Grumpy Old Men On Bikes

No not us, the hills. Today was VERY hard work. Apart from the first 5 miles we have been on hills all day. This part of the coast is very pretty but a bonkers place for old men on heavy bikes to try and cycle. The completely mad vertical climb this morning (see previous blog) was the 'high spot'. As already mentioned, this was easily the hardest half mile climb I have ever done and, although I didn't walk, it was a close run thing. If you have never tried to ride a bike with 35lbs of crap strapped to the back up a 26% slope you haven't lived. After that it was just up and down all day, including a 7 mile climb in the afternoon sun which, by the way, has found an even bigger hat. We ended the day on 85 miles and fell into the first place offering a bed for the night. Cat lovers will be pleased to know that there will be no swinging of cats tonight! We are in Praia A Mare, about where the sock would disappear into the shoe. It is very weird to be riding in weathe...

Half a mile, minimum 15%,maximum 26%. Hardest half mile of my life. ------------------

After the dangers of cycling in Naples, today I led my family over the mountains to safety. If anyone can be bothered to look they will see that from Pompeii the coast does a bloody great loop out west to Sorrento. It was either spend 50 miles doing this or sneak over the mountains to Amalfi. Since we are fearless kings (ok Alan is more of a queen) of the mountains we headed uphill. 9 miles and 2500 feet later we snuck through the last bit of mountain in a 1km tunnel. It was hot and the climb was tough but I thoroughly enjoyed it. We were even entertained by fireworks as part of some sort of village festival. The trick to fireworks at 10am is to go exclusively for ones that go bang. The run down into Amalfi must be one of the most stunning in the world. About 7 miles of hairpins which actually only carry you forward about 1 mile. As you drop you can see 4 or 5 loops below you with picture postcard houses clinging to the hill on either side. Far below is Amalfi with cruise liner...

I think there was a movie spin-off but anyway, you can't not use this one when you are camped at the base of Vesuvius. There are times when I am amazed to have come through 52 years alive and more or less in one piece but surviving the couple of hours it took to get through Naples today is a whole different ball different ball game. Completely bonkers - no traffic rules, mad italians and roads that are badly maintained, cobbled or often both. Bomb disposal experts could cycle in Naples for an extra adrenalin rush. Our original plan was to follow the coast road but cutting through the centre of the city saved 7 or 8 miles......but cost us 7 or 8 years, my nerves have never been so jangled. 6 hours later my hands have mostly stopped shaking but my left eye still twitches a bit. Pompeii is as you would expect: busy, over-priced and very touristy but our campsite is OK and we found a supermarket where we assembled the means to make a tasty spag bol and persuaded the nice wop on t...

I was happily cycling along when some sort of insect, about the size of an albatross, found it's way inside my sunglasses. It didn't like being there and decided to sting it's way out. This hurt. A lot. I was a big brave boy and didn't cry but as well as hurting like a hurty thing it made me feel very odd for a couple of hours - very light-headed and woozy. Anyway, back to our journey. We had a leisurely get-up as the campsite office didn't open until 9. This was no bad thing because I may have had 20 or 30 cents more wine that was good for me yesterday evening. We followed the coast road all day and it was mostly flat with a slight wind-assist. The scenery is changing, less Southern French and more Greek now that we are a full 350 miles south of our starting point. The last few miles today were on a spectacular cliff top road with tunnels and galleries taking us through the worst of the hills and the camera got a good work out. We are in Formia and guess wh...

The streets of London may be paved with gold but the streets of Rome are lined with whores. These Ladies of the Night don't operate at night and, actually, sitting in a chair in an underpass in your undercrackers isn't very ladylike. On previous days we have spotted the odd one or two but today as we skirted Rome there were lots. They seem to operate from the most obscure places, often in the middle of nowhere and we assume they get dropped off and collected by a 'friend'. At least in this sun they won't catch a chill! After yesterday this was an easy peasy day. We had 65 to do and the going was very flat. Alan did his best to slow us down by breaking a spoke but even with this we made good progress. The roads were quite busy at times and we were glad to reach our lunch stop, just before we returned to the quieter coast road. Mid-afternoon we stopped for a gelato (look it up, we had to) and met an 'English' couple. She turned out to be a Belgian sma...

Agreed departure time: 8:00 Current Time: 7:50 Status of Steve and Alan's pitches: see photos. The prosecution rests. ------------------

Today was 93 tough hilly miles! The Sun had got a particularly big hat on today, possibly the sombrero it brought back from Benidorm together with a raffia donkey and one of those crappy jug things that pours sangria on your shoes. It was several degrees hotter than yesterday and a cloudless sky. If things go on like this we will have to stop filling our bottles with cheap Italian wine and use water :-( The morning was easy and we lucked into the only town with an open shop we saw all day. We had a tasty lunch on the bench outside the shop and they even laid on entertainment in the form of people in funny clothes riding horses (see photo). The afternoon was somewhat less funny. We still had 50 to do and it seemed like every hill was longer and steeper on the up than the down. The sun shone, we both sweated and Alan cursed. The other photo is of him having a quick bath in village fountain. The scenery has been fantastic and the wops are proving to be much to our liking (maybe more...

Though sadly not Alan. It isn't Nevada hot but plenty warm enough - probably high 80's in the shade - but very humid. I am still solar powered so very happy but Alan finds the heat difficult. As you will see from the photo, our waiter (giovani) was a very friendly chap and I got on with him like a house on fire. We had great pizza and six euros worth of red wine and were tucked up in our tents by 9pm. This morning we got a reasonably early start but lost time sorting out a problem with my bike - the chain was slipping and after a visit to a bike shop and then some independent fiddling we diagnosed a twisted chain link which we fixed with brute force. We also stopped to buy fuel for camping stoves at a petrol station. We got some in our bottles and poured the rest over the forecourt which the nice italian man cleared up with good grace. Today we had nice but very long straights roads (any would think the Romans had built them) and a few lumpy bits. For the last 20 miles ...

Ok: 1/ I have never heard of the film and 2/ The picture hardly fits My excuse for the first is that you can't get a much better title for our first, gloriously sunny day in Tuscany. My excuse for the second is that I took all today's pictures on the camera, forgetting that I have no means of uploading them. So this one was hastily taken on the phone at dinner. Our flight was bang on time and it was wonderful to step off the plane and feel the heat of the sun. It may be late September but in London today would make 'phew what a scorcher' headlines in the Sun. We popped to the Tower for a photo opportunity and I was a bit gob smacked. Maybe I am a bit of a rube but I was really surprised at how leany it was. Leanier than a leany thing. Although not main tourist season there were lots of people about - though admittedly most wanted to sell us a fake Rolex. The first 20 miles of our ride were on pretty busy roads but once we hit the coast things quietened down and ...

I have to spend 10 days with him :-( ------------------

So, when you are deperaretly trying to complete all your work so you can bugger off cycling for 10 days what do you most need?  That's right....Speed Awareness Training.  No I shouldn't have broken the speed limit, yes it serves me right, but what a futile exercise.  If you ever need to design a 4 hour course on stating the bleeding obvious Essex police have beaten you to it.  Anyway that is all in the past now.  By getting up at 3:30 I have managed to finish my work and survive SAT; just a few bits of admin and I can head to Alan's from where we will get a taxi to Hethrow tomorrow morning.  Alan is slightly less prepared.  Late last night he emailed me to say he cannot find his tent.  You might think that when planning a CAMPING trip you would check you have a tent a little ealier than this but welcome to the world of cyle-touring with Alan.  Any minute now I expect an email saying he can't remember where he put his bike. Fortunatel...

Less than a week untill we set off.  The photo shows my bike fully loaded before being dismantled and packed in a box.  Britsh Airways now refuses to take bikes unless they are propely boxed and this may present a problem when we fly home from Sicily.  So far Alan's attempts to locate a bike shop in Catania that can sell or give us a box have been fruitless.  Although we are only looking at 80 miles per day, Italy is chuffing lumpy and I am starting to worry about fitness.  For various reasons I have hardly ridden in the last month and my super-fitness from the summer is fading fast.  As you can see, the loaded bike is not exactly light and things could get ugly in the mountains.   Do you think that people who broadcast on the radio at 3am occasionally wonder whether ANYONE is listening?  I know the feeeling :-( Steve

We may have somewhat shot our bolt on the movie titles – this one was too good to resist  but we are struggling to think of more.    This year’s trip is a shortened end to end of Italy; we didn’t have the time for the full thing unless we went for a silly 100 mile/day pace which we are both getting too old for.  So we are doing Pisa to Catania in Sicily.  This is still 830 miles over 10 days with plenty of mountains so we don’t feel too much like shirkers.   Neither of us has cycled in Italy before and we are looking forward to experiencing:   ·          Italian motorists – we imagine them to be very calm and sensible motorists with a minimum of gesticulations and ‘mama mias’ ·          Speaking Italian – I got a book and it seems you just put a vowel on the end of every word; if the word already ends in a vowel ...