July 6, 2012
Back into Italian Italy: Terrano - Martarello
YOU HAVE a German bike, Benjamin said. He laughed, as he did so often. For a lad whose ride has come to an end because his pal was taken to hospital with a locked back, he was surprisingly cheerful. Especially as he had no idea how to get back to Berlin.
Benjamin was 22, blue-eyed, fresh faced, with a stubble of beard he will one day laugh at.
"You have a Rohloff hub," he said. "That is German."
I said that, yes, it was and that I was pleased with it.
"And your carrier?" He stooped to examine it. "Yes, Tubus... that's also German. And your mudguards, too, I see. They're also German."
I slapped him on the back.
"How would I get through this ride without you?", I laughed.
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It rained last night and there was thunder at dawn. Mike textedthe few kilometres down the road to say that he was ready to leave at 7:30, having been awake for more than hour, except that he had his tent to pack. We rode to our rendezvous and sat in the rain to wait. When he was 10 minutes late in five kilometres, we assumed he had had trouble and we began riding back the way we had ridden the previous evening. We were almost back in the village with the campground when we saw him approaching.
"I was lary about riding in the lightning," he said.
The bike road continued today and we crossed with or we were passed by lots of other touring cyclists. Most were lightly loaded, free of camping gear, but we did pass a family from the Czech Republic whose story I'd give you had we shared a common language.
It was just before Trento that we said goodbye, reluctantly, to Mike. He is one of the most interesting men in the world of cycling but, while we were holding down our speed and freewheeling frequently so we could stay together, he was riding faster than he'd toured before.
By the outskirts of Trento he was bushed. "I'm exhausted but at least we're almost there," he gasped when he caught up with us on a road into the wind, without shelter and rising gently on a slow road surface.
And, yes, Trento - where the language changed back to Italian - was on our list of stopping places. But that had been on the assumption of riding through the hills. We knew nothing of the Adige path. So we got to Trento at only half past two and without a campground to hand. There isn't one in the town. Mike found somewhere on his GPS to suit him and we rode on for another couple of hours before camping in what amounted to a couple's back garden. It was registered as a site but had none of the appearances.
It was a shame to part with Mike but I think we all recognised we'd each be better going at a more comfortable pace. We wish him well.
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