In this inspiring conversation, former pro cyclist Steve Morabito shares his passion for cycling, dams and the ambition of bringing the sports to the people. He emphasizes the importance of a strong partnership between sports associations and locally rooted brands like Alpiq to achieve those goals in the long run.
Alpiq is proud to be the Main Partner of the UCI 2025 Mountain Bike World Championships in Valais, chaired by Steve Morabito.
Alpiq Valais Cycling, Take One It’s even a second dream come true. Because in 2020, I was lucky enough to be on the organizing committee for the Martigny Road World Championships because of the commis. We didn’t have to. We couldn’t organize them. So it’s a dream that had fallen through and to be able to do it again for the MTB World Championships. It’s just extraordinary. Not for me. The dams or everything that. The electric world is something that I know visually, in terms of the landscape, but not everything that lies behind it. And it’s true that with the Alpine meeting I was able to learn a little more, the difference between buildings, manufacturing, transport, sales and it was very interesting to learn this aspect and to develop a little bit of what I knew. Just dams. For me, each time, it was fantastic roads to climb with little traffic, pretty roads with a nice objective and accessible quite early in the season. We cyclists try to do navigation modes quite early in the season and to be able to cover a long distance. We don’t have to do it early enough in the season to be able to climb to my neighbor or even to the amplitude where we can go to zero. So many passes over 2000 meters. In terms of timeframe, quite long. And then it’s something that is on the list of conquests of cyclists all year round. We have seven or eight major dams in Valais that almost all cyclists like to do during the summer. There are six, two, three, four, and I like to try to impose myself every year, even though I’ve retired from my career. It’s something that is quite important. I train with my wife on an electric bike or with my children. And then there are the restaurant batteries. And to spend a great sporting and family day a little further afield in 2017. In the cantonal cycling development strategy, we had to create a theme beforehand and find a way to market the climbs. And then, in France, we only talk about schools. Schools with specific signage are done, we said to ourselves, let’s go, it’s cool. We have about twenty passes with ascents of more than 2,000 meters, more than 2,000 meters. No, we have the dams, we have the unmissable valleys. So we created categories. In the Valais cycling sport signage, there are about twenty mountain pass climbs. There was this dam climb. There are six or seven unmissable valley climbs. It’s still part of the specific heritage we have, saying , here you are, you don’t just come to do a pass, you need it. A dam is not that, it doesn’t have the same configuration as a pass, it’s an objective in itself. So there is specific marking in Valais that is made for the Valais passes. The 2016 Tour de France, the emotional finish, it’s something exceptional, really. I’ll remember it all my life. It’s Poyet’s lucky Tour de France, that’s one thing. After that stage, it was close to my heart. I was in the breakaway, I had my entire fan club who were, who were also present a few kilometers from the finish, my family. We had seven, not just on D-Day. We were also lucky enough to be able to come and train as a team, to get to know them on the climb. I was also lucky enough to be, to be very close to the local organizing committee, to be able to visit the endurance site a few weeks before the stage, and then on D-Day to be able to mobilize the team who were parked at this barrier. I think I had completed nine or tenth of the stage. I was then able to go and shower in my bus on the dam and then we were all evacuated into the tunnel to head towards Megève. There, it was a really good memory of climbing a dam that will remain engraved in my heart. Ah, it was. It was something quite exceptional. The organizing committee is volunteers, they’re friends. They managed to get the Tour de France to explain their project at a party. How are you going to evacuate? Don’t worry, with our two big ones, we’ll be able to evacuate when you do. Yes, there are tunnels in there. Afterwards, I remember being visited with passes. The cathedral wasn’t there yet, the turbines weren’t there yet. There was really this room that was enormous. My wife and I were able to go and visit it. It was maybe more than just a sport. It was something quite crazy. I’m going to explain to my friends. There, we’re going to see the stage. We made it to the dam, I would have said there, there’s a tunnel coming out. But don’t think the day was written, we did it. We were all quarters of the evacuated teams. We also had the feeling of something quite exceptional, Just also being herded onto us, buses next to each other, Too far in my shower, In the bus, I saw the. The dam below. It was. It was. It was just extraordinary and a new me. A beautiful day of cycling. And then having experienced it in its escape, it was pretty cool. But I was already going pretty hard with mountain biking in general, because it’s the first sport I did. I lived in a valley in the Allier, so we did mountain biking, so I lived in a chalet and at best in the countryside. But my parents had animals too, so it was quite quickly. I had this nature-mountain biking connection. Afterwards, well, I was rather inspired to become a road cyclist. I was lucky enough to make my career on the road, so I stopped my career. I also always defend these values of respect for the environment, of mutual respect. So, I was the sponsor of a promotional campaign. Respect for sharing the road with motorists. Now, I can co-chair an organization that promotes doing and doing. Very beautiful valley which is a communication campaign to promote coexistence between hikers, mountain bikers, the agricultural world and the environment. So it’s a system of pictograms of ambassadors that we put in place to be able to promote this on a daily basis. And it’s something that has been very successful. We are lucky to have a beautiful region like the canton of Valais, with lots of trails with no restrictions. Everyone is free to go on the trails, whether you’re a hiker, trail runner, mountain biker or dog walker. But there are still rules that are sometimes forgotten and that we can afford to remind ourselves so that there is good coexistence in our mountain pastures and in our mountains. And that’s something I’m keen to do. And it takes me time, a marginal amount of time, which is important. First, I thank Alpiq for proposing the world championships, which began in 2020. Our project is for 2025. So, starting in 2022, we started talking together. And then, after that period, it was difficult to find companies willing to take risks with an organizer to organize in a period where events were canceled, where there were no long-term prospects. So, already, by having or having, we knew we had a great project to be able to convince Mirabaud’s partners. That was important. They got involved very quickly and came with us. That also gave us enormous confidence. By showing interest in coming to our sporting event, there is a scope that is very strong in terms of the image you have, also in terms of the contacts you have. Us. The MTB World Championships have a small organization, but we have around forty municipalities that are with us. So there is a strong bond that can be created between the municipalities, the partners, our organization. And we were able to discover that we share many similar values with our sporting event and what we have behind it. And then what you also do in your daily business. Yes, I am someone quite generous, who gives, who gives without counting. So I need to protect myself from time to time. And in these little quiet moments. So my family, my refuge, my house too, my garden and then the bike. I have a cycling cap where I meet a lot of people, where I like to chat and I chat a lot, but it takes up my playtime. And then after that I go and recharge my batteries, go cycling together on Monday or Friday, a little of my days with my wife. And it also allows me to put things in the right drawers on the surface and also a little bit. And on weekends with children, to play with them. Do activities or garden. It’s a way that I have in my little inner self to be able to also keep this frenetic tempo that has. This year. I am a fairly calm person on the outside, but a little more worry. I advise not to hesitate, even before. Parents who love cycling, it’s fantastic. You can get from point A to point B just to gain autonomy. So I’ve already seen parents joining Valais clubs. We now have clubs in the canton of Valais that are able to teach people how to ride a bike, and move on to competition. I’m going to learn how to ride a bike. It’s really important, really. Before wanting to be a champion, wanting to be. Putting water in your jersey is already not daring to come to a club, to participate in regular spring or fall training sessions to be able to acquire the basic safety skills and to be able to have fun riding a bike. And then if after that, in addition to that pleasure, there will be the pleasure of measuring yourself against others and a little bit of competition will do it. Everything you need to climb the pyramid, whether it’s a girl or a boy. We are now equipped in Valais to support the budding champions. So to keep the dream alive. So clearly, the thing I can motivate a parent or child who would like to ride a bike to get closer to a club and then to try, it’s not an indefinite lease. Instructions when you come to a club to do a test training, if it goes well, we do a second one, one to do six or more training sessions and if it’s ten times with an instructor, the level of the child targeted by the tags can be independent. We can go riding with them and that from five years old, you should not hesitate.