EP.6 • LORENZO ZANETTA
Lorenzo Zanetta, born on the 17th of May 2001, is a mechanical engineering student at “Politecnico di Milan”. Interested in many creative fields, from photography to craftsmanship and design, in the last few years he got in touch more and more with sports in general, with a deeper focus on mountaineering and cycling.
You set off on the fifth NorthCape4000, how many new people did you manage to interact with during the journey or on arrival? If you went back, would you leave with a friend or companion doing the whole route with you?
I can't tell you exactly how many new people I have interacted with in general, but I can certainly tell you that the valuable acquaintances I have made, even if you can count them on the fingers of one hand, have been very important along the way to push me to continue even when I didn't think I could.
It is very complicated to arrange to start with someone from the beginning, especially because it has to be someone exactly at your level and as strong as you are, and so far I haven't met anyone I can do that with.
When faced with the unforeseen incident where you got hurt, how did you realise that there was anyway a solution to go on without abandoning the journey?
The urge to go on arose mainly when I thought about the future me, caught up in the remorse of not having reached the end, even if it was not in the way I had planned.
The solution, after loading myself with all this motivation, came by itself.
Do you ever really realize that you have made an important journey? Now that you are back, do you really have the physical and mental perception of having completed a long journey by bike across almost the whole of Europe?
I'll tell you, a month or so after returning, I'm still very much in a state of mind to have completed my journey, and being the first one of this magnitude, I can't tell you if this emotion will fade away in some time, we'll see...
Is the journey more beautiful and important than the arrival is one of the classic but true phrases you hear, but what is actually beautiful about the moment you arrive? And the return?
First of all, once you arrive you immediately feel a sense of freedom, not as if you had freed yourself of a weight of course, since I wasn't doing anything against my will, just that you feel lighter, relaxed in short.
And then immediately afterwards you feel 'proud' of what you've done, after all the difficulties, the weather, not sleeping for days, etc.
If you had to assign a piece of music to this journey, what would it be?
To find the perfect song I would have to think about it, right now I would say Go Solo by Zwette.
