I'm riding the Lento.
Most things sound better in Italian. (One of the few exceptions is the mushroom, fungo in la bella lingua.) And if I didn't know any better, I'd sign up for it.
But those of you who know the language--or music terminology--know that "lento" means "slow." Believe it or not, there's actually an event in which people try to go slowly--something that comes naturally to me at my age!
What's really wild, though, is a barrier the riders were trying to break. Just as running a mile in four minutes or less seemed impossible until Roger Bannister did it in 1954, one wonders how someone who isn't completely immobile can ride less than a kilometer (about .625 mile) in an hour. That was the goal of Davide Formolo and Maria Vittoria Sperotto at the Velodromo Rino Mercante del Bassano di Grappa, in the Veneto region. They were trying to "better" the old mark of 1070 meters set by Bruno Zanoni in the same event two years ago.
Formolo and Speretto shattered that record by riding 918 meters.
Now, if you think you can out-do them simply by stopping for a latte every 30 seconds, think again. The cyclists in the Lento are every bit as fit as the riders you'd see in any race: Formolo, in fact, has competed in, and finished, all of the Big Three races and placed as high as ninth in the Vuelta. But they're not trying to showcase their power or speed, as someone trying to break (in the sense we'd normally think of) a distance or speed record. What the Lento rewards, instead, are skill and patience.
The rules of the race are that riders must always ride forward at the slowest possible speed without coming to a complete stop, and they must do so on a geared bike without brakes.
In a way, the event reminds me of something theater and film directors have long said: People can't play themselves. Likewise, you can't win an event like the Lento if your normal speed is slow: You have to be strong, fast and skilled enough to control yourself at the slowest possible speed.
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