“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”
Albert Einstein
I must begin by saying that, in this cycling venture, we have become quite comfortable in bringing up the rear in our group. After Day 2, when I felt pushed and angry and insufficient because I was struggling with the hills (only to find later that many other people had struggled too, and walked their bikes at least part way), I decided to honor the training we had done rather than feel I was somehow "less than" those that were superior cyclists and seemed to be handling all this with aplomb. I decided that this is my vacation, and even if others wanted to see us move faster or take the longer, harder, routes, that wasn't going to happen if I was uncomfortable with it. I decided that I would stop and look around and take pictures and rest when my face turned purple, and listen to the birds and the trees, and understand my limitations while appreciating the beauty around us. This was not supposed to be a competition, and although I am by nature competitive (with myself, if not others), I became content to be at the back of the pack every time.
We have some very experienced cyclists, and some twenty-somethings, and some competitive spirits, and that's great for them. That's not me. I'm determined to soak in this beautiful countryside while pushing myself to a reasonable limit.
With that background, I'll tell you that we (Mimi, Jeanne, and I) started out this day an hour and a half later than the others, because we chose to take the shorter route, and cut out the long, uphill loop that everyone else was riding this morning. Paolo told us to leave at 11, since it was a short 10 km ride to our lunch spot, and everyone would be arriving from the longer ride around 11:30 or 11:45. My first reaction was, "Have you seen us ride?" We are not averaging 20 km/hr. on these hilly roads. We decided to leave earlier than 11 (thank God), so we would have time to get to the town for lunch with the others.
We took off (everyone else, including the guides, was long gone), following the often-confusing written directions on our own. The directions go something like this "Ride 2.1 km, until you come to the inverted Y with the panel on the left, and the yellow house on the right." First of all, it's a little difficult to gauge 2.1 km. Second of all, what's a panel? Third, every house in Tuscany is some shade of yellow. Anyway, off we went, and within 15 minutes we found ourselves threading our way through a construction site and forcing a backhoe to drop its load to let us through. We decided we might, just might, be lost. Mimi became a seasoned CSI investigator, trying to determine whether other bikes had recently traversed this gravel, messy road. We retraced our steps (we thought) and found no familiar landmarks. We rode around (in good humor, and having quite a good time I might add) until we found an older man on his bicycle. "Parle Inglese?" "Non." We showed him our directions, and he began explaining to Mimi (in Italian) which way to go. She was having no luck, but I discerned "No primo. No secondo. Si terzo." Okay. Take the third street to the roundabout. Got it! Grazie!
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| Mimi & Jeanne on the beautiful road to nowhere |
We rode back 3 streets, turned right, and headed toward the nonexistent roundabout. Uh, oh. After meandering through the streets for awhile longer (very interesting town!), we ran into the same gentleman! We showed him our directions again, again he tried to explain where to go. He gestured, "Wait here a minute," and rode down the street (to his house?) where he went in and rode back with a map. When we still didn't get it, he finally said, "seguimi," pointing to himself. Non capisco. Then he said, "Apres moi." Finally, a language I could understand. "Follow me." And off he pedaled. He took us back to the right road (and wanted to take us back to our hotel, insisting we should be going to the beach), and we were back on track.
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| A kind stranger who tried to give us directions in Italian, and finally hopped on his bike and led us back to the right route! |
So, our "quick 10 km ride" became a 17.5 km adventure! We got to lunch after everyone else, but acted quite nonchalant about it all. Unless some of our touring friends are reading this, no one is the wiser! The best part of the morning is that the 3 of us had a fun, relaxing, enjoyable time, and we met people and saw sights we would have missed had we been on the fast track.
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| Mimi's idea regarding where the directions belonged! |
After our adventure, we ate lunch at an olive farm and olive oil mill, and learned about the process from the owner before tasting oils and eating another fantastic meal. On the ride back to the hotel, we went to a bike shop in a small town and bought authentic, Italian cycling jerseys. Very fun.
Back to the hotel for a relaxing couple of hours on the beach, and then dinner on our own in the little resort town. A really fun and rewarding day.
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| See the sign in the ditch? Is it any wonder we got a little lost???? |
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