A little tired maybe?

It had obviously been a quiet night for the cops in Monaco and they had quickly dealt with all the crooks on their megaboats in the harbour and had time for me. They had demanded my ID whilst I was waking up, I didn’t have the presence of mind to return the compliment or there would be three Monaco pigs ID card numbers for you to view. It would have been great if I had been awake and sober enough to give them a hard time.

They asked me where I was going. “Italy”, I didn’t even have the brain power to add “a civilized country” I was so knackered. I do not class walking out of Monaco as walking for bike riding purposes. After that, I dragged myself on to the bike and plodded along for an hour or so before turning up a hill, as it just began getting light, because it had an Italian sounding name on the signpost. About 3 km up the road there are horrible clashing sounding noises coming from the back end. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I am in no fit state to deal with this. I fart around with the gearing sufficiently to make the bike rideable and roll back into the town I have just left.

At the local cafe/boulangerie they tell me there is a bike shop in town that will open at 9. It is 6.45. I settle down to wait. After mucking about on the internet, drinking coffee, eating croissants, falling asleep etc. I wander off and find the shop at 9.15. Nothing. Kip for a while. Eventually get up and start fiddling with the gears myself. Man turns up. No he does not have spokes, offers to sell me a wheel for 100 euros. I decline. He suggests that I can get a cheap wheel in Monaco. I leave. 3 hours wasted when I could have been pedalling or asleep in a ditch. As Bart would say the ******* French.

Over the border into Italy and an instant lesson. The Italians do tunnels, the French do not. Talk about nervous, I had no idea. Put the back light on (for the first two, after that it was too much hassle – note to Dyson, new handlebars include switch for back light) and go like the light brigade. That was stressful. Then there is another, this time uphill – Jesus, is every Italian cyclist supposed to be a Pantani? (For those who don’t know Pantani was a great climber and the last Italian winner of the Tour de France but it was the year of the Great, or perhaps I should say, Greatest Drug Scandal on The Tour and his achievement was overlooked.)

Soon realise I am completely beyond anything. This seemed to include finding a hotel in the little town I landed in, I walked round the place three times before I succeeded. Eventually I did find a place and slept for four hours – unheard of in the day for me. Came to in time to realise that there would be a bike shop in town. Found one, bike left overnight.

This is when Italy really kicks in. It was some day of the week (I am guessing at Tuesday) and this little town has a free public show going on. Being Italy, there are two talking heads who can talk forever, a troop of flag throwers but, and this I liked, you could have a potshot at the town hall with a crossbow! A correct level of respect for the civic dignitories don’t you feel? Naturally I arrived too late to have a go.

Italian roads are not great, they are narrow so you have to steer a steady line despite all the potholes, humps, repairs, distortions etc. It can be quite hard work a lot of the time. Italian drivers, however, are not bad, not as good as the French but better than the English. The worst problem is the motor scooters. In France they appear to let any young tosspot aged about thirteen out on a twenty five cc motorbike with no exhaust. Of course, these do not go very fast but do smell horrible and make lots of noise. Italy has produced the two greatest exponents of motor bike racing ever to sling a leg over a machine yet still they prefer their scooters (about 90% of motorised two wheel vehicles in Italy are scooters.) I passed my test on a scooter (at the second attempt) in 1969. I have not driven one since 1970. They (motor scooters) are much more difficult to control than motor bikes. I can understand women wanting to use them so that they can wear a skirt (and in Italy many women do ride scooters) but most scooters in Italy are ridden by men. Tossers.

Having retrieved the bike (on time) and paid the bill – the guys initial request was 80 euros, which I thought was a bit steep – he modified it to eighteen but, when I offered a twenty note , he gave me 12 in change - I set off along the coast with a few humps, bumps, climbs, narrow roads etc. that were to become normal.

And then?

The best cycle track I have ever been on. It was an old single track railway line that had been superbly relaid. 2/3rds (i.e. about 2 metres) had been allocated for a defined two way cycle route and the remaining metre for pedestrians. It was smooth, there were regular rest points on the way with water fountains, when you went through a (lighted, of course) tunnel there were SOS phones every 100 metres and, clearly marked at each phone point, was the distance to either end, presumably in case the lights failed (the tunnel was not straight) – how is that for treating cyclists (and possibly, pedestrians) with respect. For 25kms I was flying but then the bastards wanted to use the lines for trains again. Uncivilizied gits.




Back on the road again and I start to notice signs saying “SS1” and I am thinking “1” sounds important. It is not the motorway obviously and, if it wasn’t obvious before, perhaps it means something and then I saw a number with it - 649. Of course, you are ahead of me. All roads lead to Rome or that is what I hoped. By then I had done 1700 km so the last third should be a breeze! The French and the Italians are both excellent at road numbering and distances. There are markers every kilometre clearly stating the road number and a number of kilometres from the start point of the road. This is genuinely useful for me in Italy most of the time because nearly all roads lead to etc. But in France it was not a great deal of help as I had no idea where I was going to and where the distances were from anyway. They were OK for giving me some idea of the distance I had done in the day, if I could remember all the number changes of course.

Things were going well it was, or so it seemed, just lots of ups and downs on the sforementioned narrow bumpy roads. The Ligurian coast is not really part of the Mediterraean basin at all. It is the fag end of the Alps – which were caused by Italy launching an unprovoked attack on Switzerland and Austria in the first place. Hence the lack of anything bearing a resemblance to a nice, even coast road.

Progress is reasonable, you start to notice some different crops in Italy than France – green houses – and you are quite happy but the hills really do start to kick in. A quick fifty metre climb is OK and back down again in time for the next one. There are several of these until I went up a 150 metre climb (by the way I mean height gain here, not the length of the distance that you ride) and, when I stopped for a rest at the top, could just make out the cycle path on the coast below you.

A god day though, did lots of kms and enjoyed the odd stop to watch volleyball on the beach. This is not Brazilian women playing Beach-Volleyball (how can anybody call that a sport instead of a lusting opportunity?) but normal volleyball rules played on a beach. It is universal on Italian beaches and a damned good idea and not just because about 50% of the players are young women in bikinis, no, perish the thought. I stopped for the night at one of these rather insignificant tourist towns but it did take a few requests at hotels and phone calls from the tourist information office to find a hotel; this was the only time that I had to ask at more than two places. I did run away from a place to eat where somebody about my age was setting up to sing what I could only assume would have been “Hotel California”, “Yesterday”, “Sole Mio” and other such lift music.

Back on my trustee steed in the morning and the main event is fighting my way through Genoa (Genova). In theory I would have liked to have stopped. The Genoese were the Venetians great rivals in the fourteenth century and there must be lots to see (confirmed a couple of days later) but I just wanted to get out of there. The city; the having to steer in a straight line; ride the bumps; start uphill at every set of traffic lights – it was just too much.

Quick couple of reviving beers (I had missed lunch) did not satisfy and I stopped again five kilometres later. I was still too late for lunch but beers and spirits were readily available, as was mine host. He was good enough to tell me that, after the next village, there was a 5km climb but then I was OK for 40km. If I ever go near this area again I will kill the lying, villainous bastard.

He was right about the 5 km climb, it was a pig but I made it without resting or getting off and pushing. Part way down the other side I stopped because it was a nice view and then noticed the 500km to Rome sign. I really am going to make it. And the bike probably will too. Not sure about the hat. At this point I got accosted by a gent across the road watering his flowers who was very keen to tell me that his daughter had married a man from Thames Ditton. Naturally I was fascinated by this and even more fascinated when he reeled off the names of his four grandchildren. I really cannot think why I cannot remember them. Fortunately, this seemed to be the limit of his English so I could leave in reasonably good grace.

Oh yes, I haven’t told you about the hat. When deciding on appropriate equipment for this trip, I had rejected my conventional cycling hat for two reasons. 1. I think that they are pretty close to useless, just a contrick pulled by some bike accessory manufacturer. 2. I was more concerned about sunburn. So I took a straw hat. Not my best idea. Any sign of a downhill slopes blows it off, in fact even riding on the flat generates enough wind (and, no, I am not referring to the type of wind that blows me along) to blow it back off my head, even though it is tied tightly. In fact its main use has been to stop my neck getting sunburnt in the evening when heading east.

Rolled down the hill into this very pleasant little town. I had only done about 85 or 90km but thought why not, I am on holiday so I stopped. One of my better decisions.

The Italians do pedestrianised areas very well. Everywhere I have stayed in has quite a lot of streets closed to cars. Of course, there is a cultural thing here, bars and cafes encroach on pavements big time but there is a good mentality. France is not bad too. Unlike England. Bristol thinks it is great because Corn Street is closed off. London still allows buses and the taxi-pigs down Oxford Street for God’s sake. When will England catch up? Boris is a genuine cyclist, The Cam man pretends to be, but still nothing in the UK, cars can go where the **** they like. Of course, better than China where a pedestrian area is one where there are so many market stalls and people that a car cannot get through. Did I mention The States. Their idea of a pedestrian area (once they have looked the word up, of course) is a grass verge with no cars parked on it that day.

The best thing about the town though was the free live music. A five man band made up of a drummer, a keyboard player, a guitarist/violinist, a flute player and some sort of bagpipes, apparently with two oboes attached sounds like a recipe for Irish diddly-sqaut type shite doesn’t it? Actually I really liked them – the keyboard player seemed to fulfil the role of the base player in most bands in helping the drummer drive things along and the flautist was very good. I wonder what the CD will sound like in the cold light of day. This is the only non-consumable item I have bought on the trip so far and will probably remain so.

One thing that is surprising is that the days don’t seem to fade into each other, you would think after three weeks in the saddle that I wouldn’t be so clear cut. I suspect it is because of writing this rubbish.

A dull grey morning up a small hill then a proper climb (where was the easy stuff that the apparently nice guy yesterday had told me about?) as the drizzle starts to get serious. It looks like it could be a while so I am determined to find a cafe. Up I go, about 150 metres, eventually reaching a village – nothing. Although it wasn’t heavy rain, it had started to run down the road by then. I could see a town in the bottom but how do I keep my brakes dry? I am sure it took me longer to go down than it had to climb, but I am an old coward. I trust that the lady outside of the cafe enjoyed the sight of my flabby white gut as I changed my shirt.

It stopped after an hour and, to be fair, the next ten km were fairly flat. At this point it seemed that my trusty road, the SS1, left the coast so I went for the coast road option. After waiting before a tunnel for the green light for about eight or ten minutes we were off. The tunnel had various signs before it but nothing actually saying no bikes. It was only 100 metres so I flew threw it at the front of the queue, of course. However, almost immediately there was a second tunnel of 500 metres. I couldn’t keep ahead of all the cars through that and four or five edged past me with horns blowing. This was very stressful and the next tunnel was 1,500 metres. Oh, and clearly marked “No cyclists”. There was no alternative route and, after a few minutes dithering, I decided to return. I guessed that the light had gone red by then and, if I got on with it, I could be out again before the traffic came the other way. I don’t know whether the light had gone red or not but half way along there is a car coming straight for me at a good speed. I don’t know whether this is normal in tunnel construction, but about every twenty-five metres there was a bike and man sized alcove on the side to jump in whilst the competition went past. I exercised that option. When I got out of that tunnel, I could see that was a no-cyclist tunnel as well, so no surprise about the hooting. The hundred metre job was a piece of cake after that.

Back to my normal road and start to climb (from all of about 3 metres above sea level) and climb. Occasionally, actually too often, there are signs saying “bends for 3km” or “falling rocks for 500 metres” or “wild animals for two km”. There is writing on the road but it is only when I spot “Basso” on the road that I realise what I am doing. Ivan Basso won the Giro d’Italia this year (he also tried the Tour de France but he was poor this year, the two races are too close together and he is no Contador) and I am on the same climb that these guys did. I also began to fairly quickly realise that the “bends for” etc. were complete bollocks. You would be half way through a “bends for 3km” stretch when suddenly there would be a sign “bends for 4 km”. I got to the top and took a photo of the country with the motorway below me as usual and got back on the bike.

Oh! I started climbing again. Got to the top and took a photo of the village I had been trying to get through via the tunnels. I looked carefully but there was no sign of a road going east along the coast from the village. If I had got through the tunnels I would have had an even more horrible climb than I had done.




I get to a bar at the top that marks the end of Genoa province so I have finally made it and stop for a beer (well two actually). It is only having a little amble round with a beer in my hand that I notice a sign saying that the pass is open. Jesus, I am still not at the top.

Actually the pass, at 615 metres, was only about 50 metres higher. In Tour de France terms this is not quite the climb to Alp –du-Huez, which I am have done a couple of times (on a bus) or the Tourmalet, where Schleck made his final attempt to destroy Contador this year, but it ain’t far off.



As you can imagine, I was in peak physical condition at this stage. Fortunately the ride down was quite kind to me through some nice fresh forests and only a couple of climbs (both less than 100 metres) before I rolled into La Spezia. This is a place I had never heard of two days before and mine host did not exactly sing its praises. But, upon inspection, it was rather pleasant but nothing special. Good dinner with a German couple (well the cheese and grappas, anyway) and I was ready for the next challenge.

Wrong. When I got up in the morning I could not face the bike for a 80 km ride to Pisa. It was a dull horrible morning and I decided to have my rest day a day early. A good decision because it rained all day.

An even better decision because I think, for the first time in my life, I am suffering from exhaustion. This is a word that is badly misused: “It was exhausting listening to Mother talking rubbish for an hour” or “The walk up Snowdon was exhausting – it took us three hours”. As a word perhaps not as badly misused as “decimate” or “like”, expressions such as “know what I mean” (No, I don’t you buffoon but I can’t be arsed to talk to a moron like you) and, my favourite “like, know what I mean” which can be heard about every ten seconds on any British High Street.

I do go for four beers in the rain in the morning but cannot be bothered to go and get any more when they run out. That is a reasonable definition of exhaustion!