Day 10 Talgate to Lecco - Ride total 710 k, 4,901 m

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 it was now just a bit on the short side. However as I was passing through an earlier town I spied a good looking bike shop so popped in there. It turned out the Store owners grandfather won the Giro Italia back in 1932 and he had memorabilia of his Grandfather's achievments in the store.It was nice to meet him and I also chatted with a couple from Norway and their friend from California who had come here for a week's riding.

Again the navigation was pretty intenseaand half way through I heard from the boys in the advance party that the ferry is not orperating today so they had to backtrack a little bot to re-route their way into Elecco. I did the same and this avoided the extra k or two they had to ride.

As the river was running higher than normal, Stephen found out later that was the reason for no ferry service. The storm as well as some surface flooding brought down a tree right across the track which meant I had to lift the bike over it. Shortly after the tree I came across a stretch of track covered in flood water and rode right on through it all the while thinking this is not doing my new chain any good at all.

Those who know me, know I love my fresh fruit so I got excited when I saw a fellow selling cherries from his truck on the opposite side of the road. I stopped, parked the bike and got myself to the other side of the road and in my best Itaian started a conversation leading on to the purchase of 500 gms of cherries - the vendor handed my 4 to try and yes they were fresh and tasted just great. Unfortunately he was only selling them in 5 kg boxes and that's simply 4 kg's more than I was prepared to carry! So I had to turn my back and leave some fresh cherries there for the next customer.

As per normal it seems, the last couple of km's to our Apartment for the night was up a small hill - I don't know why that is as I'm sure we never strike down the bottom of the hills!











 

 


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