As a boy, Andy Hampsten tried to ride on every street of his hometown, Grand Forks, N. Dakota. He loved the bike and spent his summer days pedaling in every direction, on dirt and pavement, along canals and through fields.

Four decades later and Hampsten’s passion for cycling hasn’t diminished. In fact, since his childhood tours of the American Midwest, he’s spent 11 seasons as a professional cyclist, won the 1988 Giro d’Italia and Alpe d’Huez stage of the 1992 Tour de France, started a bike touring company in Italy (Cinghiale Tours), imports Italian organic extra-virgin olive oil, and owns a bicycle company with his brother, Steve. Andy’s done just about everything a person can do in the world of cycling ... though he’s still intent on finding new ways to enjoy his post pro-cycling life on the bike.

“I think the riding will continue until I just end up touring on my own,” said Andy. “I still love finding new rides, even in my own backyard.” These days he calls Boulder, Colo., and Castagneto Carducci, Tuscany, his backyards. At 47, Andy has built an enviable existence – blending cycling into most of his life, from personal to professional.

As boys, Andy and Steve traveled to England to visit relatives. There they saw cycling magazines and the occasional race. They realized their interest in the sport might take them beyond the side streets of their hometown. Back Stateside, in the faraway Dakotas, they ferreted out cycling events, traveling as far as Madison, Wis., to compete. They read everything cycling-related they could find, eventually happening upon a Tour account by an old pro. The wizened rider described taking a waterbottle, while riding, and tossing it in the air, then catching it in his back pocket as he moved along.

“I said to Steve,” remembers Andy, “‘Wouldn’t it be cool to be that good?!’”

As it turns out, Andy became that good, though he’s never mastered the bottle trick. He began racing in the late ‘70s; made the US Junior National Team in ’79; then in ’85 traveled to Italy for the Giro d’Italia, his first professional race. He won stage 20, in the Italian Alps, and secured himself a pro contract for the ’86 season with Greg LeMond’s La Vie Claire team.

The wins continued: the ’88 Giro, two Tours of Switzerland, the Tour de Romandie, the Tour of Galicia, and stage wins across the Continent. By the mid-90s he was one of the greats. Though he loved the racing and training, he was never a one-trick pony show – over the years he’d grown to love the food, culture, and lifestyle in Italy. Far from a downer, life after pro cycling promised more fulfillment.

“It was December of ’95 and my mom sat me down. We had this ‘mom moment’,” said Andy. “She asked, ‘Well, what are you going to do next?’ I said I wanted to raise olives, make wine.” As a kid, he remembers, “Dad opening a nice bottle of wine, once a month. He’d give us a sip.” Both his folks were college professors, so he’d grown up appreciating other cultures. His career in Europe had introduced him to the best of Europe. “I just liked it, hangin’ out in Europe,” he said. “But it was my first time living in Italy when I really got hooked.”

He set about making the olive-and-wine daydream a reality. He rode one more year for U.S. Postal, then retired and “spent two years away from the bike.” By the fall of 1998, though, he’d scouted routes and organized his first tour for Cinghiale Cycling Tours in southwestern Tuscany. He’d already begun harvesting his own grapes and had made several hundred liters of red and white wine. Olives, too. It was happening.

Ten years later and Cinghiale Tours is still going strong, introducing cyclists to riding in Tuscany, the Dolomites, and occasionally France and California. In addition to the tours, Andy runs the Extra Virgin Oil Company, importing premium organic oil from Tuscany. And if all that doesn’t keep him busy, there’s also his bike company.

“The tours are for people who want to enjoy the culture in Tuscany, on the bike. The oil we import just to keep our habit going,” Andy explains. “The bikes have been great. We love working with people, customizing the bike to exactly what they’re doing.”

Hampsten Cycles offers frames in steel, aluminum, titanium, and carbon. They also adapt the frames to anyone’s riding style, using S and S couplers (threaded couplers that allow a frame to separate and break down for easier packing) for travelers, fenders for tourists, and components for racers and first-timers alike.

Andy’s content with his life – a cozy log cabin in Boulder, a fiancée with whom to share it, an apartment in Tuscany, plenty of oil, friends to take touring … and a whole bunch of bikes. He’s a lifer, for sure.

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