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How did this challenge start?
It was summer 2005 and 7 close friends covered (on their own citybikes) 400 km along the Drava river, crossing Austria, Slovenija and getting to Udine (Italy).
During this trip an idea came to Alessandro Genuzio’s mind: the possibility to make an even longer trip across many countries, thinking that a bike would be valid as a transport means.So, when the idea started to became clearer, the trip would have involved an entire continent, starting from Udine and ending in the northest and wildest part of Europe: North Cape!Many of the cyclists involved deemed the journey a foolish one: biking for 4000 km is not an everyday-deed… so the project was set aside.During the summer of 2007, a tv program called “Overland 10” reminded Alessandro of the idea of making that dream come true.On one of the nights spent hanging around with friends, it was decided that the biketrip would have become true in a year: “Genio” would have been on the bike all the 4000km long, supported by a technical and logistic team made up by students.In the frame of that meeting, it was also decided not only to give birth to a sport event, but also to create a different one, focused on the promotion of our land (Friuli) and based upon the will to give a young image to the University of Udine.The journey was revisited, deciding to start from North Cape and to arrive to Lignano Sabbiadoro, in order to establish a sort of tie between the Arctic Circle and the Adriatic sea.A real “no-borders” trip that would go through many different realities: from the legendary Norway region of Finmark, crossing Santa’s land (Lappony) and going through Danmark, which represents an important connection between Scandinavian lands and continental Europe.Going through many of the beautiful views of Germany, from Rostock to Salzburg, the journey continues towards the Tauri mountains and then to the Alps.The best conclusion of the trip would be a ride through the entire region of Friuli Venezia Giulia (North-Eastern Italy), from the mountains all the way towards the coast, crossing the most important districts of the province of Udine.
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