The members from Enough Collective are well known for their performance in endurance events, but we also know that they throw the best parties in the gravel community. In addition to organizing parallel activities in races, they have been running their own cycling festival for the last couple of years, so we decided to join and we are glad we did.
The Enough Cycling Festival occurred from July 12th – 14th in Sosegana, near Treviso, Italy. The event’s third edition was organized the weekend after the Memory Bike Adventure, an ultra-distance off-road race they also host. Finishers and people who joined for the weekend activities gathered in the Vineria Borgoluce, with a big compound where registered participants would pitch their tents or park their campervan.
On Friday evening, the ones who got to Sosegana in time kickstarted the festival with a sunset ride that ended with a glass of prosecco on top of a hill. For us, It was already going to be a short stay in Italy anyway, but a concatenation of misfortunes prevented us from joining the group until Saturday morning. The good thing is that there were many more glasses of Prosecco to come.
The good vibes perceived from the moment we stepped into the camp compensated for our odyssey to get there. Everyone, regardless of how busy they were that week with work or race preps, put everything on hold to have a great time, on and off the bike.
Around 100 people spent the night at the Vineria, and some extra individuals joined for the ride on Saturday. Most of them were obviously local, but several people like us came from abroad. English was the most used language around us, although when it came to warning about the danger ahead during the ride, all we could hear was “maquina!’’ or “occhio!”, terms we incorporated into our vocabulary by the end of the day. As Spanish speakers, we still find it funny that they call cars that way.
There were different routes to choose from, but the large majority went for the middle one in terms of distance. For the next few hours, we would immerse ourselves in the Prosecco Hills, with constant views of the Venetian Prealps in front of us. The 2023 Gravel World Championships took place in Veneto, and the main Nova Eroica event also brings riders to the beautiful vineyards in the area.
Unlike some fake social rides that end up becoming a race, it was clear from the beginning that no one was there to prove how strong they were but rather to talk with fellow participants. Some steep hills made it difficult, but there was always time to catch up during any of the regroupings.
That weekend was extremely hot, which slowed us down and forced us to stop whenever we came across a water source. We were told that the lunch stop, powered by Fizik, was by the Lago di Santa Maria so, although no one said it loud, we all knew we were going to end up underwater.
Once we dried up, it was time to tackle the second half of the route. Everyone agreed on taking a couple of shortcuts that would bring the total distance down to 90 kilometers, but there were many beautiful gravel paths left to ride.
The most well-known member of the Enough Collective is Mattia de Marchi, and we had the pleasure to chat with him while going up and down the beautiful hills that are at riding distance from where he resides.
One may think that a rider of his caliber is exclusively focused on his own racing plans, but the truth is that Mattia played a key role in the Memory Bike Adventure and the Enough Cycling Festival to take place. Despite racing The Rift in Iceland the week after, Mattia followed by car the participants of the ultra-distance race, sleeping not much more than those riding it, and then he jumped straight into an organizer role for the weekend, being one of the ride leaders and overseeing that everything was working correctly at the camp.
When we thought we were already heading back to the camp following the shortest way, we suddenly took a turn right and saw the Castello di Collalto in front of us, where RodaMata is located. The people running the cycling café, also owned by Borgoluce, were waiting for us with a bottle of prosecco on hand, and we filled our stomachs with the food they had prepared for the occasion. We were there for a while waiting for a full regroup, and aware that the stage of Tour de France was about to finish, we took shelter in the shadow to see the last moments.
It was mentally difficult to resume our ride, but only eight kilometers along smooth gravel paths and multiple vineyards separated us from the camp. We arrived around six o’clock and the only thing we could think of were the evening activities coming up. The expectations were high, and once again the people from Enough CC delivered.
Once the different food options at the Vineria satiated our hunger, a spontaneous indoor cycling competition took place in the Aveo stand. The ones who had already digested food battled to see who could push the highest wattage after a warm-up of one minute, and the rest of us enjoyed watching their max-effort faces. Fulcrum brought a dartboard, and after proving that throwing darts is not our hidden talent, we joined the party that was slowly heating up. Elias Gozal from Pas Normal Studios and Michael Basso from Fizik delighted us with a DJ set that kept us dancing until late at night!
There was a hangover ride planned for Sunday, but our long journey to get back home prevented us from joining. We spent that whole day thinking of the priceless moments we experienced during the previous 24 hours, and none of that would have been possible if it weren’t for the Enough Collective. Cycling, especially gravel, unites like-minded people together, and events like the Enough Cycling Festival are the perfect escape to share time with the cycling friends we meet along the way.
