Crashing waves, crashing bikes

Unsurprisingly, Milan has a lot of really great shops. There’s something for everyone. From high end designer stores selling €20,000 high heels through to sports shops selling €5 flip flops. This was the silver lining when, in the centre of Milan, my trusty 8 year old croc flip flops broke. After a minor panic, I secured them to my feet with a hair tie and hobbled around the city, in and out of sports shops to find some replacement sliders. Thanks to my oddly wide feet, this isn’t a super easy task for me. Turns out most sliders and flip flops don’t come in a wide fit. After trying many different brands, Adidas sliders turned out to fit and so I was able to walk normally again. Something was bound to break at some point in the trip so, in the grand scheme of things, this really wasn’t too bad. Aside from this small debacle, we had a pretty good time in Milan. The city was busy and there was a lot to do to fill our two night stay there. Apart from the cathedral and a few other famous sights, the city gave me that same out-of-place feeling I get when I wander the streets in London surrounded by tall, imposing buildings sandwiched between wandering tourists and rushing locals. We were lucky to stay near the centre of the city with an Architect who had converted his flat into one big open space and then built walkways and hanging platforms above the living space of the high-ceiling flat. The room was unlike any flat I’d ever seen before. The craftsmanship and creativity that had been poured into the whole flat were outstanding. Though I enjoyed spending a day wandering round Milan and eating some out-of-this-world Sicilian pastries, the flat was really the highlight of the stay for me. Perhaps I missed the magic of the city that some people talk of or maybe I was just completely enchanted by the flat itself. Or, most likely, both. I’m still not sure. 

From Milan, we began our journey towards the coast through Pavia, Piacenza and Parma. This portion of the route followed the famous ‘via Francigena’ which is a pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome, popular with walkers and cyclists. You’d think this would mean it was all plain sailing but as we left Pavia we were cycling along, innocently enjoying the views around us and as we headed off a road and onto a dirt track, we took a downhill corner slightly too fast. The thing you have to remember about riding a tandem is that it’s heavy. Being heavy and long means that if you slip ever so slightly with one wheel, it is very difficult to stay upright. This is all in hindsight, of course. In reality it all happened very quickly. I don’t even remember realising we were falling until we were on the ground, under the bike, asking each other if we were ok. I’ve never had a bike accident before, so I guess I can at least say this trip is definitely full of new experiences. Luckily we were both fine. Nothing more than scrapes, bruises and being a little bit shaken. We cleaned ourselves up, did some calming deep breathing and headed off again heading back down the dirt track, more cautiously this time.

It’s funny that the things you worry about are almost never the things that end up going wrong. I was never worried about my flip flops breaking. I was never worried about falling off the bike, even on alpine descents. I was, however, worried about taking our bike on a train. We had decided to get a regional train from Parma to avoid a particularly difficult and uninteresting cycle. It’s tricky to get a normal bike on some trains, let alone a tandem in a country where you don’t speak the language. I had spent time reading about the bike storage on different Italian trains but hadn’t found anything online. We decided to wait and head to Parma station and hope for the best. We were both, naturally, nervous about getting the bike on the train (most trains have a ‘no tandems’ policy). But as we talked to the ticket office staff and showed her a picture of the bike she said it would be no problem. We headed to the bike space on the train and had no problem at all fitting the tandem in the roomy specified space. Victory!

Riding on the high of the successful train journey, we started the next day with a renewed energy (which it would turn out we really needed). It all started off well and we followed our planned route for about 50km. Then our GPS beeped, telling us to turn up a very very steep path. It didn’t look too long so we put faith in our muscles and decided to push the bike up. It was way too steep to cycle. It was really hard work and we had to stop regularly to let our heart rate drop and bring our muscles back out of their burning state. It seemed to get steeper the further we went and as we turned more and more corners we weren’t sure it would ever end. On one of the final corners we turned, my heart sunk. It was a narrow, almost vertical, rocky path. Jack walked up to have a look and we concluded there was no way we could make it up. There was, however, a smooth flat path to our left which had a gate and was marked ‘private access’. I think we did what any rational person would do. We lifted the bike over both gates of the private access path and took the shortcut which, much to our relief, took us back to a beautiful tarmac road. A few minutes later, the route once again took us down a very steep rocky path which we decided was walkable with the bike but not safe to cycle. As we went, the track seemed to get narrower and the ground below us seemed to crumble. We stopped after about 10 minutes and I walked down the hill to see if we could make it back to the road on the other side. Not a chance. The ‘track’ was completely overgrown and it was hard work walking down, let alone with a tandem. This time there was only one option: hike the bike back up the steep loose rocky hill that we had dragged it down so carefully. I genuinely had a bit of a cry at this realisation. We were low on water, low on energy and felt pretty stupid for not checking the rest of the route more carefully after the lucky escape we’d had 30 minutes before. We hiked our panniers up first and then the bike. At the top of the hill we vowed to not leave the tarmac for the rest of the day and, in a weird state of complete exhaustion combined with pride of making through a tough day we finished the rest of the ride to   reach the coast. After a long emotional hug, we set up our tent we headed out for dinner. The beautiful views over the sea combined with a godly crab linguine seemed to reinvigorate me out of the emotional and physical exhaustion of the day’s cycle. I promised myself that I would thoroughly check the routes for the next days’ cycling. 

Speak soon,

Jack and Baz