Olivia Castellani is the only female member of Camerano's "Crazy Bike Club". photo by Dixi Baldwin

“It helps me to relax,” says Castellani, describing the Zen state she enters as body and mind reach a harmonic balance between exertion and meditation, fueled by adrenalin and endorphins. “There’s no traffic, no cars,” she says, “and I can hear the birds and smell the trees.”

She rides in all kinds of weather-- chasing the fading light in the winter, discovering the first wildflowers in the spring, catching the late sunset in the summer.

Mountain biking as a sport is an import to the country, as is Castellani, who moved to Italy from Australia when she was 10, after her parents died in a car crash. “I’m an Italian,” says Castellani, regardless of her blonde hair and striking blue eyes.

Apart from occasional visits to Australia, she has made her life in the Marche region, as well as a name for herself in the mountain biking scene.

Castellani belongs to the Crazy Bike Club, a loosely organized team of riders of various ages and skills who frequent the trails of the Parco del Conero. Of the 60 or so members, she is the only woman—a diamond in the rough in a sport that is largely dominated by men.

“It is a hard sport,” she admits. “Most young women here prefer to get their hair and nails done.” Other sports, such as volleyball and soccer, have more female participants, but mountain biking has yet to catch on with women in central Italy, although northern Italy has seen more women joining the ranks of riders in the past few years. When she rides, however, Castellani looks past the gender differences, enjoying instead the camaraderie and competition of other bikers. “When I ride, I am one of them,” she says.

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