Membership
From discovery, to participation, to patronage.
Most people arrive curious and stay because of the people. A few end up funding apprenticeships. The club is built to let you move along that line at your own speed, and never to push you.
The pathway
Nobody is asked to decide everything at the start.
Discovery. You read, you follow, you come to something. Amico exists for exactly this and costs nothing. A good number of people stay here indefinitely and are welcome to.
Participation. You start turning up: the rides, the tables, the workshops. This is where a club stops being a subscription and starts being a set of people you know.
Patronage. Some members reach a point where the interesting question is not what the club gives them but what it makes possible. The upper tiers exist for them, and are structured around funding apprenticeship rather than around perks.
The only route currently open at the paid end is the Founding Circle. Everything else on this page is described as intended, and marked as such.
Open now
The Founding Circle
One hundred people who join before there is very much to join. The Founding Circle shapes the club’s first chapter — the first rides, the first gatherings, the first apprenticeships — and is the only paid membership open at present.
What is asked of you
- That you tell us something true about how cycling sits in your life.
- That you are willing to have a conversation before either of us decides.
- That you are interested in what this becomes, not only in what it gives you.
What happens next
- 01Your application is read by one of us. Not scored, read.
- 02If there is a fit, we arrange a conversation — video or, better, in Verona.
- 03Invitations are issued individually. Membership begins with that invitation, never with a payment on a website.
The intended pathway
Where the club is going.
These are the tiers VCC intends to open, in the order it intends to open them. Only Amico is joinable today. We are showing you the shape rather than pretending it does not exist — and we are not publishing prices or benefits we have not finalised.
Amico
Open nowThe way most people begin
The open door. Amico costs nothing and asks nothing: the Journal, dispatches from Verona, and the first word when something is opening.
Free
Domestique
Not yet openMember
Full membership of the club — the community, the routes, the groups, and a place on the open rides and gatherings.
Fee to be confirmed
Collezionista
Not yet openParticipant
For members whose interest runs to the object itself: the ateliers, the makers, the way a frame is actually arrived at.
Fee to be confirmed
Benefattore
Not yet openPatron
Patronage. A Benefattore’s membership carries a named contribution to apprenticeship, and the access that comes with that responsibility.
Fee to be confirmed
Ordine dei Custodi
Not yet openCustodian
The smallest circle. Custodians sit closest to the work of preservation itself, and are consulted as such.
Fee to be confirmed
Free
Or begin with Amico.
Amico is the open door and the way most people begin. It costs nothing, it takes a minute, and it asks for four things: your name, your email, your country and the language you would rather we wrote to you in.
In return: the Journal, dispatches from Verona, and the first word when an experience opens or a tier becomes available. No obligation to go further, and no nagging if you do not.
Questions
The ones people actually ask.
The club
- Is this a cycling club or a travel company?
- Neither, precisely. VCC is a private membership: the rides and journeys are part of it, but so are the ateliers, the gatherings, the Journal and the apprenticeships. A travel company sells you a week. A membership gives you somewhere to belong between the weeks.
- Do I have to be fast?
- No. Speed has never been the entry requirement here and will not become one. Rides run at more than one pace, and a good number of members ride considerably less than they used to. What matters is that you care about the thing.
- Do I need an expensive bicycle?
- No. Owning a hand-built steel frame is not a condition of membership and never will be — a fair number of members join precisely because they do not own one yet.
- Is VCC only for men?
- No. The club is open to any adult, and we would rather say that plainly than let the photography imply otherwise.
- Do I have to live in Italy?
- No — most members will not. Verona is the club’s home and the reason it exists, but the membership is global and the intention is that you come, repeatedly, rather than that you move.
Joining
- Why is membership by application?
- Because the quality of a private membership is the quality of the people in it, and there is no way to establish that through a checkout. It also means we can be honest with you about whether VCC is the right thing for you before anyone spends anything.
- Can I simply pay and join?
- Not at present. There is no purchase on this website. The route is application, conversation, invitation — in that order.
- What do the other tiers cost, and when do they open?
- The intended pathway runs from Amico through Domestique, Collezionista, Benefattore and the Ordine dei Custodi. Those tiers are not open yet, and we would rather show you where the club is going than publish a price we have not finalised. Amico members hear first when each one opens.
- What happens to my application if I am not right for VCC now?
- We tell you, plainly, and you are welcome to stay with us as an Amico. Circumstances change and so do clubs; an application that is not right this year is not a closed door.
Craft and preservation
- Does membership include a bicycle?
- No. Membership gives access to the ateliers, the makers and the knowledge — visits, demonstrations, conversations, masterclasses. A commission is a separate matter between you and the atelier, subject to their capacity, and it is never an entitlement of membership. We would rather say that now than disappoint you later.
- Is VCC a way of selling Chesini or ZULLO bicycles?
- No. The two ateliers sit within the same group as VCC, which is why the access is real rather than arranged — but the club is not their sales channel, and you will not find a shop on this website. Each atelier keeps its own name, its own character and its own customers.
- Is L’Accademia a charity? Is my membership tax-deductible?
- We are not making that claim. L’Accademia’s legal form is being finalised and we will publish it, with its registration details, when it is settled. Until then: treat your membership as a membership, not as a donation, and take no tax position on it.
Practical
- When do experiences take place?
- The programme is being scheduled now. We have published what each experience is and where it happens; we have deliberately not published dates we cannot yet honour. Register interest and you will hear before the dates are public.
- What language does the club operate in?
- English and Italian, in practice. This website is in English first, with Italian and Japanese to follow. Tell us your preferred language in your application and we will write to you in it where we can.
- How is my information handled?
- Applications are read by the founders and held in our own systems. We ask nothing about your income or your wealth, we do not sell or share your details, and marketing consent is asked for separately from the application itself. The privacy notice sets out the detail.