Probably the first time I saw a cyclocross competition I hadn’t started walking yet.
The memory of the Sundays spent on the competition fields is vivid in my memory. It mixes the cold of winter temperatures with the warmth of people who gravitated around that world, made up of competitive spirit, commitment and the desire to arrive first, but also of solidarity, friendship and mutual support.
My brother Alessandro and I have always been very close, more than brothers we were “best friends”. We spent our childhood together. In those days, if you were lucky enough to have a grandmother available full time, you could avoid attending kindergarten and nursery schools. Ale and I grew up with grandmother Mimi, my mother’s mother, and we were always together. We had a fervent creativity and played a lot together, even as entrepreneurs. We spent a lot of time in our house in the mountains with our grandmother and when our parents came to visit us at the weekend, we welcomed them with a sort of flea market, where each object had its price clearly displayed.
Being part of the Guerciotti family, but also of the wider cross-country family, has also tempered my way of being. I remember that every time I attended a competition, I was surrounded by people who smiled at me, approached me, talked to me and joked with me because I was “Paolo’s daughter”. This led me from an early age to develop an extremely friendly and sociable approach to people, which was certainly already part of my nature, but which has strengthened day by day. I wasn’t afraid to put myself out there and I didn’t suffer from any shyness. At Guerciotti’s 20th birthday party, in 1984, when I had just turned 7, I was chosen as the exceptional “godmother” to give the precious gift to all guests. In short, I was always the center of attention, but this didn’t bother me at all.
When I was little more than a little girl, the time came for a role that accompanied me for several years. That of the fixed Miss intended to reward the winners of the Guerciotti Grand Prix. Obviously I was a little awkward in those moments, but my dad was proud to stand on stage next to his little girl. What makes me smile today is scrolling through the photos of past editions of the Guerciotti Grand Prix and finding in my clothing, in my hairstyles and in the way I dressed, a true history of fashion from the 80s to the 2000s.
In 1994 I became very passionate about cross. I remember that that season I joined my father in numerous mud races and I also went with him to the world championships in Koksijde, at the time when Vito Di Tano was the coach of the national team. There were moments when I was also tickled by the idea of trying to get on a bike and test myself in some races. I didn’t lack physical fitness, because I was a competitive tennis player and participated in numerous regional and national tournaments, but my love for the racket had been stronger than my love for the bike in those days.
Once I graduated, I joined the company and worked for three years with my father and my brother. However, I understood that the contribution I could make was limited, precisely because the experience I had had up to that moment was limited. I knew that to allow our company to make the leap in terms of marketing and communications, I would have to train externally. For this reason I decided to embark on a new path and joined an important American multinational company, leader in its sector. It was a market far from the cycling market, but it proved to be an excellent school in the promotion and sale of products with high added value, just like our bikes are.
When in 2019 I received the award as the best European salesperson of our company, overcoming the strong competition of dozens and dozens of salesmen from different countries, almost all men, I understood that the time had come to return “home”.
And here I am, fully back in our team since June last year. A lot has happened in the meantime, the projects I’m working on are different, complex but extremely exciting. Above all because I find myself talking about a product that is not only full of history, but which also bears my name clearly visible.
My goal today is to make the Guerciotti brand a reference in our market. Creating products that are unique in terms of technique and design is fundamental, but we also must be able to communicate and present them in the correct way. This is key to give the right value to the efforts of those people who put their heads and hearts into the design, the production, the painting and the assembly of our star-branded jewels. A star that has been shining for 60 years and whose light, I am sure, will continue to illuminate us for a long, long time.