After the event

Now, back home after the fun, the travel, the excitement, time to pen one more blog entry.

First of all, to cover off on the days that followed...

We came back to Firenze a little tired but happy. Keith and Julie left fairly early on Friday morning, so it was a relatively early night on Thursday. Marie and I had a nice slow day in Firenze, doing a little shopping, experiencing the "famous" Friday hailstorm and a very nice seafood dinner at Pescheria San Pietro, just across the road from S.M.N. One of the best meals of the trip.

On Saturday we caught the train to Termini then the airport. This was A LOT BETTER than the combination that we had used on the way north via Tiburtina. We didn't have adjacent seats on our tickets for the segment from Firenze to Roma but in fact there were empty seats so we could sit together. Yes at Termini we had to put up with some unwanted attention from teenagers trying to "help" us, but not having to be eternally vigilant about luggage at every stop on the regional train made it a lot easier.

At the airport I had some hassles with carrying CO2 cylinders for my tyre inflater, but once that was sorted all went well. Arriving at Dubai I was whisked through to the hotel and had a good night's sleep before an uneventful leg (exit row upstairs on the A380) from Dubai to Sydney. Arrived home tired but OK.

Next to the credits...

First of all to my good friends Keith, Julie and Marie. The trip would have been much the poorer without each of you. Keith was an enthusiastic and constant cycling companion, never complaining, happy to go or to slow or to stop. Julie helped to organise, to make everything appear sorted, to bring a positive and supporting attitude when it was needed. Marie said "oh wow" a lot and had the energy to push on and experience (and to drink grappa), helping us to see Toscana through fresh eyes. Everyone was full of good humour and we joked and teased our way across Italy.

Second to the supporting cast:

• Giovanni, for taking us under his wing on the first two days, for his incredible generosity in helping us to experience "his" Toscana, showing us Lucca, turning a wet day from a negative into a positive: an unforgettable experience. We will never forget you. Thank you.
• Davide Biordi of Hotel Magda (and our taxi driver in Emilia Romagna) for going out of his way to make our logistics work well, including enlisting family help to make sure our beach trip turned out exactly as we wanted.
• The staff (and extended family) at Casa dei Grilli in Longiano for doing that extra bit to make our visit comfortable, enjoyable and memorable. I won't forget being served la cucina d'Emilia in the garden overlooking that extraordinary view.

Third to the extraordinary events, scenery, wine, food and culture of Toscana, Emilia-Romagna and indeed Italia:

• The Chianti Classico wine festival
• The Palio in Sansepolcro. I love the intensity of passion that Italians can bring to this sort of event and the late night celebratory parade. The drums and trumpets still echo!
• Italian drivers, the best in the world and the great roads that we used. Even just thinking about how as we left Firenze, the traffic on Via Senese was happy to just sit behind us would be impossible to imagine in Australia.
• Hills, olive goves, vineyards, towns and castles on hilltops, a postcard around every corner.
• Tartufi bianco e nero! Both in one day!
• Countless lovely wines, with perhaps the best being the Chianti Classico wines we drank at San Lorenzo markets.
• Climbing for 16km without feeling shattered.

Last to the technology and information that allows us (or at least me) to plan and execute such a fabulous trip from the comfort of my home PC, and the technologies that bring our fabulous bikes through such a trip with zero problems!

A day in Greve

It started poorly with nonstop rain till mid afternoon. After that it improved and the wine festival came back to life. I bought some lovely olive oil to take home.

Then I did an exhaustive tasting of the grappe and bought some. The afternoon was enlivened by the street musicians who are a feature of the festival.

Day two a washout

Well the thunderstorms and rain did not let up. Given the route it would have been dangerous. Giovanni very generously turned up with his car and drove us all with bikes back to Florence, along the planned riding route so at least we got to see it,  through the rain and fog. The trip convinced me that it had been the right decision to not ride, with water over the road in some places, heavy rain, cloud and mist: in truth I expect that we would have abandoned even if we had set out.

So thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Giovanni we arrived safely back in Florence looking forward to tomorrow's ride. We took Giovanni to lunch as a small thank you, fairly close to the hotel.

Montecarlo

We had a very satisfying first day of riding. The train worked out well and we were meet at Viareggio Station by Giovanni. After a short tour of the waterfront we headed off for the first of three climbs of the day. It was hot rather than steep but we made it to the top to be rewarded by great views over the coast. The road up had the painted signs from the tiffosi... "Contador" etc. But they were probably a little quicker than I was.

Port at Viareggio

View of Viareggio from the top of the climb

Then it was mostly downhill with one smaller climb. Mostly lovely rural roads. Giovanni's local knowledge really helped. We met up with Julie and Marie for lunch on Lucca.

Ride data to Lucca

Giovanni took us to his late mother's vacant house to wash up then we had lunch: not really inspiring but good fuel, and then after riding one circuit on Lucca's walls it was of to Montecarlo. Once again the final climb was hot but OK. After a refreshing malty beverage or two we walked the small town taking in the great views as the colours changed from golden to blue.

Ride data to Montecarlo

We dined at the Osteria which was very good.

Day one ride photos

Montecarlo

View at Montecarlo

Lucca's walls

View from top of first climb

Viareggio harbour

There is always a small bump in the road

Last night I got one of those "I'm sorry there has been a mistake with your booking" emails from one of the hotels. They wanted to provide one of the rooms without an en suite. I protested quite strongly and all is well with my booking again :-)

Small optimisations

I've spent a little time this weekend optimising the last two days of riding. In particular I managed to take some back-tracking out of the route through Monte Leone. This has also reduced the distance and the amount of climbing by a small amount.

For the last day I have changed the route to connect up with the cycleway that runs from Novafeltria down to Rimini because it gives us a much easier run into town following the river. This has in fact made the route slightly longer but it should take about the same time.

I've also cross-posted the wiki to the Facebook pages of each of the hotels just in case they are interested and to remind them that we are coming!

Universal hotel Wi-Fi

A Facebook posting from Hotel Mario's reminded me... how good is it that every hotel we will stay at has free Wi-Fi?

☑ Fiumicino
☑ Firenze
☑ Montecarlo
☑ Greve in Chianti
☑ Arezzo
☑ Sansepolcro
☑ Novafeltria
☑ Longiano

... not to mention on the train and many other locations. This will cut down on data charges! 

My last booking done!

... well not counting a few train tickets etc. but all my accommodation is now booked.

I finally bit the bullet and booked the night at the Dubai Airport Hotel on the way home. It is about 10 hours from arrival to departure which is more than enough for a good night's sleep. The hotel is expensive, but if I went out and came back in again I'd lose two or three of those hours because of customs, immigration, dealing with my bike in both directions etc.

Accommodation sorted

All the accommodation is now sorted (assuming that Keith and Julie book their room at Fiumicino and Marie arrives in Firenze on the Sunday)! I received the last confirmation over night.

Next web task is to update the non-cyclists page with the detailed plans. We'll need to settle on the time for J&M to arrive at Altopascio from Lucca since the nice people from Montecarlo have offered to pick them up from the station.

The numbers grow!

So now we are four! Julie and Marie are now committed to the trip as non-riding, non-driving participants. So it turns out that the best option for the majority of the days is to parallel what we on the bikes are doing, but at a more leisurely schedule given that it is typically only 30 minutes to 90 minutes travel time by bicycle.

So the wiki has been updated with a program for the non cyclists and all the hotel bookings have been increased to be 1+1+2 (except for the Novafeltria night when the two ladies will go on to Longiano). The only other significant change recommended for the non cyclists is to skip Viareggio and spend more time in Lucca.

This will work well for luggage logistics also since on many days our luggage can accompany the ladies!

Four is a much nicer number to travel with than two (no offence to Keith), so I am really pleased!

Of course there is still room for one or two more...

A period of fine tuning

Three months have passed. In this time I have not had to put too much thought into the plan. There have been incremental changes to the web site (some better graphics, some more text and pictures) and some minor changes to the route. The only significant one has been the change of the first night's accommodation from Altopascio to Montecarlo. This means about 100m of extra climb but a much more scenic night's location. It also means slightly more complex arrangements for luggage transfers since the hotel is not so close to the railway station. See http://apennines.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/luggage-transfers.html for the detail.

There was also some fine tuning of the route from Arezzo to Sanespolcro. I found a straight, flat secondary road which should have less traffic and be quicker than the original route I had selected out of Arezzo.

I have also added my pre-ride logistics... how to get me and the bike from the plane to Firenze. That is all sorted now!

I have also build a spreadsheet which compares the significant climbs of the route to the "Black Mountain" and Mount Stromlo climbs here in Canberra which will make it easier to figure out how hard each one is :-)

Based on this it now appears likely that we will try to get luggage transport rather than carry stuff in panniers :-) This is yet to be entirely planned, although I have had indicative emails from taxi services in some towns with the rough prices. Once again see http://apennines.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/luggage-transfers.html for my current thinking.

Accommodation all booked

... well at least for me.

In most locations I have reserved two single rooms. I've only booked one room for Firenze because for others the dates will depend on arrival/departure arrangements. I have also booked for the night of my arrival in Italia. I've decided to stay at the coastal town of Fiumicino (where the airport is) rather than go into Rome, because with an 20:05 arrival it will probably be pretty late by the time I get to the hotel.

The next day I can get up as late as I want, then take a shuttle or taxi to Tiburtina station to board the train to Firenze.