Lorenzo Barone

Lorenzo Barone is a cyclist, and a popular content creator.

He has 81.4K subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel and 158K followers on his Facebook page.

Lorenzo is also a speaker.

Introduction-

Lorenzo Barone was born in 1997 and hails from Terni, Italy.

At a young age, he along with his family travelled to Europe and many countries like South Africa, Namibia, United States, Oman and Socotra.

At a young age, Lorenzo fell in love with nature and animals and loved being alone in the forest, building shelters and climbing trees.

Thanks to his father’s hobby of knife making, he too learnt it.

Love for openness, parkour & archery-

Lorenzo did his schooling from seven different schools and until 11, he was very introverted.

He wasn’t a fan of studying in school as he found it very closed and stress inducing whereas he loved being under the open sky and training parkour.

At 11, Lorenzo started training in parkour and thanks to this, he became more social and less introverted.

During that time, he also started training in archery and participated in archery competitions but as he loved parkour even more, he solely focused on parkour.

Then, Lorenzo trained a year in calisthenics.

The first solo cycle trip & a trip across several countries-

In 2015, at his 18^th birthday, as he was feeling adventurous, he took his mother’s rusty bicycle and cycled for 230 kilometres and loved the sense of freedom.

A few weeks later, Lorenzo finished his schooling and set out to travel 8,000 kilometres on his city bike.

Unfortunately, his bike broke after cycling 455 kilometres and so, he returned home and bought a trailer and took his mother’s bicycle and set out.

It took Lorenzo 82 days to cover 8000 kilometres and in his trip, he crossed France, Spain and Portugal and travelled all the way back.

He did this trip with the money that he saved from his birthdays and Christmas.

Cycling to mountains-

After returning home from his trip, Lorenzo was itching to explore the world and meet new people.

He went back to the school and during the winter, he along with his friend travelled to the Victoria mountain.

Then, Lorenzo cycled 1200 kilometres and reached Mount Etna and then, during Easter, he along with his friend cycled to Alps and in this trip, he cycled 1500 kilometres to reach Alps and return.

He also visited Gran Sasso.

Juggling on streets to support his travel-

After finishing school, Lorenzo set out on a very long trip on his bicycle.

He started this trip with a little money and soon realised that it wouldn’t be sufficient for his entire trip and so, in 2016, he started looking for ways to earn money.

Upon reaching Amsterdam, Netherlands, Lorenzo met Alberto, a Spaniard and was impressed upon learning that he too was a cyclist and people were supporting his trip by buying the miniature aluminium bicycles which he made by himself.

Upon learning this, he became confident that he too can earn money on the streets and support his travel.

So, Lorenzo went to a supermarket and bought socks and rice and made four balls out of them and started juggling them on the streets and earning money.

He along with Alberto cycled from Amsterdam to Berlin, Germany and in this trip, they stopped at every city and Alberto sold his bicycles whereas he juggled on the streets.

After reaching Berlin, as his mother’s bicycle was falling apart, Lorenzo left it in Berlin and bought a new bicycle, a Surly Long Haul Trucker.

Then, he cycled to Denmark and took a ferry to Iceland and was awestruck by the beauty of Iceland.

After exploring Iceland on his bike, Lorenzo returned to Denmark and took a ferry to southern Norway and cycled through Norway, Sweden and Finland.

An interesting fact- Martijn Doolaard, a very popular YouTuber, also cycled a Surly Long Haul Trucker bike.

Love for cycling in cold temperatures-

In Finland, Lorenzo cycled through the polar night in darkness and he was 19 at that time.

On 6 December 2016, he reached the North Cape in full darkness during a polar night.

Lorenzo stayed there in winter with the temperatures ranging from 2°C to -30°C and thanks to this, he fell in love with the cold temperatures and arctic areas (cycling in Lapland also cemented his love for cycling in the winter).

Then, he cycled south to reach his house and cycled through Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland.

Lorenzo reached home after 8 months by cycling 15,600 kilometres.

After staying at home for a week, he set out for the south of Italy and stayed in Italy for a couple of months.

Then, Lorenzo returned home and after staying home for a couple of weeks, he set out on his bike to Berlin, then to Turkey and then, he cycled from Istanbul to Saint Petersburg.

Regaining motivation for cycling-

Lorenzo was very tired in Saint Petersburg and lost motivation to cycle and started feeling it like a chore and so, he took a plane and reached his home.

After reaching home, he thought of regaining his motivation for cycling by altering his way of travelling by making it more challenging.

So, on 8 January 2018, Lorenzo took a plane to Bishkek and from there, he cycled 2200 kilometres and reached Dushanbe and crossed a plateau over 4000 metres of Kyzyl-Art Pass.

Then, he cycled to the Ak-Baital Pass at 4,655 metres, the highest point of the M41 highway.

Thanks to this incredible experience, Lorenzo regained the motivation for cycling.

No to hitchhiking, yes to cycling-

Lorenzo returned home at the end of winter and then flew to Iceland and started hitchhiking and walking there.

Even though he liked the experience, he felt cycling more suitable than hitchhiking, because he had to depend on other people for hitchhiking but while cycling, he could be completely on his own.

As the summer was approaching, Lorenzo started travelling around Italy and this time around, he sold his travel pictures instead of juggling.

He also receives free gear from brands like Montura, Schwalbe Tires, etc.

He reached Naples and cycled around 2000 kilometres and at that time, on the invitation of another cyclist, he flew to Norway in July to row a rubber boat.

After a month of rowing in the ocean, Lorenzo started cycling and cycled all the passes of the Alps.

A serious cliff jumping accident-

Upon reaching Lake Garda, Lorenzo joined a few people cliff jumping.

When he jumped into the lake, he had a huge impact on water and his head bent all the way towards his chest.

Lorenzo had to be hospitalised for 8 months and he missed his trip.

After 8 months, the doctor permitted him to row and so he along with friend Gabriel built a raft with truck tubes and woods and planned to reach the sea.

After a week, his friend dropped this plan, so Lorenzo rowed for a few days by himself and then reached Rome.

Then, he invited another friend to cross Rome by raft on the Tiber river but after rowing for a day, his friend fell in water and was hospitalised.

Cycling in Sahara, South Korea, Japan & India-

Few weeks later, Lorenzo decided to cycle again.

So, he took a ferry to Morocco and cycled 2700 kilometres and he also crossed 400 kilometres in the Sahara Desert.

Then, Lorenzo flew to South Korea and cycled 3000 kilometres in South Korea and Japan.

At the end of August, he decided to return home but as the flights were expensive, he searched on the internet for the cheapest flight to the cheapest place and thus, landed in Kolkata, India.

Lorenzo cycled through North India and reached Ladakh and started cycling to the passes.

He cycled to the Baralacha La Pass at the elevation of 4,850 m (15,910 ft) and to Lachungla pass at the elevation of 16616 ft.

Then, in the middle of October Lorenzo flew to his home in Italy on a cheap flight.

Cycling in the coldest regions of the world-

In the summer of 2019, Lorenzo cycled 10,000 kilometres so as to prepare for crossing the coldest regions of the world in the coldest period of the year.

And from October to December, he prepared himself for this challenging trip.

On 14 January, Lorenzo cycled around 2050 kilometres from Magadan to Yakutsk.

In February as his visa was expiring, he travelled around 3,000 kilometres in a truck from Yakutsk to Irkutsk.

After arriving in Irkutsk, Lorenzo camped on Lake Baikal.

His visa got extended several times and he flew to Pokrovsk.

Then, Lorenzo returned to Irkutsk to take his bicycle and cycled thousands of kilometres from Pokrovsk to Yuriung-Khaya and was amazed by this trip.

In 2017, he cycled from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

While cycling in Siberia, to keep wolves at bay during night, Lorenzo encircles his tent with red flags and also carries a cap gun.

Popular on social media & receiving overwhelming support-

Lorenzo shares his journeys with the world mainly through his Facebook page, Instagram and YouTube channel.

As of December 2023, he has 158K followers on his Facebook page, 142K followers on Instagram and 81.4K subscribers on his YouTube channel.

He has cycled over 100,000 km around the world.

His 2022-2023 project is to cycle from Cape Agulhas in South Africa to Cape Dezhnev in Russia.

Lorenzo received overwhelming support for this tour on GoFundMe; as of January 2024, he raised €12,494 of the €10,000 goal.

He shares his GPS locations of his trips through FindMeSpot.

His gear-

Initially, Lorenzo was using a Surly Long Haul Trucker bike but later switched to Bressan Bike Machete.

He carries a couple of chains and switches them every 2,000 kilometres.

During travel, Lorenzo carries with him a couple of power banks and GoPro cameras and a Cat S31 mobile, a GPS device and many batteries.

While travelling, he rests in a camping tent and uses a Katadyn Pocket Water Filter.

Personal life-

While camping on Lake Baikal in Siberia, Lorenzo started talking with Aygul on Instagram.

At that time, she was unhappy and stressed at the university and so, he invited her to Lake Baikal as it was picturesque and peaceful and after a few days, they met.

They travelled for a while and got married in January 2021.

Aygul is a Siberian.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Lorenzo Barone?

Share with me in the comment section below.