Rome to London 2024

Passo Stelvio (Stelvio Pass) was our ride and challenge for today. It is a high mountain pass that is three times the height of the Lewis Pass and nine times higher than the Summit Road at the Sign of the Kiwi. We didn't have the full 2,760 metres to climb, only 1,500. We guessed it would be busy as it is Saturday so we got underway at 6:30 this morning. It was relatively quiet for the first 12 minutes then it all began. I'm picking over a thousand motorcyclists past us going up and progressively more racing bikers. The cutest car club to pass was the Audit, then a bit later on the Ferrari and also the Fiat Abarth convoy. In between all those were of course all the other motorists who like us were wanting to tick the "Stelvio" of their bucket list. At times the noise from all these wanna be race riders and drivers working their gearboxes was overwhelming, but hey, that's the price I must pay. At one point when the Ferrari's were heading back down (bear in mind...

Today in Bormio was a rest/touristy day where we are a spending a second night. This allows us to give the bikes a good clean and service and after the rain and unsealed tracks we had been riding they were in need of. We then went for a short ride around Bormio to check out the bike shops (some even have bike washing and service stations as well as cafés and hang out areas for cyclists simply to chill and talk bikes... I took the opportunity to get some adhesive to stick my catch back onto my handlebar box, not perfect however better than what was there I feel. We had lunch at the ski field chairlift terminal which is right in town with accommodations all around it so if you're a skier you simply ski from your chalet to the chairlift. The day of riding also gives us some time to look at our upcoming route in more detail and check to see if it is feasible.  Here in Bormio the architecture has certainly changed and is now taking on the Swiss Alpine look that I expect will increase in...

We are now in the mountains of Italy and in less than a day we have gone from the reasonably flat valley floor at about 200 metres above sea level (m.a.s.l) to what is now an elevation of 1,250 m.a.s.l here at Bormio -  to put that in perspective the Lewis Pass is 907 m.a.s.l. and Tekapo is around 700 m.a.s.l. The surprising thing is that at this elevation and higher there are many thriving communities. They were one of the two stand out features on our ride today - villages dotted all the way up the sides of the Mountains - each appeared to have its ownn church yet directly adjacent to the village is the forest. What was the reason for the village being there in the first place and what do the residents who live there currently do (as in work or the like). There is not only one isolated village there are numerous villages and they are very hard to photograph as they get lost in the distance. The other feature we noticed were al the small hydro schemes that appear to take water fro...

We got away from the apartment at about 7:00 and made our way down to the Lake Como waterfront on the assumption that there would be a Cafe down there. We were right in that we found a delightful Patiseri (bakery) that did tea and coffee as well, it was a jam filled croissant followed by a cream and strawberry filled one for my breakfast. We then headed down to where we thought the Lake Ferries might leave as we thought it will be fun to take a ferry to get up the Lake.  While both Stephen and Peter are high level management accountants it is Stephen who appreciates the detail and as he has been researching these Ferries over the last few days online our protocol in this situation is let that person continue. So while Peter and I relaxed and took tourist photos of the lake Stephen was busy making sense of the ferry timetable which of course was entirely in Italiain! Yes, he assured us there was a ferry up the lake leaving at 10:10. Great I said, that leaves us time to visit Decathl...

I remained at the Hotel this morning while the boys made a start as I had a Zoom meeting to attend at 9:00 a.m. (or 7:00 p.m. for those Board members in NZ. That went on for an hour which meant it was 10:30 by the time I got away. The rain from the last couple of days is hanging around and I popped the raincoat on more times than offf. The problem with the rain is it turns and shingle tracks into mud and provides more opportunity to get something wrong in wet and slipperycodtions. Nothing untoward happened although as the picture shows I had a tree to lift the bike over and probably 100 metres of floodwater to ride through that was over the tops of mys shoes - they were wet already so it was not a problem. As it was just me on this segment of ride I didn't bother with a lunch stop and rode on through, stopping at one point for a gelato. I had our route going past the Decathlon Store (a huge sports store) in Leceo as I felt it would be good to replace my chain bearing in mind that i...

Our ride started with a short diversion down to Lake Garde waterfront to see the Boats before we then headed up a hill behind the town and on our way for the day. Again the ride was through a similar mix of farmland/orchards/vineyards as per previous although today we did have a little bit of undulating hill country to ride through. We encountered more industry around some of the towns athough that sector too, like the residential appears to be in decline with not only mid 20th century factories sitting vacant but so too some factories that may only be 20 - 30 years old and even one new build that clearly had been stopped well vefore completion and now sitting half finished with a for sale sign on the fence. Just before lunchtime we came across another bike packer going our way and after our mutual exchange of Bon Journo - in our best Italian and then our best attempt at asking where are you going again in our best Italian - someone said "do you speak English" and of course w...