July 22, 2015
Via Francia: Genova to Moiola.
I didn't sleep too well after such a good night's sleep on the ferry followed by a day's inactivity. The chatter below the open window in the yard that fronts the hostel, continued well after midnight, reverberating into the empty concrete shell of the dorm room in the sixties built block. I lay awake and witnessed the greying dawn followed by pale blue and crimson edged sky through the window.
I am up and have packed the panniers at half six. In the corridor outside the room door, another cyclist is packing a heavy day-pack rucksack. I saw his bike downstairs: a carbon race bike with an event number attached to the front of the handle-bars. I see him leave at seven, wheeling his bike pass the window as I sit in the cafeteria waiting for the woman who serves to arrive. A wait which I later realise is not worthwhile, as the coffee come from a machine.
Genova is quite a large city, pressed in a narrow stripe along the Italian Riviera by steep hills. The centre has tunnels connecting streets and old nineteenth century accentors that take people up to viewpoints, parks and streets high above the old port centre.
So my day begins from the hostel on the hilltop with a long spiral down through streets to join the main coastal highway west; SS1, or Via Francia, the road to France.
The city continues for ten kilometres or more. I stop at a Conad supermarket to stock up on the way, making sure I've plenty to drink as the temperature climbs to over thirty shortly after eight o'clock. Around half nine I stop for coffee and pick up the newspaper "Gazetta Della Sport" to see what's happening in the Tour de France. There's a profile on Yellow Jersey, Chris Froom in a two page Tour supplement, with his height, weight, average pedal cadence and maximum cadence.
The urban spread of the city peters out shortly after riding on. There are lots of beaches with sun parasols and sunbathers.
Savonia is the next big town, forty-six kilometres from Genova centre, where I turn right for Turin.
It is now midday and as expected with going inland, the road climbs a steady nine per cent and is totally exposed to the sun. Furthermore, in addition to the tarmac, there's heat radiating from a concrete wall on my right retaining rock-fall as much of the way is along hillside cutting.
Worse still is the lower cassette sprockets on these standard ratio, 11-32, have too much of a gap between them for long periods of climbing. Thirty-two is often too low, while the next up, twenty-eight is too high. A big jump of four teeth. With ten sprockets you'd think there shouldn't be such big gaps. Whereas on the high end, there's a one tooth gap between each sprocket, which is ridiculous as I or most people cannot pedal anything smaller than fourteen teeth; even then it's only for short periods going downhill.
Thursday
I could do with remaining put a couple of hours more of a morning; but then again, when it gets so hot, I've got to get on the road early. Between six o'clock and noon is when I do the bulk of the day's riding.
I'm up at half six, breakfast on yogurt and muesli and get on the road shortly after seven. Good not to be starting off in a city this morning like yesterday.
The road is fairly good; smooth and the traffic not too heavy. The road is number SS28. I don't know what "SS" stands for; perhaps, Strada Di Stato: and "SP" Strada Di Provencia. Anyway, the road follows a valley upstream with high mountains looming ahead.
I pass through Mondovi, half eightish, a fair size town where I could've stopped for morning coffee, but keep riding hard, having the goal to reach Cuneo for that midmorning pause, which when I get as far, is a city and regional centre. And having covered forty kilometres before ten, I've earn my cappuccino.
I stop at a popular pavement café in the corner where I enter a large central piazza enclosed by grand renaissance arch colonnades on all four sides. I choose an omelette Panini from a glass cabinet and the waitress tells me to take a seat, she'll bring it out with my coffee.
At the table I take a good look at my map: now I've come as far that I'm on the regional, Michelin Provence/ Alp Maritine. And I write my diary which I's too tired to write the evening before. Then have a second coffee.
I'm riding out of town by eleven, following signs for SS21 "Colle Della Madelenna" and "Francia"
I could do with seeing a supermarket, but see nothing as the long thoroughfare continues before a series of roundabouts, whereupon a road splits off for Limone and Colle Della Tenda.
I pass through villages, all of which have bars but no supermarket. Eventually in one there's a water fount, where I fill up on water, so my fear of thirst is relayed.
At one stage I stop and put more air in my rear tyre and not long after, the rear wheel suddenly goes down: the tyre soft and wobbly before the rim bumps along on the road, just where there is no shade, nor nothing but long grass verge to the side. I push for a hundred metres to where a big manhole cover at the roadside is a break in the grass and a platform in off the road where I can take off the wheel and put in my spare inner-tube. I lay the bike on it's side supported on the panniers and do so. I check the inside of the tyre for a nail or thorn, but there is none. Most likely the inner-tube failed. I put the spare inner-tube in and start pumping, but it is not inflating. taking shape: remaining as limp as an erectile disfunction. Seems it having sat for five months in my tool pouch and a few months before that since it was in a tyre, it has expired.
I walk into the field under the shade of a tree with the tube that when flat, pump and puncture repair kit, which has only two patches left. I start pumping. It takes shape and inflates a little before quickly going limp again. I pump again. This time I find a rush of air jetting out a sizable pinhole beside the valve. I patch the hole and inflate the tube again. There's another hiss of air: this time midway round from the valve. A big pinhole too, which I put my last patch on and inflate, but the hole is too big to hold: the air starts hissing out under the edge of the patch. I'm screwed.
In desperation I stuff grass inside the tire, having decided the only course of action is to return to Cuneo and find a bike shop or hypermarket to buy an inner-tube. This works for a kilometre or so until the beading rolls off the rim and catches on the brake calibre. I had thought of flagging down one of the many club cyclists, but who carries more than one inner-tube to get them home in the event of a puncture.
It isn't too far back to the village of Moiola, where riding slowly on the rim (touring tyres are extra fat and have a thick belt of casing and tread that make this possible for a short distance, as the tyre remains between the rim and road), a Fiat car with two fancy racing bikes on the roof is parked outside a café. The driver is just getting out, a man in his mid late fifties and his partner gets out the passenger side, a stunning woman with pink hair about a dozen years his junior. The man has noticed my predicament and flags me in, then opens the rear door and from among bike bits and pieces digs out a spare inner-tube and hands it to me. I offer him the change in my wallet, about three euros; but he waves it away.
When I've put the inner-tube in. he takes out a track pump from the same pile of things and insists on inflating the tyre for me. Once sorted the pink haired woman attempts to pick my bike up with muscular arms, but soon lets it back down laughing and saying in broken Italian English something about how heavy the bike is.
We exchange names and I feel truly indebted to these good Samaritans
I ride on toward town and spot a LeClere hypermarket on the approach where I buy an inner-tube and some other supplies for evening. Then return to Moiola, where not far before meeting the people that helped me, I had spotted a picnic rest-place, down from the road with a certain degree of cover. Here I would camp the night.
Today's ride: 190 km (118 miles)
Total: 7,206 km (4,475 miles)
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