Even though I had never raced a bike, since I was a child I have always had a passion for my father’s work and I was fascinated by the idea of being able to work in my own company selling a product with my name printed on it.
For this reason, my sister and I already started “working” in the shop in Via Tamagno counting water bottles. For us, winter was synonymous with cyclocross: we went with my parents at the races and I still remember the champions of that time, first of all Vito Ditano, but also legends like Liboton or Simunek. I have experienced mud-life since I was very young and everyone looked at me with tenderness. This because my mother, worried by the extreme cold of winter season, used to dress me with a fur coat that was much similar to the one worn by my father.
At the end of the 80s we were leaving a decade of extraordinary successes in cyclocross, with several world championships won. At that time, thanks also to Vito Ditano, cyclocross entered Italian television and was covered extensively by the most important newspapers, primarily the Gazzetta dello Sport.
In 1989, for the presentation of our fabulous cyclo cross team, Giovanni Trapattoni was invited as main guest. For myself, a lifelong fan of Inter Football club, it was a unique emotion to have the chance to give a bike to the coach who would win the famous record-breaking scudetto in a few months. At that moment I understood that cycling is truly loved and it is not just limited in its sphere. Cycling belongs to everyone and can take you anywhere.
In June 2000 I officially joined the company with the organization of the Guerciotti 35th anniversary party and the inauguration of the new headquarters in Via Petrocchi. Since 2004 we began to supply several professional teams. From there I began to create a collaborative relationship with the champions who raced on our bikes, athletes such as Dmitry Konishev, Pavel Tonkov, Gilberto Simoni, Davide Rebellin, Michele Scarponi, Alessandro Bertolini, Rubens Bertogliati.
The rider with whom I had the closest relationship was Gilberto Simoni. He was the first champion for whom I created a bicycle. I knew how much of a perfectionist this rider was and working for him it was a challenge that intrigued me. We created a custom-made frame for Simoni, with special tubes, which we then called Spider Gibo. Before reaching the final version, we made three different variants and we studied 4 different graphics. It was a hard job, but the result was excellent. In that year Gilberto was one of the protagonists of the Giro, competing for the podium, so we can state that the frame we provided to him, it was truly a great success, both in terms of performance and design. Michele Scarponi and Davide Rebellin were also athletes for whom we had the honour of creating a dedicated product.
Rebellin came to Milan for his bike and immediately told me: “Alessandro, I’m not as demanding as Gibo (laughing), I just need to know that you supply a top range bicycle with all high-level accessories, and then I’ll take care of making it win” . That year Davide was in a stratospheric condition. If he had not been forced to spot due to the disqualification, I’m sure he could have won one of the first stages of the Giro and dressed the pink jersey. Given the relationship that had been created, after his post-Olympic disqualification I personally committed to having him back on track and we brought him to all our teams: first Meridiana, then Miche Guerciotti up to CCC Sprandi. An exceptional man and professional, who, like Michele Scarponi, had an end he didn’t deserve.
In 2000 I returned to the cyclocross fields first as head of external relations and then as team manager of our team. I started with Daniele Pontoni and this helped me gain experience with a two-time world champion rider, to understand from the inside the dynamics of cyclocross, the needs of a top rider and how to manage an entire season of a team that has done the history of cyclocross.
Year after year, I refined my experience and, both thanks to ability and a bit of luck, I was able to hire young riders who would later make the history of Italian cyclocross and beyond. One of them is Marco Aurelio Fontana, who was certainly a good runner as a junior, but who made an extraordinary leap with us, becoming the champion we all know today. I also had the intuition to hire athletes such as the Belgian Sanne Cant, considered the strongest Belgian cyclocross female rider of all time and, in the Italian panorama, athlets such as Elia Silvestri, Alice Arzuffi, Gioele Bertolini, Jakob Dorigoni and Gaia Realini.
Another very important figure in developing my professional and managerial growth in cyclocross was, in addition to my father, Vito Ditano. I used to follow him to the races as a child, now we have always worked closely together to achieve the extraordinary results we have reached in recent years. And the confirmation is 2024, the year in which we hit a historic result with 4 Italian titles won. As an Inter fan, I can easily say that we are a nice couple… like Inter’s Marotta and Inzaghi.