The depth of this film is unlike anything you’ll see in any bicycle media. More like a vision than a film, each and every shot is a study in the dramatic, with a haunting droning soundtrack with nary a drumbeat to be heard. The Italian bikepacking group Montanus are nothing if not well prepared for a journey into a wilderness so cold, so bleak that leaves one asking ‘why?’ When it’s this cold, carrying your own wood stove doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea.

Tramontana [tramonˈtaːna] it’s a cold and dry wind blowing from the north Europe towards Italy, carrying snow and frigid temperature. In ancient times the Latin word trānsmontānus (trāns- + montānus) indicated what was beyond the mountains, unknown, barbaric and dangerous. “Tramontana” is a journey through human ancestral fears and primordial virtues of the fire, the natural element that, since the dawn of time, allowed it to defeat the dark, the cold, the isolation and the wild beasts. A tribute to the human wild side that gets lost in the origins of our story.
Location: Gran Sasso plateau, Abruzzo, Italy.
More info at montanuswild.com/tramontana

Self filmed and edited by: Giorgio Frattale and Francesco D’Alessio.

See the full photoset and learn how the film was made (and that sweet wood stove) here…