THE JOURNEY IS ALREADY THE DESTINATION
by NEVIO COSTANZO
“Three men on a bicycle”, written by Paolo Rumiz, Emilio Rigatti and Francesco Altan, tells the story of the bicycle as a different way of being in the world. In “Bicycle Diaries”, on the other hand, David Byrne, musician, writer and historic leader of the Talking Heads, transforms it into a tool for understanding cities and people. And, staying close to home, I cannot forget “Around Gorizia” by Dario Stasi, a collection of bicycle itineraries in our area. Perhaps it is also readings like these that have prompted me, from time to time, to share my excursions on two wheels on social media.
There are loves that come suddenly and others that grow slowly, almost without being noticed.
The bicycle belongs to the second category. It does not arise from the desire to own an object, but from the pleasure of what that object makes possible. At first it is a simple means of transport. Then, one day, you realize that it has become much more.
The bicycle changes the rhythm of things. It is not slow, as is often said; it is simply at the right speed to notice what surrounds us. It allows you to smell the scent of a large lime tree or any other flower, to stop in front of a panorama that would have already disappeared in the rear-view mirror in the car, to observe the reflection of the waters of the Soča, the Soča, to greet a stranger along the route or to take a secondary road just because it inspires curiosity, perhaps to the point of discovering an old milestone hidden on the side of the road.
Pedaling you discover that even the places we think we know retain something mysterious. The light changes, a season changes, our gaze changes. And that road traveled dozens of times still manages to tell something new.
Perhaps this is precisely the reason why so many cyclists almost never talk about fatigue. They talk about encounters, landscapes, silences, small stops to taste local food, photographs taken without haste. The bicycle becomes a discreet companion: it does not ask to be the protagonist, but makes what is around us the protagonist.
It is a love that, almost without realizing it, expands. From the bicycle it passes to quiet roads, to trees, to rivers, to villages, to people. We end up looking at the territory with different eyes, no longer as a space to be crossed as quickly as possible, but as a place to live, where the journey is already the destination.
And this is where this love takes on an even greater meaning.
Every time we choose the bicycle, when physical conditions and the needs of life allow it, we make a choice that does not only concern us. It is a small gesture, but capable of improving, at least a little, the environment we share.
I write Environment with a capital letter. Not out of a grammatical choice, but out of respect. Because the Environment is not something that surrounds us: it is something we are part of. All of us, without exception.
Because, after all, every time we choose a bicycle, we also choose the world we would like to leave to those who will come after us. Perhaps the love for cycling is just that. Not only the pleasure of pedaling, but the awareness that a simple daily choice can leave a lighter imprint on the world and, at the same time, make our lives a little richer.