An Ecru Bike and I

To Blois

For those of you bored by my recollections of the uneventful ride to Bourges, I bring you the ride to  Blois - epic screw up number 2.

the wall on the outside of some tiny anonymous town I rode through

One thing I’ve learned about myself on this trip is that I’m not that good at learning from my mistakes.  It is a mistake to drink too much and go out the night before having to ride 130+km, yet I do it constantly. I’m a moran.

I’ve been waiting so long for an excuse, however tenuous, to put this pic in…

Anyway, back to my ride.  It was intended to be 135km, I left early with the taste of ferral beer and spirits mixed Bourge drink in my mouth. Yummy.  Riding is, however, the best hangover cure ever and I was fine within an hour.  Within two hours I stumbled upon a tiny market town, that had this out the back:

There were no plaques, no signs, no explanation at all… just this epic ruin. I was fascinated.  So my imagination ran a little wild thinking of how this tower got into this state.  I decided that the most obvious explanation would have to be that King Louis (all French kings are called Louis when I dont know their actual name), on his 50th birthday had a big party, drank too many mountain fire schnapps, had a terrible reaction (not unlike Alex’s and JT’s reaction to mountain fire schnapps (spewing in the bushes)) but moments before barfing in the garden, he turned into a dragon and blew up his castle.

Hard to believe, but I saw no evidence to refute these happenings.

From there I proceeded to kill kilometres.  I broke the 110km mark by 2PM, leaving just 15km to go to Blois and 3 hours to do it.  I pretty much decided that I was totally awesome, and needed to check out some chatteaus to siege.  Luckily I was in the Loire Valley and there were plenty of Chatteaus. So I rode around, and got lost, and didnt find any chatteaus.

note the red poppy in the middle… yes,  I did wade into the middle of a wheat field to take this photo

I faffed about for 2 hours and all I found were dirt roads, wheat fields and awesome old houses. I wasn’t really disappointed.

you may note that the clouds behind this building are looking rather angry…

It was around this time that I rode past a couple of older ladies in a forrest. I was all like “Bonjour”, and they were all like “bonne soiree” and I went, crap - it’s getting late.  So I decided to do a classy tight turn on this dirt walking path to show these ladies how much of an awesome and competent bike rider I was.  You can probably guess what happened next.  I took an epic dive, right on my knee, which started pissing blood.  The ladies were all over me in a flash though, and I rode off with their best wishes but with neither my knee nor dignity in tact. 

Five minutes later, an epic thunderstorm hit, with monsoonal rain.  Lame.  I was drenched to the bone before I could even open my bag to get my rain coat. 

I then decided to head to Blois, but you may recall the mishap I had with my garmin in Interlaken?  (I.e I cracked the screen)  Well cracked screen and monsoonal rain result in gps full of water.  Lame. 

I did eventually make my way into Blois, through torrential rain, cursing myself for having buggered around in the wheat fields for 2 hours. 

Blois, taken the next day

Now to find the hostel…..  2 hours later, I find the hostel 6km outside of Blois on top of a hill.  Lame.  By this time I’m beyond drenched, have ridden just shy of 160km and am suffering mild symptoms of hypothermia.  At least I couldnt feel my knee I guess.

Just in time to be greeted by some truely shocking French hospitality.  She was a troll in a dress and made me remove my wet clothing (read: everything I was wearing) before she let me in the reception (which was a really shitty old building anyway).  So I checked in in a towel, freezing and bloody.  Not quite how I pictured the day going at 2PM.

So surely, after a day like this, I should go to bed early and have a quiet one.  Well that was my plan, until I bumped into this guy from South Korea, Gok, who loved beer, spoke English and just happened to be a bomb disposal officer in the Foreign Legion.  How awesome is that.  I pretty much sat in awe of his stories, drinking his beer, until about 2AM.  I expected bomb disposal experts to be chilled out, emotionless people…for some reason.  Gok certainly was not, infact, when I explained to him what I was doing he sat their in silence for about 4 seconds before yelling “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWW” then hugged me and skulled his beer.  Great dude.

To Bourges

The ride to Bourges wasnt quite as eventful as the previous ride, which was probably a good thing.  I got the hell out of Vezelay pronto, not wanting to be caught fumigating the reception. Though I would have loved to see their reactions!

It was luckily another fine day, but it was also looking incredibly hot, and I had another 135km day ahead of me.

Despite not being hungover, I was feeling like rubbish.  I was kept awake by another fat snoring 50 year old man and dreams that I’d had all my stuff flogged by pilgrims, wait, that wasn’t a dream…

Now that I was about 400km into France the scenery was starting to change a little.  The open farms were now being replaced with forests, which were a nice respite from the sun.  Plus they were pretty awesome as the trees curled over the road, almost enclosing it entirely like a tunnel.  Note in figure 1 that the trees are doing what I am talking about in the previous sentence. Jon 1 - disbelievers 0.

There were also fields with bales of hay in. I really wanted to jump the fence and check them out (I mean, how cool are hay bales?! (A: I dont know, that’s why I wanted to check them out)) but about 5mm out of this pic there is an angry looking French guy staring at me as if to say ‘no you will not check out my hay bales, foreigner!’.

The ride really wasn’t that exciting at all, that’s why I’m writing rediculously.  This does give me the opportunity to bitch and moan about French shops:

As I ride 6 hours a day I tend to get hungry.  I get hungry about once every two hours. When I get hungry I want food.  This is where shops come in.  In these places I exchange my hard earned dosh for croissants and baguettes and the like.  In France, trading hours are designed to infuriate me, and anyone else that is hungry and wishes to get food.  They open at 10AM, they close at Noon, they open at 2:30PM, they close at 5:00PM….wtf.  I’m not even talking about the local soap vendor either, we’re talking large shopping centres like ALDI and COOP.  Unfathomable.

Anyway enough crying.

One funny thing did happen to me, and this pic (of La Chartre-sur-le-Loir) shows it:

Things to note in this picture.  1) extremely narrow road, 2) extremely narrow footpath, 3) those 4 giant trucks about to turn right onto the bridge 4) my position

I caused a traffic jam for like 3 minutes while I obliviously took photos off the bridge.  Horns started,  and I quickly realised that my bike was too fat to fit on the edge. I tried to ride off elegantly with an air of sophistication and fell flat on my arse. All class.

Anyway I made it to Bourges, which is famous for its Cathedral.  Unfortunately the nice part was all under renovation and covered by scaffolding.

So I ended up meeting a New Yorker called Chris at the dorm. We went out, grabbed food, wine and too many beers.  We ended up at a club where we drank the ‘local speciality’ which tasted awful. It had some anonymous liqueur mixed with beer. I dont recall what it was, except that I tasted it when I woke up and it wasnt good.

A cool thing about Bourges is this palace which was owned by Jacques Coeur.  It’s cool because he effectively was ostracised for the most awesome reason ever - the king was jealous of his wealth.  My new goal in life.

To Vezelay - perhaps the most screwed up day so far…

My pre-ride preparation of beer, kebabs and 4 hours sleep was just what I needed for the 135km ride to Vezelay.  At least it was going to be flat right? Nup.  It wasn’t Tuscany hilly but it was bloody hilly, it was also bloody hot.

typically what I was riding over, doesnt look that hilly but there are no flat bits

There is only one way to ride in France if you want to fit in with the locals, and that’s with a baguette in tow.  At one point I had one baguette stored in the back, and one in my hands.  It was rather amusing ruding no hands, no shirt, loaded with baguettes - but they are so delicious - and I was not going to run out of food again today!

Unfortunately I did run out of food.  Again.  Those damn baguettes were too delicious, and I ate two of them by 3pm, along with about 2 litres of water.  Not a great combo, and I felt ike I was going to explode, while feeling light headed due to the fact that baguettes dont really have a lot of nutritional value.

some vines near Vezelay

So I, baguette lord, burnt to a crisp, rode into some tiny town in desperate need of food.  Luckily some lady who spoke no English came to my aide.  I managed to convey my needs, and she provided me with an epic toasted sandwich and a…. litre of beer.  Which I didnt ask for.  It was also Leffe, which is like, 8%.  Needless to say I was pissed almost instantly. 

I then told her where I was riding and she made some gestures which made me want to kill myself.  They went something like this:  *worried expression* *arm angled up* *pointing forward* … she was giving me the unmistakable “you crazy bastard, Vezelay is at the top of a freaking mountain” gesture. 

I’m an optimist though, and figured that as she was a fat old lady, a steep hill to her was probably just a speed bump to boozed up baguette lord. I quickly ate my words, or thoughts, when I was 20minutes into the climb, cursing myself for drinking that delicious beer.

Vezelay is that thing at the top of the hill

By the time I pulled into Vezelay I must have looked a particular mess.  There was a line up to the “hostel” reception, and everyone parted for me like I was Moses and they were that sea in the bible that parted for him…yeah, I know my bible.  I was bright red, hungover, slightly drunk, bloated from baguettes and had ridden 135km of hilly terrain in 30 degree heat. 

Luckily the receptionist spoke perfect English…. not.  I was in no mood to try and speak French either, but luckily some multi-lingual dutch peeps helped me out. 

the ‘hostel’

I should explain why I wrote hostel in inverted commas.  It wasnt much of a hostel, it was more just a tiny shack in the middle of nowhere.  It was also full of pilgrims.  Vezelay, I found out, is TINY, but has a gigantor cathedral.  It’s a big pilgrim place, and was full of people who were 400km+ into their walk to Rome, Jerusalem or Santiago or wherever.  Not exactly drinking buddies, but I didnt want to set eyes on another beer. 

this is on one of Vezelay’s 2 or 3 streets

I did, however, feel rather safe leaving all my stuff spread out around the shack, I also didnt think it too weird when they didnt give me a key.  I mean, what pilgrim walks from Paris to Santiago and flogs some Aussie’s bags on the way? 

So I got a pretty big shock when I walked back from town 2 hours later to find my room door locked and the reception closed.  Oh well, I’ll just climb in the window… then I look into the window and notice my bags gone.  Those sneaky freaking pilgrims!  I was rather calm really, and sat down and made a list on my phone of what I still had:

the actual  photo i took to check if my bags were there…  they were at the bottom of the bed

This is the list:

1. bike
2. towel
3. wallet
4. phone
5. gps
6. camera
7. 1 pair riding shorts, shirt and socks (hanging to dry on a tree)
8. what I was wearing

I could probably keep going with that, for like, one more day. Is this how my trip would end?

At about 11pm, 2 hours later, I was still sitting outside, pondering my situation, when an older lady came up to me and started asking me things in French.  I stared blankly. She gave me an expression like she thought I was mildly retarded.  Then she dragged me into the shack.  Sweet, now I’m going to get raped too. This is like some pilgrim horror movie.

Then in broken English she told me that the owners had moved me into another room. Without telling me, or leaving me a note, or in fact telling anyone to tell me - then they’d gone home and ignored their phone.  Luckily this lady had just seen them move my stuff and showed me where it was.  I was so exhausted I had pretty much no emotions left in me and just said “thanks”, crawled into bed and fell asleep.

When I woke up I was a little more pissed off and went to give the reception people a serve. Unfortunately they were not present so I just left a giant bear trap in the toilet right next to their desk.  A bear trap one can only leave after a night on beer and kebabs followed by two baguettes, lots of water, a toasted cheese sandwich and beer.  Take that pilgrims!

To Dijon, land of Kebabs

Second leg of my 7 days of death was to Dijon.  This was 130km of what I thought was going to be flat road.  It wasn’t the Jura, but it wasn’t flat.

The day was nice though, and freaking hot (for France) at 29 degrees. 

As this was the first time in my trip that I’d had 2 days of sun in a row, I decided to take advantage of it. By getting sunburnt.

my new riding kit

the landscape of rural central France is pretty much all like this…big open fields…

Now France, unlike Italy, actually gets rural.  As in - no towns for 40km.  This isn’t good if you’re like me and dont realy have any capacity to plan ahead….

Luckily I have emergency snickers; which I depleted about 35km from Dijon.  Luckily I turned up at this town:

It had a pub, woo.  Unfortunately it was France, and it was 2:30pm, boo.  It had stopped serving food!

Luckily I looked like I’d ridden 100km on 2 snickers bars and they took pitty on me.  For 2 euro they made me a ‘Framage Sandwich’ - which consisted of about 4 wheels of camambert on a loaf of bread.  SO GOOD.

After eating my epic cheesefest sandwich I found a mobile phone.  I called a random number and attempted in broken French to tell someone that thier friends phone was on a park bench.  I dont think i was too successful, so I dropped it off at the only place that was open in the town, a florist…

Anyway I made it to Dijon and found my hostel.  I then had a shower and realised I’d failed to adequately apply my suncream - making my back look like a red and white marble cake.  Awesome. 

The hostel was pretty much situated in ‘Little Morocco’.  So I went out drinking with two British guys from the dorm in a Moroccan bar, which was pretty rediculous.  Everyone played cards, and they all drove their cars up to the front, sat in them, and blasted their stereos with different music….WTF….who does that?

Anyway, it was entertaining, and the beer and company was good.

We then roamed around at 3am for greasy takeaway, which was easy, because in northern Dijon there were more kebab stores than French people.

Big night followed by midnight sandwich is probably not the best way to prepare for my  next leg, 140km to Vezelay…

To Besançon

France is kinda big… but when you’re looking at it on a map the size of a coaster it doesn’t look very big.  It was looking at such a map that I decided, and booked accomodation, for my trip across France. 

Basically the plan was this: ride from the Swiss border to Paris in 7 days without a break. 

Ollie knows well my ability to “plan” giant bike rides only to get lost and find out in the middle of nowhere that it’s twice as giant as first thought.  (Luckily he’s quite possibly more chilled out than I am or I might acquire black eyes as well as sore legs!) 

Anyway, in France I dont have Jim and Judy to come and rescue me…. but I didn’t let that stop me from planning to ride 880km in 7 days.

Besançon was step one, 110km away.  Easy peasy except for some giant freaking mountains called the Jura…

They dont exactly look that impressive compared to the Alps… but they are still something like 1450m altitude (that’s 6 Mt Coot-thas)

Me, thinking I’m totally awesome having just climbed to the top of the Jura…… unfortunately I was actually about halfway. 

it took me about 1 hour to get to the top, plus I actually overtook some roadies (who, unlike me, probably realised they werent just around the corner from the top… I have a mental deficiency and always think the summit is just around the next bend)

View Larger Map

You can even re-live the climb from the comfort of your chair through the wonders of streetview!  (not sure why this font is small, dont know how to change it)

So yeah, I finally reached the real top, feeling pretty good except that I had about 80km still to go and my legs were like jelly. There was a great bakery at the top and I ate about 4 pastries…

Just over the border there was this cool Castle that I was too lazy to go into

The French-Swiss border was right after the summit. Within 1km of riding in France the roads became megaturds.  French roads are really bad; some of them had more pothole than bitumen…so there were islands of bitumen randomly along where people were driving.

Generally when I get exhausted I dont take many photos, I just sort of go into this trance like state and ride.  I’m guessing this is what happened because I have no photos till I got to Besançon…

It was quite a nice city but by the time I got there all I wanted to do was sleep.  So I did, after taking some snaps of the sunset.

 damn current ruining my reflection!

To Bern and Yverdon

I left Interlaken in the rain with a pretty large hangover, but as usual the ride cleared it all out and I felt fine within an hour.  The roads out of Interlaken were pretty awesome, pitty for the rain though!

it was also effing cold and I spent about $200 swiss francs on booties, knee warmers and full length gloves… so I was toasty warm!

Switzerland has heaps of cool bike paths which are all well signposted, a nice change from Italy!

Bern wasn’t too far and I arrived around 3PM just as the sun came out. Bern is quite nice:

It has a very ‘old’ feel about it (probably due to the UNESCO thingy over the entire old town)

a big clock…

My hostel was RIGHT in the centre, which was cool. But it was at the bottom of a big bloody hill which was not cool.  Yeah. 

I only had one dorm mate but he was interesting enough to make up for 3 or 4 people.  He also smoked pot constantly in our dorm, at least 6 joints, and I think I was slightly stoned off the passive smoke.  So we watched movies on his laptop and he told me all about Switzerland (he was Swiss).  Switzerland is a pretty weird  place, but it seems to work pretty well as it’s probably the ‘nicest’ of all the countries I’ve been to in Europe so far.  It actually reminds me a lot of Australia but with epic mountains and lakes…

Anyway, here goes for some double-post action!

Bern to Yverdon

So my cousin Phillipe lives with his wife and kids in a place called Yverdon-les-Baines.  So I had a couple of days with them which was really awesome.  It was about 110km from Bern to Yverdon, and the sun came out half way to some spectacular scenery.

imagine this all around, for 50km, was very cool

there is a lake behind that hill but you can’t really see it

about 2km from my cousin’s place

the family! way too generous and Valerie’s cooking was second to none. I would be obese if I spent more than a few days.

I also got to see my auntie Margaret, who I hadn’t seen since I left the UK ages ago. She is way too lovely and I’ll have to head back to see the rest of the Swiss family sometime soon!  (and climb the alps!)

Anyway I am going to bed now. Goodbye.

Interlaken

Interlaken
So I was a little bummed that I could’nt ride the Alps, but once I gott a little closer it became apparent that the Swiss weren’t just closing them to piss me off… it looked mighty nasty up there. 

looks kinda steep, and cold, and dangerous…

So I rode up to a station and caught a train to Luzern, deciding that Luzern was too far I doubled back as far into the Alps as possible: Interlaken! 

Every town or city has something unique about it, for example Brisbane is the only capital city in Australia to start with a ‘B’…. pretty cool.  Interlaken has a bit of a cooler catch though, being the only city to be surrounded on 2 sides by giant mountains, and 2 sides by giant lakes (hence inter-laken).  Here is a handy diagram to show you:

I apologise, I’m terribly drunk

It’s an awesome place, and I met some awesome people there and had some awesome times.  I also managed to acquire several hangovers, which I slept off in the recovery room.

Singing kumbaya or something…

One of the more interesting things I did in Interaken was this:



Yeah, that’s me jumping into a giant bloody canyon… it’s called a canyon jump and it’s effectively a bungee jump that swings out when you hit the bottom.  It was awesome, and far better than the nap I had originally planned to take (thanks to Bryce for talking me out of that!).  It was also awesome because I met Holly andd Sam from Florida! Cant wait to see you both in Amsterdam!

if you look very closely you can see Tim, a guy from Sydney I went cycling with around Interlaken - cool dude, forgot to get his fb stuff though

All in all Interlaken was incredible and I cannot wait to go back some day. 

damn you clouds for ruining my pictures of the Eiger!

It’s also really cold, but this can be an advantage because you can chill your beers on your windowsill.  TY to Zoe for that sweet tip.

this was the canyon i dove into, about 100m of freefall.

I think I did everything right except look at the camera…

Bellinzona

I left Lugano pretty late and headed to Bellinzona, which was only 50km away.  Luckily it was only 50km because it was blowing a galeforce headwind the entire way!  It seriously was insane, by far the strongest headwind I’ve ever ridden into.  Plus that and it was almost entirely up hill.

I got my first taste of Swiss switch-backs…they’re huge!

Bellinzona

It’s in Switzerland, but appart from the Alps in the background you really wouldnt know.  Everyone speaks Italian and nothing else, everyone looks Italian and all the food is Italian.

Bellinzona’s main attraction, though, is its trio of Castles.  I only had time to do the big one, aptly named Castel Grande.

the entrance

see how windy it is?

The Castles and walls used to stretch across the entire valley, until some chump Government decided to dismantle them in the 1970’s before UNESCO came and saved the day.

anyway these castles were totally cool, especially with the giant mountains in the background.

Sorry for the quick lame post I have to run and drink beer with people, who are waiting for me…

Milan and Lugano

I’m so horrendously behind with this blog that I’ll have to double-up some posts or I’ll still be posting when I get back!

MILANO

The ride was about 80km long and punctuated by some of the worst roads I had experienced in Italy (that is saying a lot!).  Really crappy ones.  Oh, and it rained again. 

Bad roads plus rain is not a great combo.  I distinctly remember painstakingly avoiding passing giant puddles when cars or trucks were coming to avoid getting the wave of water all over me.  I was pretty successful at this, but one giant douche-bag in a truck ruined it for me when I was passing over a bridge; there was no escape (except into the river). I swear he sped up too. It’s people like this that make me want to believe in karma.

The other thing about Milan is that they grow a lot of cotton around it.  I probably inhaled about a t-shirts worth, and what I didnt inhale stuck all over me.  So I entered Milan, city of fashion, coughing and looking like I was wearing a half-arsed chicken suit.

Unfortunately a storm hit about 30 minutes after I arrived so I didn’t get much chance to explore.  Once it cleared I went out for drinks with two guys from LA.  They were kinda weird.  In fact Milan itself was weird.  We tried to buy some beers from a corner store and were told we couldn’t a) take them away in bottles, or b) drink them in the store… So the store guy poured our 6 tallies into 9 plastic cups and we roamed Milan, at night, with shit loads of beer.  I still don’t know whether the store owner was just taking the piss or this is the most ridiculous law ever.  Either way, weird.

Once the guys from LA had a bit of beer in them they started sharing stories I’d have kept to myself.  I learned quite a bit about life in LA from where to get good Chinese food to how to procure a good prostitute (!!).  I also heard about how one of their brothers was doing 25 years for murder.  So yeah, not a lot in common there but it was interesting!

Milan is all about shopping.  Mostly expensive shopping.  I got the impression you’re nobody unless you’ve got a few giant fashion bags/boxes. In order to get one of these bags I indulged slightly and bought a stripey jumper which cost me 2 weeks hostel accommodation but is pretty damn nice…and cashmire, yeah.   So I rode out of Milan with a big shopping bag attached to the back of my bike, all class.

[sorry for lack of photos, I seem to be missing the Piacenza and Milan days…]

To Lugano

The 50km out of Milan were similar to the 50km in.  Crappy.  Once I got closer to Lago di Como the scenery really stepped up a notch.  The lake was very touristy, and with the dreary weather it didn’t look anything like it does in the postcards.  It still easily beat the cotton fields and terrible roads that Milan had to offer!



Shortly after leaving Como I crossed the border into Switzerland.  It was very uneventful.  The main event was that the roads a) became nearly perfect, and b) starting going up hill, steeply.  It did make for a nice view though. 

note: nice smooth road, big effing mountains (those are not clouds)

I stopped at a cafe which had about 4 Cervelo bikes outside.  The riders all spoke English and were so interested in my trip I barely got a chance to eat or drink anything.  It was rather fortuitous that I met them though, because they passed on some rather important information to me.  The Swiss Alp passes were all closed! Noooo…. 

Apparently it was still snowing too heavily so the authorities closed the roads, for everyone, even those in hummers.

Lugano

Lugano is really really windy, but really really beautiful. 

The hostel was also kinda cool and in one of the oldest buildings in town, which was also a mansion. It even add a pool, which would have been nice if it wasn’t 6 degrees…

Anyway I, and the entire dorm, slept terribly due to this chump:

This giant fat Russian guy got mega pissed, then waltzed into the dorm at about 3am and snored like a chainsaw, with some intermissions during which time he walked around swilling his bottle of wine…

In hindsight it was kind of good, because a number of us ‘bonded’ over the disasterous sleep and went for breakfast.  After which I climbed Monte San Salvatore with Lisa and Mikaela.

The view…

it was a 360 view but I wont keep going. It was stunning, take my word for it.

The fenicular was insanely steep

we walked down, which was killer on the knees!

All in all I liked Lugano more than Milano, despite the big fat Russian and the 3 hours sleep!

Parma and Piacenza

Riomaggiore to Parma to Piacenza
After the day galivanting about in the Cinque Terre I woke up to more rain :(

The sun was good while it lasted, and I managed to get an epic burn to remind me of it too, but it was gone all too soon.  I decided that in order to ‘catch myself up’ I should take a train to Parma and cycle the 110km to Piacenza (where I had booked my next hostel).  Another day of riding up mountains in torential rain was definitely not part of my plans. So I lugged my bike on the train at 7:15 (yeah, really) and left the awesomeness that the Cinque Terre is.

Parma
Parma is the home to parmesan cheese, parma ham and…parmegana?…maybe…  anyway, it’s a food place.  I was really only hoping to get off the train and get some of this famous food and get on the road to Piacenza.  Parma really had it’s way with me though, and I ended up losing 2 hours cruising the streets.

Unlike most Italian cities Parma is spotless.  The cobbles are perfect, and there is no rubbish or graffiti…it was kinda weird…  I got the feeling everyone was quite rich there too.  Anyway, it was quite a liveable city compared to most of the big Italian ones (beautiful city centres surrounded by ghetto suburbs).

for some reason I cannot find any of my good cameras photos from today. So you’ll have to be satisfied with a picture of this delicious torte… and ice tea.

I finally prized myself away from Parma and got on the road.  The sun was shining again and all was well….until the weather took a turn for the worse.

I was riding and this beast of a cloud came over.  Then a car actually beeped at me and pointed at the sky.  I was like, yeah dude, it’s going to rain, again, nothing new here!  But this rain was slightly different: really cold, hard and a bit painful.  I.e. it wasn’t rain, it was bloody hailing.  Not only have I had to put up with 2 weeks of rain but now I was being struck by pellets of ice!  C’mon God, gimme some sugar!

icy cold badness

I found a shade cloth that several cars were attempting to park under (unsuccesfully). 

Fidenza, one day before the Giro was to start there.  There were no signs or anything except these barriers.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful.

Piacenza
I ended up at the hostel pretty late and it was totally dead.  I was the only one there that spoke English, which was a bit lame, but allowed me to do some much needed planning.  What the hostel lacked in atmosphere it made up for with a 12 euro meal that included 4 courses and wine.  I couldn’t even finish it after a 110km hail ride… not only was it huge but it was also awesome.  If you’re ever near Piacenza you have to hit this restaurant up!

Next up would be Milan!

These posts are lame without pics so I’ll try and hunt down those Piacenza ones…it’s a rather pretty place.