The former world and Olympic cycling champion is the soul of the project involving territory, cycling and food.
BikeandTaste is a website where the promotion of excellence and cycling tourism meet. It was created with the aim of promoting destinations with a high cycling value, with particular attention to food and wine and slow biking. BikeandTaste involves hotels, holiday farms and bed and breakfasts to rediscover ancient flavours, hospitality and authentic contact with nature, all while riding a bike.
Exceptional ambassador for this project is Paolo Bettini, Olympic and multi-world champion, who will personally guide cyclists to discover a strip of Tuscany enclosed in the territory of Pomarance and the upper Val di Cecina. On gravel and road routes,across forests and villages, BikeandTaste promises exclusivity and fun, in the name of typical products tasted in the frame of the Geothermia, the warm heart of Tuscany.
“I’ve spent an entire career training on the roads of these hills and I’m happy that there is finally an actual project on the enhancement of an extraordinary territory such as the Geothermal area,” explained Paolo Bettini. “The numbers confirm that cycling is increasingly synonymous with freedom, and today many people choose two wheels to travel, enjoy the open air and rediscover a slower way of life. I therefore want to thank the administration of the Town of Pomarance and the entire geothermal district because they have understood the importance of supporting cycling tourism at this moment in history, where the bicycle has proved to be an extraordinary means of recovery after the pandemic”.
The partnership with Paolo Bettini was strongly wished-for by the municipality of Pomarance and the geothermal district, which immediately believed in exploiting its resources through a cycling tourism project. A collaboration strongly oriented towards the promotion of a territory still to be discovered and particularly dear to the Tuscan champion.
“We are happy that this great project is finally coming to fruition,” said Nicola Fabiani, deputy mayor of Pomarance. “Cycling tourism is a bet in which we believe a lot, and the synergy between the municipality of Pomarance, Velo Etruria Pomarance and Cosvig has made it possible. It is a strategic territory in all respects; it is just a few kilometres from the sea of the Etruscan Coast and has the gentle yet wild charm of the Tuscan hinterland. It has a ‘warm heart’, rich in subsoil resources and full of energy. The same energy that the earth releases through the display of geothermal energy of Larderello and that can be felt in the warmth of the typical welcoming spirit of its inhabitants. A landscape that lends itself very well to being discovered slowly by bicycle, an ordinary or an electric bike, on or off the road. The roads in Val Di Cecina are natural cycle paths, where cyclists can enjoy nature without traffic and without stress, pedalling with their heads held high 365 days a year.”
Alongside the experiences in Tuscany, BikeandTaste also proposes the hills of Valdobbiadene – a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Veneto – as a destination through a network of facilities and services for the most demanding cycle tourists.
