La Bomba!

 

Day 6 was surprisingly the most difficult day of the trip.  This time instead of waking up to either cloudy conditions, or the tease of sun that runs out of steam before lunch, I was greeted with a grey sky full of incessant rain.  So far, I haven’t had a day riding without some amount of rain, but it has been on and off, manageable or just a bit annoying.  Today however, it’s not just rain, it’s darn cold also.  Normally, a little rain or cool conditions don’t bother me, but today, after well over 500km under my belt, the prospect of spending hours in the cold rain is messing with my mind.  I’m having trouble putting on the happy face.

 

We start out in customary fashion – both trying to find our way out of town and proceeding to get lost well before the first 10 km are complete.  This time however, we do a better job at this “keystone cop” ritual, and we both take completely different routes towards our next major town.  After stopping twice to try and call Marzia to see if we can figure out who is where, and getting colder each time, I tucked the phone away and started my first major climb.  This climb took me about 20 minutes to complete – it was a typical climb in Italy – about 5% - 7% grade, for more distance than you would like.  In reality however, it is my favorite way to climb, because this steepness is less than the average PA climb (which in my neck of the woods ranges from 8% to 12% ), and so you can decide to climb it in a variety of ways – slowly grinding it out, attacking with sustainable pace, standing, sitting – almost any technique is possible, including using the big ring on and off if you feel strong enough.  For now, the conditions, my mindset, and the cumulated “fatigue” lock me into a simple slow grind.  After completing the climb, I try Marzia again, but can’t reach her, so I text her that I see signs for one of the big cities (Montefiescone ) on our itinerary for the day, and I’m headed there.

 

For the next 30km, it seems that I do 5 climbs for every strait stretch of road, and only on occasion to I get a token short decent.  In retrospect, I think it was pretty close to PA type “rolling hills”, but again, I was sort of in a mental funk.  In fact, the rain was so persistent – going from steady and strong, to pounding and punishing, I took precious few photos at all.  This will easily be my lowest photo day.  At last I reached Montefiescone, hoping to see Marzia and get perhaps a small token encouragement, but our routes were so different now, it was not to be.  Not wanting to stay too long and get cold, I hit the restroom in the local café and tried to call her again. 

 

We only managed a partial conversation, and had to rely on text messaging once again to agree on the next rondevieu point.  She did however, manage to get out that there was a BOMB discovered in Viterbo (one of the cities I was very interested to see) left over from WWII, and that today was the planned day to disarm it.  Consequently, the entire city was evacuated and so my visit to Viterbo had to be converted to a detour to the next or an alternate town.  What’s that saying… when it rains it pours? 

 

Anyway, the next 30km can only be described as “all business”.   The climbing would continue relentlessly, and I could not get comfortable – the climbing would make me warm, but the flats and wind and rain would keep me cool to cold, such that I could no longer feel my fingers (making shifting quite difficult).  By day 6 I’m getting a bit saddle sore, and the detour road is the worst road I have ever seen in Italy.  It looks like the well worn face of many of the seemingly 100 year old italian men I’ve seen here, wrinkles upon wrinkles, with each fissure in the road confirming to me that today is not my favorite day.  Then, as if to remind me of a truth we all so easily forget when things seem to get their darkest, my music stops working completely.  It’s not just a dead battery, but something has rendered it non-functional (gee, I wonder if it could be the virtual deluge?!?).  That “truth” I’m referring to is that not matter how bad things are… it can always get worse.  Are you starting to get the feeling of my mindset now?

 

While on one particularly long climb, still headed for the detour city of Banaia, I’m confronted with a serious debate in my mind.  With these conditions, the fact that I can hardly see anything anyway, and have almost no photos on the day, why not just “bag it” for today and ride to the next destination town in the car.  Immediately a huge mental debate resembling a dodge ball match ensued in my mind.  On the one team were all my friends and family that don’t ride (many of my distribution list) but who would support a “day off” or could not possibly understand riding in such rediculous conditions anyway.  On the other team were my riding buddies – especially those I’ve raced with or whom I know do racing.  I could easily here their cheers of “you can do it!”, “go Gene go!”, “you got it!”, “you’re almost there!”, and so the game of dogdeball roared on in my head for the next 20km or so, until the riders systematically picked off each of my other supporters, and I was left with just my riding buddies all standing around, arms folded, telling me to just “get on with it”… and so I did.

 

The one shiny spot in this dark day was a really nice restaurant in the center of Banaia, where I had the best ravioli of my trip.  I was ready for a “Ciclismo Classico” type meal break where I take my time and have a full lunch complete with wine, bread and the time to enjoy it.  To add a little “levity” to our clamity, the restaurant had a special insert in their menu for the day called “La Bomba Pranzo”.  Since the disarming of the bomb in nearby Viterbo was a planned event, the local communities must have been pretty excited about something so “exciting” happening nearby.  In fact, Marzia told me that it took her a while to know what was going on, since people in the small towns, the closer she got to Viterbo kept shouting at her “not to go to Viterbo… the Bomb! The Bomb!”.  She had no idea what they were saying until she was actually stopped by a road block by the police to take an alternate route.  Getting back to the restaurant though, the owner let us take an insert which I will scan and post to this story when I get back to Pittsburgh.

 

After lunch concluded, I still had about 50km to go.  I changed most of my wet clothes (now I have only one sleeveless riding jersey for tomorrow’s last day – I hope it’s warm enough to use it) and try to start out with a new attitude.  The lunch, the levity, and the landscape helped me return to my normal “excited to be here in Italy” self, but my fatigue was indeed real, and the first 5 km out of the restaurant was a steady climb of steeper grade and snakey switchbacks.  I was quickly reminded that this day is long from over.  I continued to fight with being too warm and too cold, and the rain continued to come and go – at least now though, there were periods where it would GO! 

 

To end this story before I bore myself, we finally arrived in Bracciano, the the sun beginning to finally show its face, and another 100+ km under my belt, I was SO glad this day was over.  Now, tomorrow, will be a very short (less than 50km) “victory ride” into Rome, I’m almost there!