Giro-E Enel: 2025 edition underway!

The Giro-E Enel 2025 began this morning in Ostuni with the first of the 18 stages in the seventh edition of the world’s only Grand Tour using pedal-assisted bikes. The race will end in Rome with the parade on 1 June, after 1,098 kilometres and almost 20,000 metres of total elevation gain over the course of the Giro d’Italia. The protagonists are 18 Official Teams that will take part in all the stages as well as the nine Daily Teams that appear in a select few stages of this exclusive e-bike experience.

The first stage was preceded by an event on the evening of 11 May at the Green Fun Village by Continental, hosted in Lecce and inaugurated in Piazza Sant’Oronzo packed with 11,000 spectators. It featured a performance by the DJ and producer Federico Scavo, as well as the Teams Presentation, another of the ceremonial features borrowed from the Giro d’Italia. All of the captains, team managers and of course the pedal-assisted bikes of the Giro-E Enel 2025 took to the stage: champions Gianni Bugno (Valsir), Claudio Chiappucci (ANCI), Igor Astarloa (Valsir), Damiano Cunego (Continental), Andrea Tafi (Autostrade per l’Italia), former professionals Marco Canola (Virgin Active), Sacha Modolo (Trenitalia), Marco Benfatto (MCZ), Alessandro Spezialetti (Tudor), and then Justine Mattera (Enel), Elisa Scarlatta (Toyota), Amedeo Tabini (Fly Cycling Citroen), Lello Ferrara (Italia.it), Emiliano Cantagallo (Sara Assicurazioni), Andrea Pusateri (Rovagnati), Maurizio Formichetti (Abruzzo Region), Giuseppe Bica (RCS Sport), Umberto Carfora (RCS Sport & Events).

Following the presentation in Piazza Sant’Oronzo the captains took to their saddles at dusk for a parade on the streets of Lecce still damp from the downpour that had hit the city in the afternoon. It was a taste of the experience that awaits them from today, on roads across Italy, as part of a journey in the name of thrills and sustainability. The route saw them make a stop-off at the Giro d’Italia’s open village, Giroland, where they took to the stage and received the applause of the waiting crowd.

Today’s stage, Ostuni-Lecce, is a fantastic starting point for an edition that looks set to be one of the toughest ever. It’s 95.8 kilometres long and has an elevation gain of 350 metres which while being insignificant from an altimetric point of view is a rather demanding stage, because e-bike motors are required by law to stop working when a speed of 25 kph is reached, yet the riders will almost never be satisfied with a cruising speed of less than 30 kph.

Today’s stage will be the longest of the 2025 edition. The shortest will be number seven, from Capannori to Pisa, at just 31 kilometres long. In the third week there will be three stages with an elevation gain of more than 2,000 metres: Rovereto-San Valentino (2,400 metres), Tirano-Bormio (2,100 metres) and Susa-Sestriere (2,400 meters). There is also the Saint Vincent-Champoluc, which is 1,850 metres.

The tour features an average of over a thousand metres of positive elevation gain per stage, for an experience that would be impossible without the help of the motors and batteries of pedal-assisted racing bikes.

Workshop ANCI

Today also saw the first of the workshops organised by ANCI – National Association of Italian Municipalities at the Green Fun Village in Ostuni.

Following on from its successful involvement in the 2024 edition of the Giro d’Italia and Giro-E, this year ANCI is once again promoting initiatives with a long-lasting impact for the socio-economic inclusion of youth populations in local communities, as a driver for the sustainable development of the local areas. In addition to the presence of an ANCI team at the Giro-E, made up of local administrators and young ambassadors aged 35 and under and with Claudio Chiappucci as captain, a series of Stakeholder Forums is planned, organised by ANCI in collaboration with the starting point municipalities.

The first two events are scheduled today in Ostuni and tomorrow, Wednesday 14 May, at 12:30 in Ginosa, once again taking place in the hospitality areas of the Green Fun Village.

Public and private stakeholders interested in discussing the theme of major sporting events as a lever for sustainable development for local communities will be able to participate in the forums dedicated to “Youth, sustainable mobility and active citizenship programmes”.

The initiatives are carried out as part of a collaboration between the national ANCI, the Technical Scientific Committee “Pedalare per viaggiare” [Pedalling to travel] of ANCI Puglia and the municipalities of Ostuni and Ginosa.

The objective of the Stakeholder Forums is to improve the long-term impact of the sporting event in terms of growth of skills in young people and creation of income and employment opportunities, through the spotlighting of cultural, natural, food and wine resources and excellence of the local areas, seen as drivers of sustainable local development, making use of the common theme of sport and its values.