A mere month after his crash at the Tour de France and the surgery to remove a testicular cancer, Ivan Basso is now back on his bike. The Italian Tinkoff-Saxo rider did it at the end of a press conference on Monday morning, in which he met the media and the public at Aquagranda Sports Fitness Center in Livigno. Basso went for an easy ride on his Specialized Tarmac for approximately an hour and a half.

Big crowds wanted to be close to Basso today, who spent in Livigno his post-operative recovery, and in particular today close to him, were Livigno's mayor, Damiano Bormolini, and Antonio Rossi, head of the department of Sport and Youth Policy of the Lombardy Region.

Tinkoff-Saxo and the famous Italian resort have a collaboration agreement in which the team holds its high-altitude training camps on the roads of Livigno and on several alpine passes such as Stelvio (highest pass at 2,757 meters), Foscagno, Forcola, Gavia and Mortirolo.

"Being able to return on my bike", said Ivan Basso, "a month after surgery, is for me a great victory. Now the next step will be on September 1st, when a CAT scan and the analysis of tumor markers will tell if the problem is solved. I am confident and I want to think that everything will be fine".

"Today I had my first ride and I'm not thinking about competitive training. For that I will have the time and opportunity to reflect and evaluate what to do, also based on the results of the analysis. Cycling is my life and no matter what happens, it will always be part of me and part of my future. In Livigno I found the ideal place where to recover, and where to spend time with my family, and for me this is a very important element. I've known this town for many years, it is an open-air gym that, for us cyclists, is a fundamental aspect in high-altitude training", concluded Basso.

"It's with great pleasure that we welcomed Ivan Basso among us and we accompanied him in his rehabilitation program to return to cycling", commented Damiano Bormolini, mayor of Livigno.

"We are increasingly positioning ourselves as a resort that caters to sports tourism, and having big champions like Ivan who choose Livigno, is an honor and a confirmation that the work we are doing is going in the right direction", concluded Bormolini.