“Go further, see more” — Interview with Sami Sauri

Sami arrived last year at BAM! with an expedition pick-up. Bikes attached, rooftop tent, and a big hat on her head.
As soon as she stepped out, she lit up half the festival with her genuine smile.

We really like Sami, we like people who don’t follow paths decided by others.
She grew up in Barcelona, where by chance she discovered the bicycle and the freedom that comes with it; she developed a strong love for photography and for telling travel stories. In recent years, she has taken on increasingly challenging ultra race adventures.

In the middle of all this, she builds, together with other women from the bikepacking world, a collective to inspire other women like them.
A force of nature, in short, but let’s try to better understand with her where she comes from and what she’s planning next.

While we’re doing this interview we’re not at a festival, we’re in front of a screen, she’s in Chamonix, just back from a race on the other side of the world. I’m comfortable, sitting in my chair, and I can’t wait to hear what she has to tell us.

Your lifestyle is quite unique: multidisciplinary athlete, photographer, cyclist. It’s definitely a non-conventional path.
What pushed you, at the beginning, to choose this direction instead of following a more traditional career like many people do?

I think it all starts from the fact that I didn’t grow up with much continuity. Let’s start from there.
This meant that, from a very young age, I practiced a lot of sports. Of course the more conventional ones like tennis. Then horse riding, football, basketball, classical dance, I don’t know, I did kayaking, golf.
My mother would always send me to all sorts of summer camps. This constant change meant that I never followed, starting from sports, a conventional path.
I tried, failed, and tried again at everything.
This and more brought me to the path I’m on now.

We know you started in the much-loved fixed gear world, with races like Red Hook.
What inspired you to get into fixed gear bikes? And what do you carry with you from that world, which today is kind of, let’s say, over? Even if fixed never dies.

I don’t even remember the last time I touched my fixed bike.
But I think bikes, in general, came into my life when I was 17. I saw my friends with these super funky, colorful, very low-maintenance bikes.
There was adrenaline, color, and I remember seeing them once while they were going to a concert. I thought: “What is that thing?”.
And they said: “It’s a bike. It has no brakes”.
“Ok, let me try it”.
I tried it and immediately fell in love.
At the time I was working in a skate shop, I was a skater, so a completely different world.
Then I thought: “This is awesome. It takes me everywhere and I don’t have to take public transport”. I saved up some money and bought a fixed bike for 300 euros: an old road frame spray-painted yellow. The handlebar was so small my hands barely fit, but that was what people were riding at the time. It just hit me out of nowhere.
I liked it because I saved time and money by avoiding public transport, which I never liked.
And most of all I could discover the city better. I would go to places I probably would have never gone to without a bike.
I would take a left instead of a right, even in my own city.
My mother would have never shown me those places when I was a kid, like the center of Barcelona. It was beautiful: I had my own means of transport, all based on my own strength, and so much adrenaline.
We used to race from the upper part of Barcelona down to the sea.
Those who have been there know: you can hit almost all green lights, but not quite all of them.
So you were risking your life a bit, skidding all the way down Barcelona.
It was really fun.

We know the camera is like a second eye for you: how do these two passions connect? The two wheels and the lens, to put it simply.

Yes. I like documenting journeys.
And I think the bike makes people curious. It will always be a better means of transport than any other, especially motorized ones. It really opened my eyes.
It made me realize I could write, document and see the world in a different way, but also show it to others. Today maybe it’s not that unique anymore: everyone can document their journeys, everyone has a camera.
But before it was. The camera came early in my life, the bike a bit later.
But I love combining them to tell stories, to show how incredible the world we live in is.
And I think I will never stop doing it. Now I’ve taken part in several ultra races.
At the beginning I didn’t enjoy them much, and I think it was because I didn’t have a camera with me.
Now I do all these races with a camera, so I can keep my motivation alive.

Together with your friends Corina Montero and Claudia Almendros you founded the W Collective.
Can you tell us where it comes from and where you’d like to take this project?

The W Collective was born during the Covid period, like many ideas.
At the beginning it was “W Talks”: the W could mean anything.
Who, where, weather… it didn’t matter.
But it also stood for Women Collective. We were doing “women’s talks”. I had so many incredible friends around the world and I wanted to connect them and give visibility to these amazing athletes and people. We started with Instagram lives, kind of a live podcast.
But I realized that maybe it wasn’t really my world: talking in front of a camera in a rush, without being able to be outdoors, on my beloved skis or on a bike.
Today we are a collective that tries to bring women together around the world and motivate them to go out, move, through rides, workshops and talks.
We also want to share monthly updates, to highlight things that might not emerge if no one talks about them.
Corina, Claudia and I have very different points of view, we read different things, we’re interested in different things.
And we want to bring all of this to other women to keep inspiring them.
This year the plan is, for example, to go to BAM, follow the Tour de France Femmes as real cheerleaders, follow races on trackers, create more content.
And if we could organize a camp at the end of the year, that would be amazing.

We ask all guests of Bamtastic interviews if they have a “guiding spirit”: a person, a book, a philosophical quote that inspires their everyday life.

This year I discovered a mantra. I was never really into these things.
It is: “Go further, see more”. It’s what pushed me to finish races, projects, many things. It works with the camera, without the camera, on the bike, in everything.
It’s the only sentence that truly represents me.
I also have a tattoo that says “Why not.” which for me represents exactly this.
The further you go, the more you will see; to go far, obviously, you can only keep telling yourself: why not? In fact, the answer seems unnecessary to me.

Thank you Sami, see you at BAM bringing along your beautiful energy!

Thank you guys, see you in Piazzola

G.Cury