How it all began
- Written by Larry & Heather Theobald
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- Published in CycleItalia
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How it all started: Heather and Larry met in Italy, Heather as translator while Larry looked after the bicycles.
We worked for arguably the first program offering challenging cycling tours for avid riders. Lots ofpedala forte and excellent on-road support but sadly, not much in the way of mangia bene. A few years later during some free time between tours, we loaded up our bicycles and ventured to a place called Piedmont after enjoying a wonderful wine from this region.
We stayed atop a steep hill overlooking the vineyards of Barolo, even enjoying a special glass of the “wine of kings” offered to us at lunch in Gallo. This was a beginning of a love affair – one so strong we enthusiastically told the tour company owner about this wonderful region and suggested we create a cycling tour there.
And then…nothing. But the memories remained and when it was finally time to create CycleItalia, where pedala forte, mangia bene became our slogan, the first region we considered was Piedmont. We created CycleItalia specifically to address that lack of mangia bene with our former employer, knowing well this would be a niche market appealing only to those with an appreciation of the best wine and food to go with their love of fine bicycles and peaceful, scenic, but challenging rides.
We produced the first Paradise in Piedmont tour in 1999, one very similar to the version described here: Feast Your Thighs on Piedmont, Italy.
While these days we offer Best of Piedmont in June each year, we love Piedmont so much we also offer More Monferrato, Vineyards to the Sea (half of which is in Piedmont, the rest in Liguria) and Piedmont Cycling Resort.
Larry & Heather Theobald
Larry & Heather met in Italy and have since spent 25 years with challenging cycling tours in Italy. They founded CycleItalia in 1998 with the goal of sharing la dolce vita in bicicletta with you.