Contador Day, where cycling is at home.
Climbing one of the legendary passes of cycling with one of the greatest champions of the last years. What better way for a cycling lover?
For our team the Contador Day represented an exciting experience, climbing beside Alberto Contador and Team Polartec-Kometa guys the grim bends of Passo Gavia and meeting the participants in the expo village.
Our Contador Day started early morning, with the booth set up in the centre of Bormio, a beautiful and characteristic small town in the Italian Alps. After that, we waited Alberto and the young talents of his team, greeted with a warn round applause by the participants and cycling lovers when they arrived in the Bormio centre.
The Contador Day officially got underway, and after the interviews and the photos with Alberto, the large group of riders started the long climb to the legendary Passo Gavia.
The incredible landscapes of the Italian Alps, together with Bend36 Pre-Ride creams, alleviated our fatigue, and our arrival on the top of the pass represented a special emotion. We were on the top of the world, where Bend36 was conceived and experienced.
Like Passo dello Stelvio indeed, Passo Gavia represents one of the hardest and most important climbings of modern cycling, and is often the Cima Coppi of Giro d’Italia, the highest point of the race. With its 2.618 meters above sea level and its 17,3 kilometers of lengths, Passo Gavia will be back on Giro d’Italia route in 2018, and will reward the new king of Cima Coppi.
Our friend Ivan Basso holds good memories about Passo Gavia too. He climbed two times the Italian mountain during his career at Giro d’Italia. The first time in 2006, when he won the stage with Passo Gavia beating Gilberto Simoni at Aprica with the Pink Jersey on his shoulders, ensuring his first success in the final general classification of the Giro. The second time in 2010 when he ensured his second win at Giro during Passo Gavia’s bends, the last important climb of that edition.
ABOUT BEND36
Cycling and cosmetics: two apparently widely divergent worlds, found a winning compromise in the Bend36 project. Alessandro Rombelli’s competence and passion as a huge cycling enthusiast and president of Cleys (a cosmetic manufacturing), and the expertise of two champions such as Ivan Basso and Alberto Contador, both partners of the project, constituted the basics to create a cutting-edge line of products, able to satisfy the needs of a public of both cycling agonists and enthusiasts.