Giro-E Enel 2025 – Stage 10 Soave – Vicenza

No drinking and driving, and no drinking and cycling either. But that is no easy feat in Soave, the starting point of Stage 10 of the Giro-E Enel 2025. This municipality, located 20 kilometres away from Verona and at the foot of the Lessini Mountains, is famous for the typical wine named after it. It’s bright, fresh, straw yellow and has a typical, pleasant scent of white flowers and almond, a full taste and is slightly bitter, with the typical hints of vanilla of wood-aged wines. These are the characteristics of its best version: it’s how experts describe the Soave Superiore DOCG. Some say that the famous Italian poet Dante Alighieri once described the town as “soave”, meaning pleasant, when speaking of its good wine. However, the name actually originates from a Suebi tribe who built the settlement in the Lombard period. Among the town’s most famous landmarks are Scaliger Castle, the town walls dating back to 1369, Zanella Park and the many buildings of this beautiful Medieval hamlet.

“Sport is the best way for us to promote our local area and its highlights, and this new national sporting event is yet another exciting occasion to add to our calendar of events,” said the mayor of Soave, Matteo Pressi. “Cycle tourism, using both traditional and electric bikes, is constantly growing and is one of the fields we are focusing the most on, also thanks to the investments made in recent years to improve our infrastructure, such as the rest areas and charging stations, both for bikes and other means of transport, on our hills and in the town centre.”

If you want to go on an excursion, why not choose the third Sunday of September? Since 1929 Soave has been celebrating its grape festival, the most ancient of its kind in the entire Veneto region.

The Soave-Vicenza stage

The first double-digit stage of Giro-E Enel 2025 has been a pleasant one. The cyclists arrived in Vicenza after 86 kilometres and 1,200 metres of elevation gain, which were largely due to a naturally vibrant and mostly flat route, with few remarkable challenges (apart from San Giovanni in Monte). The final part of the stage was nevertheless uphill, a 12% gradient climb with an exciting finish line at the Sanctuary of the Madonna of Mount Berico, in Vicenza. Then there’s Piazza dei Signori, with its Basilica Palladiana and the Palazzo del Capitaniato, the Teatro Olimpico and Corso Palladio, with its many buildings designed by Andrea Palladio. The city is famous for its goldsmith tradition, and it truly is a gem.

Personality of the day – Giuseppe Bica

Now taking part in his fourth Giro-E, and third as captain, Giuseppa Bica is one of the most beloved and popular personalities of the event. An authentic Sicilian, outgoing and generous – these are the words used by Luca Della Porta, the “voice” of Giro-E, to introduce Bica to the stage for the daily ceremony. Giuseppe Bica is the captain of the RCS Sport & Events team, as well as Brand Ambassador of Lombardo Bikes, which provides many bikes to the Giro-E Enel 2025. He is also an influencer, an athlete who loves sports and physical challenges (he has walked for 24 hours non-stop and cycled across Italy on a gravel bike). He has turned sustainable mobility and pedal-assisted bikes into his mission.

“I like to stay out of the limelight and lend a hand, help the group continue cycling safely and make sure everyone reaches the finish line; at the paddock I like talking about bikes and technique. It’s the role I’ve chosen for the Giro-E, because I’m not a cycling champion; actually I’m not even a cyclist – I have become one, but I am an all-round athlete. What I bring to Giro-E is the typical Sicilian love for going over the top, attracting attention, standing out, which is part of the contradictory soul of Sicilians, since they live on an island. For example, the small marble pieces on the Lombardo bikes – which are beautiful – that we created for the Giro-E 2025 do not have a specific function, they serve no purpose, but they’re a way for a part of Sicily to travel across Italy. I chose marble because I look at it every day. It’s so beautiful; it has the same lines as lightning when it hits the ground. Every bike to me is a blank canvas on which I can tell our story as Sicilians and Italians. And every year, with Lombardo, we surprise people with our creations.”

Because Giuseppe, apart from being Lombardo Bikes’ brand ambassador and representing it in Italy and the rest of Europe, is part of the company’s creative team. “My job is to innovate. I am part of the creative and R&D department. I am an outsider to the bike industry. This enables a diverse group, made up of famous personalities that maybe don’t train regularly and former champions in top shape, ranging from 30 to 70 years of age, to cycle together and cross the finish line of the Giro d’Italia – something all cycling fans dream of and that most, without an e-bike, would be unable to do. Getting such a group to the finish is extremely exciting to me.”

ANCI Team in Vicenza, an example for youth policies

The National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI) is very active at the Giro-E, running a series of initiatives that focus on youth involvement in local public policies, aided by financing from the National Fund for Youth Policies. Sport, sustainability, active participation and new skills are the main topics at the centre of dialogue between institutions, local areas and new generations.

Today’s stage took the Giro-E from Soave to Vicenza, where the local administration – some of whom are in the ANCI cycling team – places a big emphasis on promoting youth policies. It has also shown a big commitment to the Valutazione di Impatto Generazionale (Generational Impact Assessment) inspired by the European Youth Check, a tool for analysing the impact of public policies on young people to help make more equal and sustainable decisions.

In Vicenza offering the new generations opportunities to be actively involved forms the foundations on which the city of the future can be built, but the hope is that youth policies can play an increasingly important role in sustainable local development as a rule. To this end, big events offer another great opportunity for development and youth participation.

ANCI is also running a series of Stakeholder Forums. For further information and to sign up, click here.

Click here to see the Giro-E rankings.