Ferrara, the Italian cycling capital with 107 km of cycle paths
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Inside the walls that surround the city center, forget about getting petrol: petrol stations not received, for a full tank, go to the suburban avenues. If, on the other hand, you have a flat tyre, the chain has fallen off or the bell doesn’t ring as it should, that’s no problem: you’ll find a bicyclist – as they’re called around here – for sure. It is no coincidence that according to the latest data available, every Ferrarese family has 2 bicycles. Welcome to Ferrara, the self-proclaimed “city of bicycles”.
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The primacy of the pedal is claimed along all the access routes to the city, with road signs that celebrate the vocation of two wheels as if it were a work of art (and Ferrara has some wonderful ones), a historic building (never heard of Schifanoia and Diamanti?) or a typical product of the local gastronomy (coppiette, pasticcio ferrarese, pumpkin cappellacci, salama da sugo, the list is long). But if arriving in the city you thought you were entering a Po Valley offshoot of Northern Europe such as Amsterdam or Copenhagen, where the bike reigns supreme as a result of a conscious ecological choice, you would be very mistaken. Ferrara is indeed the Italian city most prone to cycling, but not by virtue. Rather, out of habit. Because despite its historical heritage, the ancient splendor of the Estense court or the vocation for the arts – they were from Ferrara Cosme Tura, Hercules de Roberti, Francis del Cossa, John Boldini, George Bassani, Florestano Vancini and Michelangelo Antonioni – Ferrara is fundamentally a peasant city, much more than other sister towns such as Modena, Reggio, Parma which have succumbed to the positivist fascination of industry.
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And the farmers, from the twentieth century onwards, use the bicycle to get around. Economical, slender vehicle, and particularly suitable for flat terrain (for the record, the highest peak in Ferrara is the Montagnone in via Alfonso I d’Este, a good 28 meters above sea level).
In short, here two wheels are truly a cultural heritage, almost an anthropological trait. Proof of this are the 107 kilometers of cycle paths, which allow a relatively safe journey almost everywhere. On the other hand, apart from the children, their grandmothers, and of course the farmers, strictly by bike travel in order: the fans of the Spal, who, in the absence of parking around the stadium, go pedaling to the match; the traffic police (often, but not always); students of all levels; their teachers, because after all a university professor with a leather briefcase attached to the handlebar is a fine literary topos; the drug dealers, whom you see at any time of the day or night controlling the territory (and escaping police checks) from the top of their saddle. And, of course, bike thieves. Because in a city where everyone – absolutely everyone! – own at least one, the bike is also the most obvious thing to steal.
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There isn’t a normal person in the city who hasn’t had at least three or four of them taken from them in the last ten years. Just ask around. Then, of course, there’s also a lot of people who go by car. Partly out of haste, partly out of status, partly out of laziness. And partly because Ferrara, despite having just 130,000 inhabitants, is the seventeenth largest Italian municipality, and if you have to get from a hamlet like Francolino to the center up to the Liceo Ariosto, it takes 12 kilometers to get there and as many back. That at 7 in the morning, or at one o’clock when you can’t see us anymore from hunger and the bus never comes, there are quite a few. Result, the capital of bicycles is also plagued by smog.
To the point that in 2019 the control unit in Corso Isonzo, halfway between the railway station and the Castle moat, was the one with the highest concentration of particulate matter in all of Emilia Romagna (ok, the fault lies with the thermal inversion typical of the place, rather than the traffic, but cars certainly don’t help). The ones you see the least in Ferrara, and the reason is that there are almost none, are real cyclists, intended as athletes. In the sense: in the face of so much popular custom, one could imagine a South Tyrolean-type scenario, home to all the major alpine skiing champions. But no.
couples he was Piedmontese, Bartali Tuscan, Gimondi and Saronni Lombards, Moser Trentino, Learchus War Mantuan, Constant Girardengo of Novi Ligure, Alfred Binda of Lake Varese, Pantani of Cesena. Nobody remembers champions from Ferrara, and it is only thanks to Google that it is possible to reconstruct the deeds of Vincent Zucconelli and Dino Bruni, from Ferrara, pink jerseys at the Giro d’Italia, for just a few days, respectively in ’55 and ’60, and silver medals at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics in the team event. Others do not appear in the annals. On the other hand, when all around you have pear trees and fields of beets, the problem is getting to work. Don’t get there first.
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