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https://www.strava.com/activities/9020335546

https://www.strava.com/activities/9021375714

Today was the day from hell. Today's blog is full of anger, frustration, hate of technology, hate of McDonalds, love of McDonalds, hate for myself and loathing of cars. Only read on if you are of the right constitution to cope with this. There may be bad language. You have been warned!!

This is a long rant aimed primarily at myself. I wasn't going to record it but after sleeping on it I began to see some humour in it and I think putting into this blog would probably be a cathartic process.

There are no photos of the ride for a couple of reasons which will become apparent.

I felt good after a restful evening. All my clothes were clean and no longer smelly apparent from that rogue sock which hid in the bottom of my pannier. So I took my time to have a restful breakfast at a local cafe and then I headed through the last wee bit of Brescia pausing to take a couple of photos of a grand church.

The morning ride started well with lots of small roads some cyclepatyhs and little traffic. I felt I was making good progress and as I checked my bike computer, just before lunchtime, I saw I was approaching a T-junction with what looked to be a bigger road. My route was a slight right then a sharp left onto a track. I knew the route involved a few km of unsurfaced track. Typically this is the worst path as unsurfaced can mean all manner of things. In the dry it's likely to be ok but in the wet you can find yourself in a quagmire. Today was dry so I wasn't overly concerned.

I crossed the busy main road and pulled into a small layby where I should have turned onto the track. I was met with a temporary fence with some large construction related posters. In Italian of course but from the pictures I gathered the track was closed as they were laying new water mains (there was a tap on the poster).

When this happens I have a few choices.

1. Look at the map and see if there is a short diversion which I can memorise and follow that until I get back on track.

2. Create a temporary route between the blockage to another point ahead on the route using my phone and use the phone to guide me until I reach the route again on my bike computer.

3. End the ride on my bike computer and create a brand new route from the blockage to the original destination and load that onto the bike computer.

The first was not possible as the diversion involved too many turns and a small town.

The third is the most reliable but it means I end up with two Strava rides instead of one which is a minor pain.

So I opted for the second. Once I had the diversion setup and turned up the volume on my phone and slid it into the top of my handlebar bag. This has a clear cover which means I can see progress on the route. The phone also provides a female, computer generated voice giving me turn by turn directions.

The new route took me onto the road I had just crossed. So I set off only to find myself surrounded by very heavy and very fast traffic (it was a long sweeping bend with long sight lines). Concrete lorries. Lorries, buses and cars alike swept past me without really giving me space. It wasn't a wide road. The woman on the phone was giving me instruction to keep going straight.

A km along the road I passed a layby opposite the entrance to some files where a canal or irrigation channel ran. I had noticed it on the map so I stopped to see if it would link me with my original route with some cross country riding. I couldn't tell but to avoid the traffic I thought I'd try. I quickly put my phone down and sprinted across the road whether was a break in the traffic. As I left the tarmac onto the tracks adjacent to irrigation channel I hear a thump and crunch. It soundlike something fell off my bike. I looked back to see my phone lying screen side down in the gravel. I have dropped this phone loads of time but the case seems to protect it well. Not this time, the screen was cracked in several places and there was a tyre tread across it. It was dead, or so I thought! I threw it into my bar bag.

After much swearing and calling myself names I checked the path alongside of the irrigation channel but it stopped in a hundred metres or so. Back to the road I turned left trying to work out how I would get back on route. As I cycled along the Boise appeared out of my bar bag. So the screen was dead but the phone was still working and receiving GPS. There was hope yet.

"Turn left"

Was she kidding! The left turn was in the middle of this long sweeping bend with loads of heavy traffic in both directions. I stuck my left arm out looked over my shoulder and pulled out. Shit!! It was fecking hairy plus my head was still in turmoil over the loss of my phone..... Eventually there was a gap and I had chosen the right gear so I could quickly spin across the road into the relative safety of the smaller road.

I continued for a while when she spoke again taking me to a T-junction.

Now to help understand my predicament the audio turn guidance is a bit hit and miss. "Turn left or right" are usually easy to do accurately however "take a slight left" or "keep right" are somewhat subjective depending on your angle of attack any changes to the junction and how many entrances you can see. At this T-junction I was faced with right or left or straight ahead to a track. The voice said "Slight left". Hmmm!

So I tuned left and after a few moments "you have left the route....."

So I went back and took the straight ahead which immediately became two entrances.

"Keep right"

So I took the right. A few moments later"you have left the route..."

So I went back and took the left. Then

"stay right". But that was someone's gated entrance. Then the track went left and "follow this track for 500m". Result!

Then back onto the road. I thought this is going to work and I'll get back on route and in Verona I can explore options for getting a new phone.

Then the voice turned me into a small town (it had Garda in the names, that's how close I was to the big lake). I followed the voice until I arrived at a "crossroads". By crossroads I mean a small square type thing with, I swear, at least 6 roads joining it. Narrow streets and 4 story buildings meant there was a slight delay in receiving and processing the GPS signal. I tried every fecking road off that square and everyone resulted in

"you have left the route" or

"the route is 80m behind you".

The locals must have wondered what the hell I was doing. Eventually I pulled into a side street with lots of shade Nd took out my tablet which I knew had Google maps for this area. I opened it up and to memorise a route out was impossible but I could see that to get to Lake Garda, which was on route, I needed to head east and northish. I didn't want to gout slut or west. West was completely hearing direction and south could take me to the wrong side of the motorway network and a main rail line. Forcuclist they often act as barriers to progress. My bike computer has a north sign so I could use that plus I have my hillwalking compass if I needed it.

It worth noting that this town was on a hill but with narrow streets I had no view of the surrounding countryside.

So I had to go downhill keeping east and north ahead of me. And so it continued junction after junction until I could get a sense of direction by looking at things in the distance.

After a lot of painful turning and being a PITA to the cars behind me I ended up at yet another T-junction. Left was west, right was easy but had I travelled far enough north? I couldn't really tell. I got my tablet out again and loaded up Google maps again. I still couldn't tell (the sun was shining on the screen, it was not and I was still fecking fuming at myself). Then I saw it on the screen. McDonald! Woohoo. Free WiFi, cold drinks and some food. All that I needed at this point. It was a mile or so to the east so I turned right. Even better it was downhill and the breeze cooled me a little.

Eventually I came across a massive car wash behind which was the McD building. I parked up. Quickly checked that there was WiFi and then ordered some food and the largest cold fizzy drink I could.

Getting onto McD's WiFi is a pain in the arse. You have to login using a social account but their router opens a page which is not in the system browser and it doesn't offer you the option to open the system browser. So you end up having to authenticate by receipt of an SMS on your phone! A phone which has a dead screen. I went round and round in circles. It would work for a few minutes then kick me out and I had to start again and again.

I tried my Google account, my Facebook account, my Linked-In account but it was Instagram which saved the day and suddenly was connected.

The food and drink had stabilised the massive adrenalin rush which had hit me and I was beginning to calm down.

I started looking at routes to get me from McDs to Verona. I no longer cared about seeing Lake Garda, I just wanted to get to my hotel in Verona and regroup.

No matter what information I put into the routing app I was getting crap back. It was really struggling to work out how to get me to Verona. I spent an hour fiddling and messing about with it. I could route Verona to McDs but not the other way round. My frustration levels were going through the roof. At this point I was outside beside my bike trying to make it all work with tablet and bike computer but tono avail. Then I realised that my phone was still connected to the bike computer and I couldn't switch off the phone. I was close to tears at this point plus it was 25° and I was in the sun.

I had to reset the bike computer and pair it with the tablet. The McDs WiFi suddenly cut me off. I wonder how far I could have thrown that tablet at that moment??!!!!

Back onto WiFi and suddenly I had an epiphany! I quickly look in more details at Google maps. When I turned right to McDs I turned into a one-way road which not only took me to McDs but took me to the middle of the biggest motorway interchange in the area. The only way out of the interchange was by motorway and bikes are not allowed on a motorway. According to my routing software I was trapped on a tarmac desert island and I was not able to go anywhere legally. I was fucked!

Maybe Tom Hanks could do a film about being stuck in a 24hr McDs in a motorway junction!

So back to the routing app. I looked back at the one-way road until I could see when it connected to other roads and was no longer one-way and created a route from that point to Verona. Simple when you know how. Then I memorised the turns back to that point cycling the wrong way up the one-way road. I loaded it onto the bike computer and set off with my fingers firmly crossed.

I set off in the hope I could hug the road verge and avoid oncoming traffic. Surprisingly nobody beeped or flashed me and eventually I got to that all-important pint where I was back on a route which would take me to Verona. I passed Lake Garda but I barely noticed it. Head down I just ground out those 45km and tried to forget the last 3 hours of hell.

I didn't stop for photos and those I took of Brescia may not have made it to the cloud. I can't be arsed looking. They have been condemned to the hell of my memories of this day.

I know days like this would happen but I never imagined it would look like this!

I got Tomy hotel, had a shower and then took a walk. 300€ later I was in possession of a shiny new phone. Hopefully I'll still be using it when I get back to Dunbar. An expensive cock up?

I did consider what did people do before all this tech? Maps obviously but considering the roads and paths I am using a road atlas would be useless. Using Ordnance Survey maps as an example. I'd need maps of a scale which cover about 20kmx20km. Fora 4000km route that is 200 maps ignoring overlap (which would increase the number). They sell for about £6 each so that would be £2400 on maps plus that would fill more than one pannier. Or I'd have to spend time looking for map shops everywhere I went then throw them away?

Perhaps my 300€ wasn't so bad!