“One of the more colourful characters taking part in yesterday’s event was Michil Costa who was riding his lovingly-restored, 120-year-old penny farthing. Costa, the owner of an eco-friendly hotel in Corvara who has been involved in the organisation of the Maratona since 1997, believes the Dolomites – a Unesco World Heritage Site – should be “healed” by the regular banning of motorised traffic. He has a “dream that within the next four to five years”, every day will be Bike Day in Alta Badia, with motorised traffic banned from its mountain roads for a few hours seven days a week.
Costa acknowledges that this idea has the support of “only 15%” of his fellow hoteliers, but says it was the same when the Maratona started. “Now all the businesses love the Maratona because it directly results in 80,000 overnight stays every year. And the Sellaronda Bike Day has also become a tourist attraction in its own right” he says.”
Read the whole article here : TheGuardian.com
copyright Freddy Planinschek