Super Mi 100!

Among all the songs about Milano, this verse is probably the one best defining the idea behind the Super Mi 100 loop.

Saturday we covered it with everyone willing to join us and we did it discovering a side of Milano unknown to many. Because you usually head to the suburbs of the city only if you live in it or your job is taking you there. You don’t do it just to discover and understand it. Also, when it’s about cycling – from Milano – you just start and leave the city behind on the shortest way possible, looking for riding in more interesting places.

Super Mi 100 is not a track conceived to train. It is rather suited to explore and understand. Because exploration is not a condition tied to a specific environment, to objective beauty or to wild and extreme. Exploration is made of two states of mind: ignorance and openness. Ignorance as lack of knowledge of a place and openness as willingness to switch this situation by having a direct experience. Therefore the peripheries are the perfect playground for exploration.  

So we let ourselves be carried where nobody goes, following our Super Mi 100 track. Hard to tell how many we were, considering people who completed the entire loop and the ones who joined just for a section of it. Looking at every single one of us, some looked ready for the Grinduro series,  some others more on their way to get the Sunday newspaper. Also there were a few ready to go for the Giro’s final TT. We were like those pizza with forty different toppings on it, so unpleasant and crazy to read on the menu, yet so freaking good that when you taste it: shit – the pizza chef was right. 

Clearly an Auro Bulbarelli media coverage would have been pointless. Zero attacks to report and unchanged ranking after 100 km. Nevertheless the ride was definitely not boring and we should point out that thanks to Super Mi 100 we:

• Discovered that Milano is just a Venice with beltways instead of canals. Has someone ever counted the pedestrian bridges in Milano 
• Discovered (we should say had proof) that the 60s and 70s are the dark age of construction building 
• Understood that in Quartoggiaro youngsters would challenge you with their BMX, no matter if you happen to be Pogacar 
• Find out that in Parco di Trenno beach volley is as popular as in Copacabana 
• Discovered that some ringbells might be very, very threatening 
• Okay, ate at the park, pizza and beers 
• Tried to convince an elderly couple that Federico was a priest followed by his oratory’s boys
  
• Figured out that more and more people are cycling. Very good. 
• Figured out that there are a lot of car drivers who stop to let you cross the road. There is still a long way to go but we see very pleasant improvements. 
• Did a lot of other things that are not crossing our mind right now. 
• Took a few folks pedaling and discovering places 10 km from their home, that would have probably never seen otherways. For example, Vitto knew those places but he was not pedaling since ‘42. 

And that’s it. It’s been real. And sure enough it has been the first proof that a bike makes you happy and gives you the possibility to see the World from a different perspective. No matter the bike you ride nor the place you cross. Nobody and nowhere excluded. 

A well deserved thanks goes to Michele Aquila and Super Mi 100 who developed this great project and gave us the opportunity to turn an improvised Saturday ride into a blast. Also a big shout-out to Alessio Miotto: planner, organizer, photographer (the most beautiful pics of this posts are shot by the man himself) and doctor of the crew. A man to marry we should say.

Will we do it again? Yes, of course. A lot of you write us asking to do it in this or that city. We hear you. If you have a track ready, send it at info [at] enoughcycling.cc and we will take it into account together. Some support and already developed ideas by the locals are a very well appreciated support, leaving us free from the burden of coming up with something from scratch.

What is Super Mi 100?

It is a 100 km track around Milano shaping a big loop deep into the peripheries of the city. It was designed by Michele Aquila for the Festival delle Periferie. You can find the track down below in our Komoot collection and you can read all the details of the project at this link.