century, as well as the prospects it is offering in the first twenty years of the new century. They talk to the author Andrea Simionato, editorial director of Antiga Edizioni, and Cristiano Corazzari, regional councilor.
• 2pm: from Milan to CapoNord in fixed gear was one of the many journeys and exploits of Pietro Franzese, blogger and YouTuber who transformed his passion into a profession.
• 2.30 pm: Elisabetta Dell’Orto, country manager for Italy at Schwalbe, talks about Recyclists, an industrial project between sustainability and recycling
• 3pm: the wolf returned to the Alps and did everything alone, making a historic “sprint” that took him back to where man had eliminated him a century earlier. Francesco Romito, vice-president and communications manager for the Association “I’m not afraid of the wolf”, will talk about how not to be afraid of the wolf.
• 3.30 pm: Sixty years, an Interrail pass, a Brompton and 60 days available to cross Europe by train and on horseback: 7 countries and 1,600 kilometers cycled, is the journey that Monica Nanetti, journalist, writer and blogger, will tell.
• 4pm: winning on a bike is beautiful, helping young women win in life is incredible. The Road To Equality project is the story of Alessandra Cappellotto, a former cycling champion who helps girls from emerging countries to cycle and emancipate themselves through sport. The project, started with the girls of Rwanda, is present in 18 countries around the world: after the great prominence obtained by the story linked to the rescue of the Afghan cyclists after the Taliban invasion of Afghanistan, some athletes followed by Road to Equality will participate in a few month to the Paris Olympics. Three Afghan cyclists from the association, together with Cappellotto, will pedal on Sunday 5 May, at the Gravel Ride in Pavè.
• 4.30 pm, This Avventura: the three recent graduates Carlo, Marco and Vittorio talk about their carefree trip to Italy riding the Graziella.
• 5pm: Allan Shaw talks about the reinvented cycle adventure, from vintage road bike rides across America to the Silk Road Mountain Race on the Cargo Bike, Allan brings over a decade of slightly inappropriate adventures to the stage.
• 5.30pm: what do the trees tell us? Annalisa Metta, full professor of landscape architecture at the Roma Tre University, explains it.
• The film will be shown at 6pm Le temps des forests (The time of the forests), by François-Xavier Drouet (France, 2018, 103 min), a documentary that pushes us to reflect on whether we really want to transform our oxygen suppliers into green deserts.

Sunday 5 May, San Giuliano park

• At 2.30 pm, Alessandra Tormene and Susanna Maggioni, National Councilors of FIAB Italia, talk about the Eurovelo routes in Italy, the European network of 17 long-distance cycle routes started in 1995 by the European Cyclists Federation (ECF), the federation of European cycling associations.
• At 3pm, entry to the cyclomechanics with Emilio Scavezzon, third of three brothers and central movement of the “Scavezzon Brotherhood”, chief mechanic of the workshop of the same name.
• At 3.30pm, we’ll talk about tires that evolve from waste into design jewels with the Cycled project by the Potente brothers.
• At 4pm we will “explain foldables” with “Folding Culture” and travel looking beyond commuting, thanks to the experience of three friends, Andrea Mori, Gabriele Garofalo, Andrea Baino, united by their passion for Brompton.
• At 4.30pm, space for yoga for cyclists with Yoga Pilates Venezia.

On Friday 3 and Saturday 4 May (10.00 – 19.00) at Calle Corte Legrenzi it will be possible to visit the photographic exhibition Do you pray in the morning? by Chiara Redaschi. A photographic selection taken from the Rwandan travel report of the same name. The story of a ten-day adventure in Central Africa, following Enough Cycling Collective on the trail of “Race around Rwanda”.