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Culture<\/a><\/p>\n On conquering \u2013\u00a0and being conquered by \u2013 some of cycling’s greatest climbs at the Maratona dles Dolomites.<\/p>\n Michael Venutolo-Mantovani is a writer, musician, record label owner, and professor of journalism based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.\u00a0This is his third piece for Escape Collective.<\/p>\n The slow roll of tires on tarmac. Chains grinding faithfully against cassettes. Birdsong, at least while you\u2019re still below the treeline. Breath, in and out, in and out. Yours. Theirs. Ours. Maybe, if you\u2019re lucky, a little hush of wind across the back of your neck.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite being in the thick of one of the world\u2019s biggest, most prestigious, and most difficult fondos, surrounded on all sides by fanatical cyclists, some who\u2019ve traveled the world to be there, that\u2019s about all you hear as you climb the wall-like roads of the Dolomites.\u00a0<\/p>\n You stand up sometimes \u2014 if for no other reason than to give your ass and your quads a tiny respite \u2014 and count your pedal strokes. You set a target number in your mind, rather than a location up the road, and, standing up, you tick them out in the silence of your brain. \u201c1, 2, 3, 4, 5,\u201d and on and on until you reach whatever that predestined number was. You sit back down, hoping the grade has mellowed out a bit in the twenty-five or fifty or one-hundred times you\u2019ve turned your pedals. It hasn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n You focus on the little names and the little national flags printed on the numbers of the riders in front of you. As the fondo reserves half of its 8,000 entries for Italians, most of them are lyrical in the way that only Italian is lyrical. \u201cCatarcione,\u201d \u201cTagliapietra,\u201d \u201cDella Pergola.\u201d Others are almost funny. You focus on the man named \u201cZucchini\u201d and the woman named \u201cPanini.\u201d But you have neither breath nor will to laugh. You wonder if anyone behind you is doing the same, focusing on the little name printed on the little number stuck to the back of your jersey, asking themselves how a \u201cVenutolo-Mantovani\u201d ended up in the United States. You wonder if there even is anyone behind you or whether or not you are it, Lanterne Rouge, D.F.L. Dead fucking last. You see a German name like \u201cWolfgang\u201d beside a little Italian flag and presume he must be from around here, in this rare part of Italy that is almost as much German and Swiss as it is Italian, in Alta Badia, in the Sella Ronda, in South Tyrol.<\/p>\n This post is for paying subscribers only Already have an account? Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n Did we do a good job with this story?<\/p>\n \n \ud83d\udc4dYep![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Michael-Venutolo-Mantovani-aspect-ratio-99-99-150x150.jpeg\")
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