[Video] Why Climb to the top of a Volcano?

This isn’t just a story about overcoming hurdles. Neither is it about how well the Superfoxy descends in the hands of Mondraker’s ambassador Richard Gasperotti. This is a story to prove that you don’t need a reason for everything you do. Sometimes if there’s something you want to do, you should just do it, period. Like climbing a volcano and then riding back down on a Superfoxy.

Our ambassador Richard Gasperotti and his team were constantly asked, “Why?” Why climb an active volcano over 3,000 metres high? Why climb it with a bike on your back? Why risk an uncertain descent to the bottom? “Why?”

“Why? Because we can, and if we can do it then we should. It’s as simple as that”. That’s how Richard explained it when he told us about his incredible experience on the Etna volcano. “People in the town kept asking us why we were going to climb the volcano on a bike. They told us it was dangerous, that it was going to take us 24 hours. It turns out that the reason we did it was to answer all of those who asked us why. Getting to the edge of the crater and seeing it with our own eyes was like being on another planet… It was almost impossible to believe what we were seeing with our own eyes.”

Ascending from 1,800m at Piano Provenzana up to 3,303m to reach the top of the legendary active Etna volcano and ride down it flat out. It’s not something we said here at Mondraker but what Gasperotti himself said: “If with this video we manage to get just one person off the sofa, then that will have made everything we’ve done worthwhile.”

Rider: Richard Gasperotti
Video: Ladis Zeman
Photos: Miloš Štáfek