The yellow of the flowers, the sky falling on your head, the chopped wood, the bends of the riverbank that curve and curve and curve, and you can’t see where they end. If you close your eyes, can you fit in just one memory of Rando Imperator? And when you’ll be back home, months after the bike ride from Germany to Italy, if you open your hand, what will you be holding? The garbage bag you used as a shield against the wind along the descent? The inconceivably blue water of Lake Resia? Spring hitting you along the Mincio? It takes us days to cross the Alps and see how the landscape changes as we too change a little, because on a bike, once you arrive, you’re never the same as when you started. It takes us days that leave a mark on us, that make us want to cry as we think about who’s back home, someone you wish could see what’s right in front of you, someone who arrives at the end beside you and jumps on the cobblestones of Piazza Castello with you. We spend hours wearing our butt out on that saddle, our backs bent forward, straining toward the next memory to be built, toward new friendships to be made over a beer in Munich, in the darkness of the bike path between Merano and Bolzano, on a meadow, passed out after too many plates of risotto. We make all the effort we can, and a little more, only to discover that in that hand, months or years later, there is maybe a memory or two: a moon at night, photographed terribly but casting such a pure and moving light in the silence of that endless journey that you’ll never forget. In the end, we ride to build new memories.
The tenth edition of the Rando Imperator went like this: a journey along the Via Claudia Augusta through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy, with nearly 300 people, half of which from Germany and the rest of the world. More than numbers, we always care about thank yous: to each and every one of you who rode, to those who completed the entire stage or only half of it, to those who decided to drop out for their own good reasons.
Thanks to all the staff, who almost never sleeps but always works during the four days between Ferrara, Munich, Bolzano, and back to Ferrara, and never wants to stop supporting your smiles, doubts, and certainties between one refreshment point and the next.
Thanks to Francesco, who patiently drove the car for the photographers and videographers, and thanks to Flavio for the photos and advice.
Thanks to all our partners: from Treesport, the main sponsor, to the Bolzano/Bozen Tourist Agency, and B12 Bike Professional.
Thanks to the Municipality of Villabassa, the Villabassa Tourist Agency, and FC Niederdorf for welcoming us in the night in Villabassa/Niederdorf.
Thanks to the Rainerum Institute for welcoming us in the night of Bolzano.
Thanks to the refreshment points: EnergyLab.cc, Avis Cerese (Mantua), Bicigrill Ruota Libera (Avio), Bar Daniel (Passo Resia), and Nautica Sermide.
And thanks to Lost Road for keeping us company with beer in Piazza Castello.
Rando Imperator returns for its eleventh edition on the first weekend of May 2026.
Rando Imperator 2025
May 1-2-3-4
10th edition
Ferrara – Munich – Bozen – Ferrara
From Germany to Italy by bike in 2 (or 4) days
Main partner: Treesport