Saturday, May 4th
Today was the start of the Bike Adventures ride from Pisa to Catania in Sicily. There are just over 30 riders and 5 staff, and the first briefing took place around 9:00am at the hotel. Unfortunately, I must have been to busy listening to take the obvious photographs of the group standing outside in the sun listening to Steve, one of the company owners, talking about the tour and the day ahead - what an idiot I was.
Anyway, there was lots of preparation going, bikes being prepared, people filling in forms, trying on shirts, getting water, and generally being nervous to get underway. We finally started just after 9:30am, and the map of the day ahead is as follows:
Route Map (Bike Adventures)
Ride Profile (My Garmin)
The road pretty much followed the coast all day, but it was not as easy as just "keep the sea to the right and the mountains to the left" - Bike Adventures always seems to find some indirect way of traveling some fairly direct routes. Early on we negotiated the port area of Livorno, including a draw bridge stopping us for 15 minutes, lot of traffic (just as well it was Saturday morning) and the old fort right in the middle of the harbour.
Leaving Livorno was much more interesting, with a lot of former mansions lining the beach promenade for kilometres. Then we went into some hilly parts of the coast with forts, large houses, pretty beaches, and the more difficult part of the day's cycling. After about 35 km we found the nice town of Castiglioncello which had a selection of restaurants and we had a coffee and pastry with some of out fellow riders.
Tony D needed some water (and toothpaste) and the other riders wanted to by food, so we stopped at a Supermarket on the edge of town - too busy for Tony, so we continued our ride, all the time looking for another supermarket. There was some "cross country" cycling before we did the "shopping" and then stopped in another pretty town (Donoratico) for a foccacia and coke (as you do at this time of a ride).
From here it was basically head down and bum up as we "sprinted" the final stretch with a nice tail wind into Follonico. Unfortunately we missed the turn to the camp ground (afternoon tea?), found the turn to our hotel, but then made the mistake of continuing to look for the camp ground. Once we reached the centre of Follonico we realised our mistake and cycled the 5 km back to the hotel (in the direction which we had come). Even so, we were among the first to arrive!
We checked in and headed for the bar - a beer or two, a G&T (for me), a view of the Mediterranean and the island of Elba put a cap on the ride.
Now I'm clean, relaxed, and ready for another nice dinner!
Now, if you're really interested, you can also look at my rode profile, complete with heart rate (!):
Ride Profile (My Garmin)
The road pretty much followed the coast all day, but it was not as easy as just "keep the sea to the right and the mountains to the left" - Bike Adventures always seems to find some indirect way of traveling some fairly direct routes. Early on we negotiated the port area of Livorno, including a draw bridge stopping us for 15 minutes, lot of traffic (just as well it was Saturday morning) and the old fort right in the middle of the harbour.
Leaving Livorno was much more interesting, with a lot of former mansions lining the beach promenade for kilometres. Then we went into some hilly parts of the coast with forts, large houses, pretty beaches, and the more difficult part of the day's cycling. After about 35 km we found the nice town of Castiglioncello which had a selection of restaurants and we had a coffee and pastry with some of out fellow riders.
Tony D needed some water (and toothpaste) and the other riders wanted to by food, so we stopped at a Supermarket on the edge of town - too busy for Tony, so we continued our ride, all the time looking for another supermarket. There was some "cross country" cycling before we did the "shopping" and then stopped in another pretty town (Donoratico) for a foccacia and coke (as you do at this time of a ride).
From here it was basically head down and bum up as we "sprinted" the final stretch with a nice tail wind into Follonico. Unfortunately we missed the turn to the camp ground (afternoon tea?), found the turn to our hotel, but then made the mistake of continuing to look for the camp ground. Once we reached the centre of Follonico we realised our mistake and cycled the 5 km back to the hotel (in the direction which we had come). Even so, we were among the first to arrive!
We checked in and headed for the bar - a beer or two, a G&T (for me), a view of the Mediterranean and the island of Elba put a cap on the ride.
Now I'm clean, relaxed, and ready for another nice dinner!
Now, if you're really interested, you can also look at my rode profile, complete with heart rate (!):
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