From the back of my mind

Me and Suren, somewhere near Manali, August 2009.

This was our first such road trip. Never knew then that it will become passion for coming years.

Sagar ! August, 2010

Cycling in Italy - August 2010

The origin of this trip is at Brewerkz, Singapore. We were drunk till neck and head, Yoolim was in Korea. He asked me to come to his home for some more real alcohol. We headed home and after reaching, rested ourselves in couch. Out of no where a discussion started about distance of La Spezia from Milan. We realized that it can be cycled(remember we were drunk) and then it became a reality. 

We were little aware of the fact that we will end up in hilly terrain and not on a flat land.

Finally the picture near bracco pass at the end
of day 4 perhaps!.

We landed at Malpensa Airport, some 55 kms away from Milan. The hotel where we were supposed to assemble our bike was near.  The journey started at the Hotel and the aim was Pavia ,110 kms away in 4 hours. 

We relied on Hand-held GPS for our navigation and often we started meeting dead-ends and loops as the Maps were outdated. But the worst was waiting. Some 50 Kms away from Malpensa at a place called Abbiategrasso, we met rain, the chilling water was new to the Indian skin. We decided to stop for a coffee. The run against time started, the pouring was incessant and sun was dipping exponentially now. We decided to continue our journey in the rain Sagar was leading me, throttling. We were constantly touching 35 km/hr speed and this speed continued for more than an hour before i started feeling fatigue in my hands. 

"It was raining and raining like in hell but then also every simple drop of water that touched the lips was salty"

Remember we were carrying our luggage, almost 12kgs, in 3 bags. The rain and load from back to the hand ! Anyway it was bearable. 15 mins more and my calf muscle, the left one gave up. It was time for anti-inflammatory. 10 mins it took for the the tablet to show its affect and we were on course now. I dragged myself to Pavia finally. It was almost 9:30 pm by the time we reached hotel. The trip was almost over for me. We took hot shower and limped around for dinner. 

The morning came, I tried to warm up and to my surprise, I was fine, ready for the challenge again. The feeling was nice. Rapallo was the aim today, via Geneo and Chiavari, more than 200 kms away. We decided to cover 90 kms by train. Even the train journey was eventful, such the turn of time, we were fined 50 euros for "ignorance" :), Nevermind. All in all this was the best day. We covered lot of places, where the climbs were crazy but the Mediterranean view was compensation for that.  

 

We reached Rapallo well in time, had a nice evening food and went for sleep early.  

The Bracco pass waited between us and La Spezia now. Though the pass was reached but my left knee was out this time. From the top of the pass it was all down hill and we reached bottom. La Spezia was 25 kms from there and nearest railway station, Levanto, was 8-9 kms. I decided for myself to switch to Levanto. I still remember the pain of cycling those last few kms, it makes me smile today.

It wasn't the end anyway :).

Pulau ubin quarry, February 2011