A common, participatory, and embodied bicycle journey through Italy
“La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia” is a participatory, inclusive, and joint bike journey from the North to the South of Italy. A trip that invites people from everywhere and every age to join an active movement with an aim to build a continuous bicycle path that connects Italy’s North and South. In the context of the global climate crisis and rising accounts of social isolation in youth, the project narrates an inspiring story to jointly move toward a more sustainable mobility system.
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-09-30
As individual(s) in partnership with organisation(s)
First name: Vivian Art Last name: Rustige Gender: Male Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: FIAB – Federazione Italiana Ambiente e Bicicletta (National Environment and Bicycle Federation) is an environmental organization that promotes daily bicycle use and bicycle touring to protect the environment and combat the climate crisis Nationality: Germany Function: Co-founder of "In Motion Italia" Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Trunzen 5 Town: Wiggensbach Postal code: 87487 Country: Germany Direct Tel:+49 1577 3878160 E-mail:vivian.rustige@yahoo.de
First name: Michelangelo Last name: Lamonaca Gender: Male Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: FIAB – Federazione Italiana Ambiente e Bicicletta (National Environment and Bicycle Federation) is an environmental organization that promotes daily bicycle use and bicycle touring to protect the environment and combat the climate crisis Nationality: Italy Function: Co-founder of "In Motion Italia" Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Carlo Goldoni 63 Town: Canosa di Puglia Postal code: 76012 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 328 406 4521 E-mail:michelabo.freelance@gmail.com
URL:https://www.instagram.com/in_motion_italia Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): #inmotion #bicycles #cyclingculture #inclusive #movement #collectivecycling #aspacetobike #zerocarbonfootprint #analoguelife
Yes
New European Bauhaus or European Commission websites
“La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia” is a participatory and joint bike journey through Italy. In September 2022, an international team of four students cycled 1.700 kilometers from the Northern Italian border at Brennero, to the southernmost point of Apulian Salento, Santa Maria di Leuca, known as the "heel of the boot". The aim is to connect people through the bicycle, raise awareness for the importance of sustainable mobility, and foster cycling culture in Italy.
Based on participation at every phase and an open invitation, more than two hundred citizens joined a common cycling movement; hopping on and off the journey, discussing fossil fuel dependence, climate change impacts, and effects from the car-centred society. These citizens united through the act of cycling together for a transition towards a more sustainable mobility system.
A broader understanding of the diverse conditions and local situations of the Italian mobility system were more deeply understood through participatory, cultural, and artistic actions and workshops along a pre-defined route. A trans-Italian network was built by connecting various professional stakeholders and actors in soft tourism, sustainable mobility, and cycling culture with local citizens and official public administrations. A potential new cycling route is compiled to connect the North and the South of Italy through participatory mapping exercises based on local knowledge.
The project’s intention is to tell a story. The bicycle is the medium to communicate utopian ways to move and live by reflecting and rethinking it together. The bike ride is the method to conduct action and participatory research, complemented by a broad literature research. To create change, peoples’ emotions are as important as their knowledge. Consequently, diverse communication formats evoking personal feelings, addressing the cognitive understanding of the complexity of the mobility system were carried out.
Sustainable mobility
Long-distance cycle journey
Public participation
Democratic exchange
Cycling culture
The cycling trip is founded within the concept of sustainability. The long-distance journey is conducted on the bicycle, a sustainable, emission-free, and democratic means of transport powered by the muscular energy of humans. The concept of sustainability is promoted throughout the entire trip, with the bicycle as a medium to communicate alternative forms to move and build connection to rural and urban environments.
The ecological dimension is stressed through raising awareness of the importance of rural and natural commons like water, air, and sun - upon which their dependence becomes clear in a one-month travel outside. In addition, a dualism of the rural and the urban decreases while cycling, making more visible their intertwined link.
The social sphere of the project is touched by common movement, mutual learning, and a high level of exchange. People from different backgrounds, professions, and generations come together to jointly rethink the current mobility situation and contribute to designing a new national cycling way, connecting its North and South.
Cycling culture and cycling infrastructure go hand in hand. With the engagement of citizens, decision makers feel the need to improve the planning and building of accessible bike lanes. With established bike lanes, a culture around the bicycle can develop and people may start to change their daily habits.
The entire journey is built around a notion of participation. Round tables, expert interviews, and examples of best practice are starting points for discussion, exchange, and common mapping based on local knowledge.
Co-organized critical mass events, artistic interventions in main squares, and workshop formats with different age groups create a sense of belonging, and greater connect communities and local cycling culture.
Through building an international network, the participants of the trip are embedded in a net of sharing economic goods, spaces, and knowledge to mutual help and emotional support.
The movement is visible to inhabitants of each passed by rural and urban area. A group of cycling people accompanied by a common flag and the chime of bells is clearly noticeable. Music as a convivial element brings joy to the participants and continuously accompanies the cycling trip.
Cycling together emits a high level of positive emotions. Movement changes humans’ moods and perspectives and stimulates new thoughts. The trip is dominated by its analogue experience, feeling the weather on one’s skin, communicating in different languages, and experiencing new cultures and landscapes is a strong and positive sensation.
The conception of a common travel bonds people in a unique way, achieving a long way together and convening strengths and energy into a meaningful purpose. In addition, the group constantly faces the challenge to learn, unlearn and relearn social exchange e.g., by respecting individual and common needs, finding a fair form of decision-making or allocation of roles.
Mutual learning happens in every moment when cycling together. The social interactions between the group happen unforced and naturally. In a monotonous way, people tend to reflect introspectively, as stories arise and are shared, whereas in moments of many external stimuli, people start to derive local peculiarities to structural or global topics. Every member aligns one’s reality with others and gains insights to deal with similar challenges.
Taking responsibility within a group, living a form of solidarity, and being in direct physical contact with different people of different cultures leads to self-empowerment, and a strong form of involvement.
“La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia” raised awareness of the need for a change of administrative policies and citizens’ habits toward more bike-friendly oriented ones. The trip stopped at as many cities and towns as possible to motivate policymakers and people to ride their bicycles and implement active mobility solutions. It was crucial to plan the stages throughout an entire month, allowing enough time to in include not only strategic stops like Bologna or Bolzano, but also those where there is a vivid need to start a transformation in the mobility system.
Accepting the condition of moving slower with the bicycle made the inclusion of both well-known cities and lesser known and populated towns in the itinerary possible. As a result, “La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia” made little towns feel included in a big project. Locals realized that the bicycle is a source of economic profit and repopulation.
A collaborative network of cycling-related associations and citizens were involved stage by stage to contribute to the participatory mapping of “La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia”. The project’s vision is that everybody has access to cycling, feels included as a cyclist by their own local administration, and feels safe on the road. To guarantee these visions during “La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia”, locals who helped us were asked to contribute to the planning phase of the route. Therefore, neither highways nor high-traffic roads were allowed in the itinerary, whereas greenways and roads through smaller towns were inserted into the map.
Involving citizens, politicians, and professionals in an active transformational process is the key of the project, and the quality of their exchanges is achieved through the following communication formats:
With the methods “Participatory Mapping” and “Artistic Pop-up Events” in public spaces, local citizens are directly involved to contribute to a new cycling route by applying their local knowledge of their territory.
With the format “Workshops on Wheels”, opinions on the current local and global mobility situation are exchanged and possible ways to improve the system towards a more sustainable one are brainstormed. The workshops are characterized by their intergenerational nature, openness, and inclusion.
The format “Common cycling” invites both local and international people to join an international cycling movement. Via diverse digital communication channels for every generation, the created community is updated daily. Also possibly interested citizens are continually informed about the place and time of each day’s departure, to be able to join in pedalling together.
The aim of the campaign “#aspacetobike” is to make citizens, communities, and cities aware of dangerous, non-existent, or inaccessible cycling infrastructure and give them an instrument to express their thoughts about it. Citizens can mark improvable infrastructural situations with a sticker and post a photo to sensitize the administration.
In round table formats with local administrations, direct democratic participation is targeted through an exchange about the local realms regarding mobility and improvement of project management of bicycle lane planning with continuity, connectedness, and in collaboration with other neighbouring municipalities. Some municipalities came together for the first time, to exchange ideas about a possible new planning approach, and aiding citizens’ understanding of the administration’s perspective on barriers toward a more sustainable mobility transition.
National and local levels:
FIAB Italy, an environmental organization that promotes daily bicycling and bicycle touring to protect the environment, and combat the climate crisis, was involved at a national level. The “'La Dolce Ciclovita per l'Italia”' project, with the collaboration of FIAB South Tyrol, managed to contact all the local FIAB associations along the route from Brennero to Santa Maria di Leuca to create a support network during the trip. Each FIAB association joined our rides and contributed to their mapping in a participatory way. They also enabled us to meet local administrators and policymakers to report critical issues of the infrastructure.
Regional and local levels:
The project had widespread media visibility, thanks to the team's efforts to get the trip noticed by local newspapers and regional television stations. During and after “La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia”, as a domino effect, newspapers, television, and radio stations got to know about the travel and wrote or talked about us. They helped us contribute to the raise of interest in slow mobility and care for the own territory.
Local level:
Spazio Autogestito 77 is an independent space in the city of Bolzano that was created to cultivate anti-fascism, anti-racism, and anti-sexism values with services and initiatives for any citizen. The project "La Dolce Ciclovita per l'Italia" approached Spazio Autogestito 77 by sharing the same values and involvement with the social cycle workshop "Pedale Radicale". This space provided several contacts that enriched the network of meetings during the journey. Thanks to Spazio Autogestito 77, the project was also able to take the message of Dolce Ciclovita to associations in the country that deal with the defense of the rights of the LGBT+ community, migrants, and any other minorities, because the bicycle itself is still a minority compared to other means of transport.
The design of “La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia” engaged the interdisciplinary project team in thinking about a slow mobility route from the north to the south of Italy. Notions of urban, landscape, and spatial planning were generally useful in imagining a route to enhance rural communities and landscape elements that facilitate reconnection with nature. The route was designed with the objective of making people appreciate the journey itself, rather than making them reach their destination as quickly as possible. Each stage was also designed to integrate the bicycle with rail transport and thus allow accessibility to a large proportion of users. The advantage of this route is that it connects existing cycle and secondary routes, making it possible to rediscover territories that could no longer be appreciated by car.
For the success of the trip, it was crucial to structure participatory activities, like mapping to collect quantitative information, and round tables to collect qualitative information. Considering the project team coming from three different European countries, including Italy, the presence of native Italian speakers was crucial. This was useful in facilitation of workshops and interviews. Finally, a good amount of physical preparation was required to increase knowledge in cycling and to cope with small and medium-sized emergencies.
For developing the communication campaigns, the skillset of graphic design, web development and writing press articles were necessary to address a wide public audience. The trip was developed based on an intensive research phase in which both theoretical and practical foundations were created. A framework that combined expert interviews, literature reviews, and workshop sessions with the approach to design with citizens together.
The interdisciplinarity of the team and the close contact to externals enriched daily mutual learning, a ground for discussion and internal reflection.
Results:
"La Dolce Ciclovita per l'Italia" was a national event that resulted in the creation of a large cycling caravan to which associations and citizens celebrating cycling joined and contributed at various stages. Through a simple invitation to ride with the project team, or the willingness to meet politicians for a chat about cycling, a strong interest was created in cycling. In addition, the scale of the trip aroused curiosity and made many people feel involved and willing to help. Local FIABs and some interested citizens facilitated the process and emphasized their role in the local area.
Outcomes:
A cycling itinerary from north to south of Italy that goes beyond the classically recognized Eurovelo or Italian bikeways network. Cycling should be everywhere and for everybody, indeed the route was tracked to demonstrate that even when policymakers did not implement a bikeway, bottom-up initiatives can fulfil this lack. The route was designed with locals who had the best knowledge of their territory and recorded via the team’s devices. Now, the itinerary is available to anybody as a digital or analogue map, to reference routes or suggest updates.
Impacts:
Some local administrators and associations who were curious about the experience asked to meet the organizing team to know how cycling infrastructure was throughout Italy, and to get inspired. The team has been asked for tips on bicycle journeys or on their vision regarding what sustainable mobility may be, by private people, newspapers, and radio stations. The intense media coverage highlighted that the story was considered a good practice of change toward sustainable mobility.
Bike traveling is a form of travel practiced by many people all over Europe and the world. Everybody has at least heard or watched about big adventures like crossing a continent or whatsoever to demonstrate impressive physical strength or collecting money for charity projects. “La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia” was about promoting cycling culture and inviting municipalities to do more for cycling infrastructure.
“La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia” did not aim to be an isolated journey passing through cities, but instead aimed to leave a positive message and inspire new people to go cycling in their everyday lives or try their own bike journey.
The travel also intended to create a safe, inclusive, and accessible route for everybody and was designed with the locals to make them feel part of a big project. Though pre-planned, the peculiarity of the route did not create a necessity to always look at a navigator, but rather to enjoy the landscape, feel included in it, stop cycling, talk to people, rely on their knowledge of the area, hear their stories, and ask them the best route to reach the next destination.
Living in times of digitalization, the core aspect of the project was to create analogue experiences with the help of digital tools with the belief that direct personal and interpersonal feelings have the power of impactful change.
Research through design:
Design actions like workshops, interviews, or participatory design actions led the “In Motion” team to have a better knowledge of the setting and collect qualitative and quantitative data.
The medium is the message:
Doing a bike journey is not only for leisure, but also for addressing the importance of raising an issue, questioning, reflecting, and acting. Within the global need for climate action and decarbonization, the project acted in the field of mobility, and how to make it more sustainable. The current mobility system is the second cause of the climate crisis we are living in. The sense of “La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia” was to go out on bicycles, because people needed a good example of an alternative to the current car-centered mobility system and because the bicycle itself can be the message.
Communication with different methods:
A good message needed proper media of communication to reach as many people as possible. Crowdfunding and Instagram campaigns were designed and carried out by the team, together with Telegram and WhatsApp channels. Additionally, both local and national newspapers and radio stations reached the team after sending out a press release document.
Learning by cycling:
This was a process that aimed at getting to know bicycles better by working and adapting them to the physical conditions of the cyclists and to every kind of terrain.
“La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia” can become a format to replicate in other settings to promote the bicycle culture and create an itinerary for others that can be safe, inclusive, and accessible.
The same itinerary from Brenner to Santa Maria di Leuca can be replicated by everybody because the map is available online. The project team can be helped by other interested cyclists in the itinerary and locals to keep the route up to date. A secondary road might be enlarged and become more crowded, which would then not be the safest solution for a first experience cyclist.
Individuals at greater risk of personal safety while traveling in small groups, like women, could benefit from this route because it is safe and accessible and facilitates ownership over win the tangible and intangible barriers that can restrain them from going cycling or bike traveling now.
FIAB Italy can benefit from “La Dolce Ciclovita per l’Italia” because it can be replicated in every part of Italy and collect useful data on the conditions of the infrastructure and how policymakers are working to implement and take care of them.
The recording of the itinerary can be replicated by everybody and used as a valuable database of critical issues or dangers along the cycle route to communicate to the local authorities.
The project addresses mainly two global challenges: the world climate crisis and rising accounts of social isolation.
The human-made climate crisis has noticeable impacts worldwide. You can see dramatic weather catastrophes like droughts, floods, biodiversity, and agricultural harvest loss. But also local heat waves and a high degree of pollution caused by emitted nitrogen oxides harm human health.
The European Green Deal has already recognized this problem and tries to foster sustainable mobility through a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2050.
We live in times wherein more and more people feel socially isolated due to a tendency for individualization processes in societies, and a lack of being embedded in social networks. The Covid-19 pandemic contributed to this isolation. People withdraw from political decision-making, public participation, and more in the private sphere. Therefore, a certain crisis of democracy can be observed. Citizens lose trust in their political representatives and politicians due to a lack of exchange.
The bicycle plays a key role in mitigating the aforementioned problems, as it is powered by human muscular energy and is therefore almost emission-free. It is democratic since it is in most cases financially affordable, repairable, available in inclusive options, and considered a sustainable means of transport.
The project aims to address these topics in a low-threshold way, inclusively, and in direct analogue experiences. Firstly, cycling together in a big group fosters the feeling of belonging, shared joy, and connectedness. A wide program of different events accompanied the journey. Workshops about sustainable mobility with schools and youth organizations, direct exchange in a round table format with local initiatives and public administrations, and interventions in public spaces for the involvement of local citizens should sensibilize people for local changes and enhance a common envisioning for the future.
