Greetings from Taormina

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So here we are in the Hotel Monte Tauro, Taormina, Sicily - Made it. 904 miles; shorter than Streatley to Venice, longer than Land's End to John O'Groats.

Mount Etna

For reasons better known to himself, Chris' chose an hotel at the top of a small mountain, his final amusement for us at the end of over 900 miles of cycling. Whilst his choice may have been frowned upon on the way up, it was in point of fact excellent. The Hotel is dug into the side of the mountain so certain of the hotel corridors are carved from the living rock; the views over Mediterranean are spectacular and off to one side, Mount Etna smokes peacefully against the horizon.

The case of the exploding
cereal dispenser

The final day was not without certain moments of interest. At 07:00 we departed swiftly from the hotel at Tropea having covered their restaurant with corn flakes from an exploding cereal dispenser and headed south for the final leg.


We were straight into some long acute climbs and steep descents as we headed towards Spilinga. Unfortunately I could feel the dark shadow of exhaustion that had haunted me for the last couple of days once again making its presence felt but undaunted we pressed on towards the coast and the very toe of Italy.

The sea port town of San Ferdinando is one of those depressing post industrial landscapes, closed shops, idle cranes, deserted factory units and empty car parks slowly being reclaimed by nature. We found a small cafe in the town that served us good coffee and some croissants with an orange liquid inside after which we pressed on towards Palmi and just beyond, Villa San Giovanni where we'd get the ferry across to Sicily.

We cycled up the big hill into Palmi and my exhaustion returned in anger; shakes, sickness, the whole thing. The guys were brilliant as ever, helping me along but this really wasn't fair as I was just slowing them up. So don't tell anyone, but I went and got the train for the fifteen miles to Villa San Giovanni and the ferry.

The railway station at Palmi was deserted with a display showing me I'd have to wait an hour and a half for a train. As I sat on the platform contemplating yet another banana, I got to wondering why I had been hit by this sort of fatigue. We all had built similar levels of fitness so cause probably didn't lie there, I had a bad cold the week before which may have had something to do with it; of course as my immune system lowered during the week it had made a spectacular return. I ended up thinking nutrition must have had a lot to do with it. Whilst the others seemed to be able to gear their systems up from a typical 7 day calorie consumption of say 17,000 to the required 45,000 we needed for this trip, I just couldn't keep the stuff down. So the morale of this story for any one contemplating similar madness is build up the volume you are capable of eating before you start and don't like me, commit the cardinal sin of going for untried bars, nutrients and gels during the trip as your system might reject them.

My thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of an impressive looking train. It stopped, nine or ten beautifully uniformed inspectors, guards and other assorted railway luminaries alighted, assembled and started a heated debate. Although I didn't understand a word, I gathered from the pointing and shouting that there was something wrong with the engine. One of the officials in particularly fine attire, went to the far end of the train and started kicking each wheel as one might kick the tyres of a car. He returned to the group, presumably reported his findings, they all got back on board and the train left, thankfully my train arrived moments later. The journey to Villa San Giovanni was largely uneventful, I squeezed my bike in next to two heavily panniered touring bikes owned by a couple of elderly German cyclists with ruddy complexions. "You have a very small one" they announced to the carriage, "Thank you" I replied, we said no more.

Sicily ahead

Just as the train was coming into the station I received a slightly depressing call from Chris to say they were already on the ferry, I made it across about half an hour behind them and with the return of a certain amount of energy, thought I tackle the last 30 miles to our final destination. So iPod out, favourite tunes on high volume as I navigated my way out of Messina and on down the coast towards Taormina. About 10 minutes from the destination, I had another call from Chris warning me about some interesting drains in the roads that exactly fitted a front bicycle wheel. He went onto explain that Graham had found such a drain in the middle of a busy shopping street; his front wheel had inserted itself stopping the bike immediately and causing Graham to describe a graceful arc over the handlebars landing flat on his face with the bike still waving above him, firmly attached to his cycling shoes. A couple of pedestrians had helped him up and thankfully no one was hurt although both Harley and Chris were concerned that they both nearly cracked a rib..

So all that remains now is an excursion up Etna, the ceremonial dismantling and packing up of bikes and our return journey courtesy of Easy Jet. We’d like to extend a huge thank you to Luigi Giorgio and Laura Salamon, two of Harley’s colleagues Infineum’s Italian office who arranged the transfer of our bike cases from the hotel in Venice to our destination in Sicily. Their safe arrival was a great relief as only one of the four boxes actually made it from the UK to our Venice hotel on our previous trip!

Unitl next time..

So here we are at the end of the third of these trips that have in effect seen us cycle from the top of Scotland to the bottom of Italy in 21 days. Why?

Well I can't speak for the others but for me there's of course the aspect of a physical challenge and perhaps the older you get, the more important that becomes. There's something about escapism, given the nature of these adventures, it's hard to worry about any other aspect of your life however complex or challenging when your struggling to get to the top of a mountain. Being a keen observer of the human condition, it is of course always fascinating to see how you and others you believe you know well behave under stress but for the most part, I guess it's simply about friendship. In the crucible of training, riding, helping others and being helped yourself through low points, remarkable friendships are forged that I didn't think I would be fortunate enough make at this stage in life.

So will we do it again? Harley and Graham might well, Jeremy our erstwhile team mate from the last trip says he's up for it, Chris says certainly not.. although Vietnam has a certain appeal! My vote would be Norway.. 

Todays Stats

94 Miles
13 MPH average

Link to GPX file for day 7a
Link to GPX file for day 7b


Thanks Chaps, see you next time

Greetings from Tropea

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What a day!! What a morning! Mist in the bottom of the valley but warm and sunny. Cinderella got up to make us breakfast and coffee at 6am – what a star. (The ugly sisters were her parents by the way. They seemed to benefit from all the fruits of the business while she dutifully and unquestioningly did all the work. Chris and I developed this little fantasy around her shy but sultrily sexy persona!

A fantastic morning’s ride down the valley, 24 miles in just over an hour in beautiful sunshine to start with, slow deterioration thereafter as big roads, headwinds etc took over, followed by a ‘better than expected’ climb on a quiet big road that did, after all, allow bicycles (the big gamble decided on late the night before) to make it over the pass back to the coast. Yes there was nearly a ‘day three’ incident as Chris’s and my stubborn streaks engaged over an early Panini stop, but it all worked out ok in the end in spite of my lack of Rennies and inability to find an open pharmacy.

Graham gets his kit off
(women and small children flee from the beach)

The last bit of the climb and much of the descent was in dripping, cloudy and cold forest. Both ascent and descent demonstrated a fantastic piece of Italian engineering, Bikeroutetoaster showing a perfect parabola with totally even gradient throughout the ascent and descent achieved through dramatic cuttings, tunnels, bridges and flyovers, many of which incorporated the inevitable hairpins. Down such a road we swept to the sea near Fuscaldo, where, elated over breakfast, we learned that Sam, retaining his incredible determination, hadn’t hired a car as we all speculated was his best option, but was back on his bike and only 25 miles north of us at Santa Maria del Cedro! We shopped, fed and relaxed for three hours (I swam while Chris and Harley paddled, admiring my manly physique in the water and Chris got cross when he lost his socks!) until the phone told us Sam was round the corner. How good it was to see that familiar figure, shaken but not beaten, sitting on a bench with his bike beside him....

Reunited!

 I too had an excellent morning. I woke late (about 08:00) and wandered down to the cafe that had sorted me out the night before for breakfast. I felt suitably reinvigorated after a good night’s sleep and as I hadn’t had anything to eat the previous evening, I was ravenous. As I worked through a small mountain of bread and jam I considered my options and decided that I’d attempt to escape from the mountains and get down to the coast where there would be both flat roads and trains if required.

Heading out of the mountains

As I was still in the Polllino National Park, the first part of my journey was on deserted, narrow rural roads that picked their way through high mountain passes. A beautiful morning with a hint of wind coming in from the distant sea and the gentle tinkle of cow bells from the inhabitants of nearby fields. Soon enough the road became larger and started to sweep down out of the mountains towards the sea. At the little village of Santa Domenica Talao I stopped for a coffee and attempted to get in touch with the chaps once again. Still no mobile signal - so I pressed on for the coast. With about a mile to go before I hit the coast road south of Scalea I got a call from Graham letting me know they were not that far south of me so the reunion was duly planned and executed! It was great to see their smiling faces once again and after a brief lunch we set off along the coast towards Tropea and made it just after 9 o'clock.

Lots of Pasta, little conversation

This was the first an only time our navigation really let us down, as darkness fell we spent a frustrating half hour searching the wrong end of town for the hotel. Eventually we got directions for the Villa Antica Tropea, a wonderful old world hotel with lovely rooms and courtyards full of flowers. We went out to a local restaurant for a late dinner - lots of pasta, little conversation!

Stats for today
130 miles
average speed 14
calories 7320
Chris peddle turns 44,693
Link to the GPX file of today's planned route