Eroica 2012 - My own battle!

pipcob · 21-11-2012 09:31PM #1

A truly beautiful weekend spent in the rolling hills of Tuscany, October 5th - 8th. My very first time in Italy, but certainly not my last!

Our main motivation for going there was to participate in l'Eroica, a fantastic vintage-only bike "race" for ancient bicycles and even more ancient gentlemen (as well as some young ladies, inevitably!).

I went out with two colleagues, each aged..."39" years, who saw it as a rite of passage into the "young old" age category. Me, like a man who just shaved off a dodgy beard, I had to prove that I had nothing to prove!

Good things and bad things along the way:

Good: Finding and buying a "brand new" 1979 Motobecane 10 speed that had never been used. Exclusively in baby-poo yellow! And for that bike's first serious voyage to be this splendid event...!

Bad (but fond!): The teeth-chattering cold of a dark October morning, 6.50am, setting off from Gaiole in Chianti, about to embark on the 135 kilometres. I'd spent a week filling myself up with pasta-calories but I could feel them being sizzled away by the body's attempt to stay warm. Note to self: drink more whiskey, maybe grow some leg hairs!

Good: The first hill up! Finally we got to put a bit of pressure on our ancient bicycles and everyone started to warm up a bit. We got to the first "white road", full of holes and gravel and already lads were stopped at the side with tubes hanging out of their tyres! Only 6 kilometres in! It was going to be a long day!

Bad: 12 kilometres in, of the three of us fat Irish lads, the guy that had been the inspiration behind our voyage had to retire! His back wheel buckled to such an extent that it would no longer spin around. We got help from a few passers-by, including one very kind Anglo/Italian man (Angelo!) who was on the 38km course, who fought the wheel heroically, pressing his knee up against it, a bulb in his face turning a scandalously bright red and sweat dripping from his eyeballs, as he tried to straighten out the wheel. All to no avail :-( Liam got a lift off an official who was putting up signs, then back to the town and out of the race. He was totally heartbroken :-(

Good: Despite being made over an hour late by the mechanical catastrophe and by getting LOST (AGAIN!!! my soul is trying to tell me something here! Find yourself, you coward!) myself and Tony made it to the first pit-stop in time to get our books officially stamped, get some biblical bread and water into us, and have the joint-longest pisses in the history of willy-kind!

Bad: All the way to the next pit-stop, my mate Tony was starting to suffer quite badly. Praying for the same sort of mechanical meltdown that eliminated Liam from the race so early, his old Carlton racer held stubbornly on, and in fairness to the equally stubborn lad, so did Tony!

Good: At the middle pit-stop, situated just before the steepest climb of all, they had these massive fish tanks of Chianti wine! I drank about five glasses of the stuff - the first three were for tasting purposes, then I decided I wanted to steal some of the actual "glass" glasses so I had to go back for more! I had approx one tonne of cheese and several cakes at this stop also. Tony was talking about quitting but his eyes said..."grrrr! I'm a tiger!!"

Bad: The climb IMMEDIATELY after this, the Asciano pit-stop. Jesus Christ!!! JESUS CHRIST!!!! I'd been told about it but had laughed off the tales of Satanic Slopes! Ha! I used to climb 10 foot walls as a kid (granted without a bike on my back)...how hard can it be?! Answer: Extra-bloody-ordinarily belly-bashingly hard! It wasn't so much a climb as a wall. 95% of the guys were walking up the hills with their bikes, and the worst thing was just when you thought you were at the top, around the next bend, an even steeper hill, and even longer more gravelly ascent. I thought I could smell God's feet (although I did have a lot of cheese at the previous stop) we were so close to the sky! The very last section of the hill was so steep that not even the gravel would stay on it. It was just bare stones held together by white muck, and ridiculously slippery. My own personal challenge was to ride the entire thing, not to walk up any slope. But there, listening to the wine and the food swirling in my belly, hearing the burping, farting, squelching noises my body had never made before, I had to give up...just after the next push of the pedal...so push, push, PUSH! And from somewhere, maybe the sum of all of the years I've been riding, going back to the first days when my old mate Shane Crowley took me on crazy journeys on his brother's single speed high nelly, something spiritual came and shoved me in the back and my eyes half shut, man against the mountain, I forced my heart to what felt like 300 beats per minute and squeezed a few last puffs out of my exhausted lungs and suddenly...over the brow of that hill, I had reached the top of my own tiny world right there. Monte Sante Marie: I will never forget how I broke you, you impossibly hard hearted bitch!! Next year I will be back and you might murder me then, but never forget that I had you once!

Good: I had by now left Tony behind, as we agreed that every man had his own battle and the fight was internally personal now. The next pit-stop was shortly afterwards, so even more wine, cheese and bananas! From there it seemed it would be plain sailing down to the finish line. Amazing how 45 kilometres can seem like a walk in the park!

Bad: With about 20 kilometres left, I was on the last white hill (gravelled road). I kept passing these two guys out on their really ancient red bicycles, then stopping to take photos of the Tuscany hills, and seeing them pass me out again. It began to get dark and I had just (barely, I was wrecked!) completed the last hill, and a little bit of rain began to fall. I arrived at some castle, and the " EROICA -> " sign pointed directly at the middle of a V-junction. Very feckin' helpful. The guys on the red bicycles caught up with me again and said "Go Right!" so I said "thanks!", went left, and took a couple of photos, then off to the right and down the last white road. At the end of that, the same crap...the signs were absent, and only 12 kilometres left. ****e!

Good: I was going quickly enough to catch up with the red cyclists so I said to one "Do you speak English? Do you know the way?!" And he replied to me in what I thought was a cool efficient German accent "Yes, why don't you tag along with us!" Fantastic! The guy was wearing number "3438" (whoever you are, I thank you most sincerely sir!) and as we were bombing along the tarmac roads I asked him how old his bike was. 1957! And where are you from, you uber-efficient Kraut? "Finland!!" "Ah, Finland, I knew this lovely girl from Laaheetee", I proudly told my new nordic friend! It took the usual 5 minutes to decipher my rubbish way of pronouncing that town, but of course he knew of the place - Lahti!

Best: We got into the town where the finish tape waved in the wind, quite late, quite dark, and I said thanks and goodbye to my Finnish saviours, and me and my 1979 Motobecane, each wearing number "3788" - symbolic in itself...I was in my 37th year when doing the race, and my cycling craze started in 1988 when I first met my good friend Shane Crowley - we crossed that line together to generous applause from the onlookers and were forever recorded in the folklore of L'Eroica. And because I was wearing an "Old Style" outfit (or so they thought, in the dark, it had actually only cost me 5 euros and was brand new but stitched to look old!) I was presented with a nice bottle of Chianti Red and a sort of a cake thing with a best before date of next May but which I wager will never be opened!

Brilliant: Italy, Italians, the amazing day that was in it, and the longing self-promise to come back to do the Ultimate Eroica, 205kms of pebbled madness, and hopefully with mechanical assistance this time

in case of any breakdowns, although I am considering doing next year's event on a tandem, on my own, so that there's room on me horse for two, just in case!

All in all one of the great experiences of my life and a chance to feel young and immortal for one of those increasingly rare moments.

Worst: Not long after I finished, Liam told me that one guy had died on the route that day of a heart attack. Those hills are dangerous my friends, and they do not forgive and are not beaten easily. Peace and courage to him and to those who love him.

Phil O'Brien