"Everybody is normal until you get to know them"
In which Sid and Doris visit earthquake hit Aquila and enjoy an early end to the day in Renaissance Chieti. The breakfast room at the Hotel de la Poste is full of cyclists about to set off on 100 k days and big climbs. And us. We will do 73 k and 663 metres of climb, a breeze. Appropriate Breakfast…
Read moreHot air hand dryers – More reasons not to compete in the Tour de France – Vending machines – Stones on the roof – Major Bumsore – The Milestone Question – Prevailing winds, truly. 1. Hot air hand dryers I used to LOOOOVE hot air hand dryers when I had a motorbike. I remember sitting under one in a motorway…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris drop a lot of height, enjoy a long honest climb to a Hotel de la Poste in earth quake land. The Appenines crossing goes on.Getting across the Appenines will take a few days of determined cycling. This is not the holiday riding we are promising ourselves. Soon, though. Breakfast was comically unsuited to cyclists. The…
Read moreLook there is Autofity BAT! In CAPITALS because this is a famouf place, it was advertised on posters for milef or indeed kilometref around.And there are many hysterically funny names for tyre shops across Europe [many of which Doris has criminally failed to record on camera, apologies for that].In Hungary they were Gumi Service. Then in later countries, Vulancizers, Elasticons…
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A place to park the occasional gem… “It’s a good job these shoes aren’t white any more or they wouldn’t match my trousers.” (In Amsterdam) “I wonder whether you get a lot of Dutch people going to Venice.” “I knew it (the route) was going to be bad when I rode past a construction site with all the bike path…
Read more“S” writes: Hey! It’s Tour de France time! I’m soooo excited!! I get to sit on the sofa with the remote control for the television, it is a Very Responsible Job and I take it very seriously. [It’s ok, we’re watching it on ITV4 catch-up on the PC – D.] I am “G”s biggest fan, well not biggest of course…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris use old railways to make progress up the Adriatic coast, passing fishing platforms and old battle sites before climbing to a faded grand hotel.It is Saturday morning and very quickly we are passed by a Wiry Old Gent on a thin bike. This is good news, all day the traffic is sharing with cyclists. We…
Read moreThe SS16 runs along the whole of the top/east/back-of-calf coast of Italy, and we’ve actually cycled up about half of it, now I look at the map. We started at Bari and left just before Pescara. And here are some things that flitted through my Doris-ian mind as I pedalled along it. We started in the “deep south” of Italy. …
Read moreAs we progressed south through Serbia and Bulgaria, we started to see a fashion for pre-booking grave spaces. The his ‘n’ her graves have been a bit thought-provoking, but in Apricena we find a huge newly-built mausoleum where you can reserve as many slots, for as many generations, as you want. Having seen a couple with their fronts off, I…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris whoosh away from the hotel, elect for country roads, visit a necropolis and see the quarry where the marble comes from. Today’s mission was 102km and only 427m of climb. For the first ten minutes we climbed to the top of the village, then turned left and dropped all the height we had gained to…
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