Alessia and Gabriele Quarta are the owners of Bike Tours Florence, a company that specializes in offering tourists a cycling experience that goes far beyond navigating the frenetic streets of Firenze.
Native to the area, Alessia and Gabriele live 15 kilometers away from the Duomo, in a small town called Campi Bisenzio, a place that is 40,000 strong, and also insulated from the throngs of tourists who descend upon Florence each day.
“It’s a quiet life,” Gabriele says of living in the suburbs, in a way that makes one think he and his family don’t need much to be happy.
“We have a beautiful garden right behind our home, and for us, it’s perfect,” adds Alessia, who on this day is spearheading our cycling tour through the rolling hillsides of Florence, past decadent mansions occupied by accomplished doctors and professional soccer players.
Twelve years ago, Alessia and Gabriele had just graduated high school.
Alessia was interested in biology, and Gabriele liked classical art, but at the behest of her father, an imaginative businessman in his own right, Alessia and Gabriele opted to start an e-bike tour business where clients could travel into the countryside, without having to deplete themselves of calories to do so.
“We were a little bit lost because we just finished high school, but we matured quickly and decided this is what we wanted to do,” Alessia confidently states, and later her and Gabriele got married, and now they have two kids.
Today, Alessia and Gabriele are conducting business in excellent English, but when they started their entrepreneurial endeavor, communicating with clients was challenging.
“For my first tour, my English wasn’t very good,” Alessia recalls, fondly.
“And, it actually went terribly,” she adds with a laugh.
But it’s a testament to their dedication that the duo have built a thriving bike touring company, all while refining a language they didn’t fully comprehend.
When the couple began their operation, they owned 12 e-bikes, but as we chat in their storefront, which is situated just a few steps from iconic museums and statues, I estimate their supply has increased by over 200%.
More impressively, just a few years ago, Alessia and Gabriele were exhausted, their bodies and souls on the brink of despair as they repeatedly endured grueling 10-12 hour days, often seven days per week.
The quality of their tours never suffered, but the couple also realized that a continuation of this workload wasn’t sustainable, so they shifted gears, injecting new outside talent into the brand so that they could focus more on the business instead of working in the business.
While relieving stress and creating more opportunities for others has been crucial to their sustained success, Alessia and Gabriele are realistic about what purpose their business serves.
Hint: it isn’t to become mega millionaires.
“Family is the most important thing, and no matter where the business is at, we don’t forget that,” says Alessia.
Adds Gabriele, with a wide grin:
“Things had to change, because we were working so hard. I mean, at one point, Alessia was literally giving birth and trying to put out a fire here at work. That was a pretty good sign that it was time for us to alter our approach.”
Thankfully that happened, otherwise those visiting Florence may never have had the chance to cascade down the narrow roads winding through the hillsides just outside town.
Nor would those same tourists be lucky enough to witness where Italy’s historic olive oil is manufactured.
Instead, those same tourists may have been left handing out copious amounts of Euros for overpriced gelato in the city center, all while dodging overzealous taxi drivers.
“It took a lot of time for us to put together a tour that we thought people would find unique,” Alessia says.
“Florence is a beautiful city, but the countryside is equally majestic. It’s worth being visited and appreciated, and so that’s why we made the leap, and it’s also why we’re not afraid to take people away from where they would normally visit.”
Gabriele, an adept bike mechanic, echoes the sentiments of his wife, but he also goes a step further, emphasizing how they have designed their entire customer service experience around making people feel like family, and not just another number that those clients would otherwise be to a corporate entity.
“We are not a big company,” Gabriele reminds readers.
”Instead, we are a hard-working family who tries to give our customers an unforgettable experience.”
As evidenced by an abundance of positive reviews on the Airbnb platform, Alessia and Gabriele have developed a system that allows them to routinely satisfy their clients.
When it comes to pricing, depending on the type of experience customers book, they can expect to spend anywhere between $55-170 on an experience.
Plus, the price for each specific experience is the same on all online platforms, which is intentional.
“We keep the price the same everywhere so that we don’t have arguments or disputes,” Gabriele says.
In looking ahead to the future, this talented couple is still striving to cultivate new and innovative experiences for their customers, which includes offering full-day tours in the heart of Tuscany country.
“We don’t want things to become stale, for both our clients, and ourselves; and with a lot of tours in Florence, the guides take them to the same exact spots,” Gabriele points out.
“In a sense, there is nothing wrong with that, but I believe there are people who want to see something different. They want to be taken to a part of Italy that hasn’t been seen by millions of people already.”
Adds Alessia:
”It’s hard to market different tour options, and maybe it would be easier to simply just offer basic tours, but our heart tells us that we can offer more, and I think if we continue to provide that, everything else will take care of itself.”
Again, if you’re in Florence, and you’re looking for something outside of what the corporatized tours offer, you don’t have to go very far to find a stellar experience, and a young couple, worth meeting.
“They say that the average person’s attention span is 15 seconds,” Gabriele notes.
“But with our tours, we are confident that we can keep people engaged for much longer.” QS
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