Interview with Marco Aurelio Fontana in Livigno. The beauty of a new journey

How did you start with bikes? Why this love?
Well, back in the days I was a kid and you know…you just play with all the sport you can, soccer, karate, cycling a bit. Then finally my parents bought me a mountain bike, a small one, and I felt in love straight away because I like the freedom that a bike can give you and the fact that you can ride up and down the hill it’s so good. I was little, I was kind of twelve, and I start with racing and well, it’s still my job and so, it works.

X-Country, what’s exactly this discipline?
X-Country is an Olympic discipline and you do with the bikes that everybody knows. It’s a lite bike and it’s made to go up and down the hill. The Olympic race format is about one and half hour around the loop. You start all together and strongest normally win.

How you can explain x-country to a guy who never ride a mountain bike?
X-Country is really challenging and it have everything: the endurance, the fitness, the power, and then you need the skill because the bike are lite and made to go fast but you need to ride also very technical sections. X-Country it’s really challenging and it’s really nice.

There are discipline like downhill that as common image they look cooler. Why did you choose x-country?
Downhill was a big image for the sport but x-country with the time is getting more and more technical and more and more fast. So now x-country is becoming nicer to race with and nicer to watch.

You are coming often here in Livigno to train, why this choice?
I met Livigno back in the days, I think I was 05, when we had xxx, and since the begin I realize “Ok, this is the place to be in summer, because Livigno has the altitude, and this is something that helps every kind of rider, and then you have the village. Livigno is a very sweet place where you can go for aperitivo or cappuccino. You have good restaurants, pubs to spend some time in the night to drink a beer, shops everywhere. Livigno is a really nice place to spend two weeks. And then you have the trails and then you have the sun. You have everything and that’s way I love it. I come here every year.

What do you think about the food in Valtellina?
First at all I would like to say something about the cows. The cows in Valtellina are beautiful. Strong and fit and they look really healthy, and also because of that the food is good. And then I love Pizzoccheri. Yeah, the food it’s definitely another reason to spend sometimes here.

What Livigno can do to make another step into the mtb world?
Livigno has already good trails, natural trails, artificial trails. I would say that to make a big step forward we need to have something to everybody, lots of flowy trails and then some proper venue where you have a bit of everything, some cross country loop, some flowy trail, some enduro challenging trail. Then it will be complete.

A project as you says it’s already in his way….maybe when you come to see us next year you can see already something… But also Marco Fontana will make soon a new big step in his life. You are actually becoming a father Marco!
Oh Yes! As you can see my wife has a nice round belly. This means I will be a daddy soon and I’m super-happy because it’s the coolest thing in life. My wife feels good and it’s looking like everything gonna me all right. It will happen at the end of this season. Around end of September, begin of October. It will be the nice cherry on the cake!