L'aventure commence!
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| Piedmont Wine Country |
After a slow drive through the Piedmont wine region of
Northern Italy, we eventually found ourselves at the rather unattractive port
city of Savona where we had some time to kill before our night ferry crossing
to Corsica. After having a pizza in a
crummy restaurant, we went to the terminal, where Tom dropped us off with bikes
and baggage.
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| View of the Med near Savona |
The plan was for him to
take the car to a garage about 6 kms
away as there was no place to leave the car at the terminal and we had no place
to leave it in Corsica. He had prepaid a
week’s storage and would ride his bike back to us at the terminal. We had a moment of panic when Tom got to the
garage to find it locked and nobody around but it turned out our contact was
having dinner himself and soon everything was sorted out and Tom rejoined us.
A huge number of vehicles had assembled dockside, hours
before the ferry was due to arrive. We
were supposed to leave at 23:30 and since the ferry was only scheduled to
arrive at 11 pm I could not understand how all the cars on the ferry would get
driven off and the newcomers shifted inside but it turned out that everyone
knew what they were doing as the ferry, a huge ship, did in fact arrive and
depart on time. We walked into the
multi-storey garage with our bicycles where crewmen, who actually knew how to
tie things up with rope unlike us, had our bikes fastened. We went upstairs and were quickly checked
into our very comfortable cabin, which was air-conditioned and had a
shower. With only a few hours before our
arrival, it was in bed and lights out immediately.
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| The Tarmac get correctly tied down |
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| Our fabulous cabin! |
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| Disembarking in Bastia. Our ferry is to the left |
June 24, 2012
At 6:00 announcements were made so it was time to get
up. Everyone was set to disembark by the
time we landed an hour later and we walked our bikes and baggage off the ferry
and through the very modest terminal in Bastia and found ourselves on the main
square of the city where weekend flea market was taking place. We found the tourism information office where
we were to meet everyone but since it was early we looked for a café. Tom and Rudiger were delighted that I found
one that featured bacon and eggs for breakfast and I had some pastry and an
excellent coffee.
Walking back to the tourism office, we spied a
likely-looking suspect for our group.
This was David, an Australian living in London, who had joined the trip
on his own. All the other participants
had been on other Lost Boys trips over the years and David was to blend in well
with the group.
Soon after the Lost Boys began to arrive and everyone was
there by 9:00, including our guide Basile, a 22-year old French national level
mountain biker and regional level road racer.
It turned out that there were some issues with the rental bikes but
these got sorted out in a while (and hurry up and wait is a Lost Boys byword). Greg discovered a flat tire on his bike while
we were waiting and used it as an opportunity to give Bill, fairly new to the
world of road bikes, a lesson in fixing a puncture.
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| Greg Explains Bicycle Repair to Bill and Stevie Z |
Dr. Chef and David looked over the huge map
showing our route for the week, which would cover a good part of the island and,
apparently, the most challenging parts.
We found it amusing that our offered route for the day was the standard
one or “more hard.” Regular hard was
hard enough!
Leaving Bastia we immediately began the first climb of the
day with no warmup at all. The climb was
about 10 kms and took us the to the top of the Col de Teghime, where we had a
superb view of both sides of the island.
Corsica had been an important Allied base in World War 2 and was the
first part of France to be liberated by the Free French. At the top of the pass were memorials to the
fighting on the island. The inscriptions
were in French and in Corsican, which looked nothing like Italian, which it is
supposed to be related to. Also we
discovered for the first time that the col sign was damaged as local
separatists had painted over the French part of the bilingual sign and shot
bullets into it as well. We did not see
many undamaged col signs or town limit signs during our week.
It was already very hot and we continued now with a screaming
downhill to the shore far below, passing some picturesque villages and
Corsica’s main area of vineyards and then coming to the seaside resort of St-Florent,
situated on a magnificent bay. At this
point, 26 kms into the day, everyone was doing their own ride and when I came
to the roundabout just past St-Florent I looked at the direction and turned
towards what I thought was Ile-Rousse.
After riding for a while (mainly uphill) it did not seem right and I
turned back, riding 6 kms back to the roundabout and figuring out the correct
way. I was not the only one do do this
but nobody else added 12 kms to what was turning into a long, hot ride.
Immediately another climb started and soon any sign of
greenery or shade was left behind. We
were now in the Desert of Agriates, brown and dry. 300 m of climbing over the next 15 kms and I
was trying to make up lost time. After
what seemed like endless chasing I found the van by the side of the road with
everyone already enjoying our daily picnic lunch. I was able to recover as the tough climb in
the heat was followed by a nice descent bringing us back to the coast and some
scenic views. I passed some of the other
Lost Boys as they had pulled off the road; Greg had had his second flat tire of
the day.
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| Our daily pique-nique |
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| Greg doing yet More Bicycle Repair with supervision |
A long flat stretch of 15 kms was followed by another 300 m
climb and one final bump as we approached our goal for the day, the city of
Calvi. At this point I was riding with
Terry and after 120 kms and over 2000 m
of climbing in relentless heat I was starting to fade as we switched
pulls. We made our way into the city and
rode through it a good speed, returning to the coast as passed the Citadel and
came to our hotel.
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| the Citadel in Calvi |
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| Lost Boys preparing for serious eating in at the end of Day 1 |
After getting cleaned up we all met in the lobby and walked
into the Old Town where we celebrated a successful first day with a fine
meal. Although four of us had gone the
wrong way, on Day 1 I held the record for the most lost Lost Boy with my extra
12 kms. Total distance for the day for me was 128.48 kms, with 2188 m of climbing.
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| My dinner in Calvi: pasta with Brocciu cheese, a Corsican specialty aged less than a month, and a salad |
Basile promised us a great ride along the coast for the
second day and I went to bed happy albeit exhausted.
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