Monday, May 6th
The day began with the usual briefing but this time at the camp ground where some of our cycling colleagues were spending their nights, including being eaten by the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen. There were some unhappy "campers" today, who ironically were spending their nights in hotels but hadn't been told about the camp ground briefing today:
What happened next was interesting, especially for me. We returned to the mainland via about 5km of sand and gravel "track" through a nature reserve which was home to deer, among other things. Towards the end of this (very bumpy track) one of my water bottles came loose and went into the spokes of mu front wheel and I went A over T onto the ground. Apparently I scored 8.5, 8.0, 9.0, 7.5, 8.5 and 9.5. I also scored two bruised shins, bruised ribs (I hope that's all that's hurting) and some wounded pride.
This didn't stop me claiming the polka dot jersey from Ed on the clime into Capalbio where we had our only coffee stop for the day:
This is quite a nice hill town, with some works of art which I'm sure I've seen before somewhere:
As well as some lovely views of Tuscany which we were about to leave for Lazio. Too bad the weather was deteriorating:
Another 10km further on we had to negotiate the worst piece of road on the trip - OK, it looks like Araluen to Moruya, but we were on road bikes!
This was such remote Tuscany that even the only taverna was closed at lunch time, despite saying "opens at 12:30pm for lunch" (this is Italy, after all). Fortunately Steve picked up on this and set up an impromptu road side picnic which everyone appreciated enormously. It was here that Tony and I received the text from Robert saying that Carla was in labour (but the weather was looking even gloomier):
The rest of the ride is a bit of a blur - we basically chased the rain into the complex housing our hotel, and just as we arrived at the gate, 500m from the hotel, the sky opened up and we were drenched. This wasn't helped by poor instructions to the hotel which meant 15 minutes in the rain storm rather than 5 minutes.
A shower, a beer and the final stages of the Giro di Italia did improve our mood, however"
And a fixed menu of seafood everything, accompanied by the local red and white wines removed any memories of the final stages of our ride.
But...we were the first to arrived, and many of the other had other tales to tell. Indeed, the last two riders to arrive came in after dark, and another two (happy?) campers had to be collected by the sag wagon. There will be some interesting stories at breakfast tomorrow morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment