TOUR D’AFRIQUE 2013 – 5 years today…

TOUR D’AFRIQUE 2013 – 5 years today…

It was the 2012 when I started thinking at something new out of the Cinelli Bootleg line. I was really excited and conscious that the real Bootleg must interpret signals from the world and deliver a tool arising from these influences that would allow exploring the world.

To achieve this I wanted to go back and assess the real needs for a bike to see if it was more than just another product on the market. Sustainability was a core requirement for me. Anthropogenic pressures on the Earth have reached a scale where an urgent change of route towards sustainability is inescapable. So my first question was do we really need another bike?

To find answers to these questions I needed to unplug completely, to get away from it all.

Thanks to the Zenga Bros movie “Where Are You Go” I discovered the Tour d’Afrique and immediately realised that was the place where I needed to be. So I participated in the “Tour d’Afrique 2012” riding a Cinelli Bootleg Racing Rats. The result of this process was the Cinelli HoBootleg with stainless steel frame conceived for long haul journeys and long lasting.

To test the new HoBootleg prototype I rode a short section of Tour d’Afrique 2013 in Ethiopia, and I came back to ride the last part of the Tour from Namibia to South Africa with Lucas Brunelle and Chas Christiansen.

5 years today…

Since the first HoBootleg prototype was made, many courageous explorers have been riding the HoBootleg to the remotest corners of the world and back. In less than 5 years, more than 200,000 kms of road, dirt and sand have been explored by HoBootleg adventurers, a Guinness World Record has been set (Paola Gianotti, 2015), and countless, breathtaking moments witnessing the beauty of our planet have been experienced.

This is absolutely the greatest reward I’m still having from this project.

 

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