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Tough stage, with mechanical problems, and rain!
I am at 1876 meters and I have almost completed the Moncenisio!
As soon as I left the ‘Albergo delle Miniere’, I immediately understood that the bicycle was not going to last long, the gear was changing automatically, the behind crowns, the so called freewheel are finished, the teeth of the crowns are by now too short for the worn out chain shortened in Egypt … the (non) job of Decathlon was the scantest of the all journey … ages behind from the passionate David Kinja … but an abyss far also from the mechanics of Egypt … so I went
ahead hoping to find a mechanic … close to Cigliano I met a couple of old men by bicycle who first led me to a cyclist still closed for holiday, then indicated me a road to reach another one in Livorno Ferraris … at the end of the town, in the last house of the town … there is Mister Decadenti … who since 1969 sells bicycles at the markets and on the road! … we change quite fast the freewheel and chain … he regulates the gear … and I am ready to start off … it is nice to feel the grip of the chain … my (little) power which is not dispersed …
I do not think I arrived in Turin through the shortest way, but I cannot moan about the landscape, these small towns of Piemonte, have something which makes them resemble my ideal town, canals, beautiful colored houses, beautiful squares, fascinating historical
centers, porches in the bigger towns … in Turin I find since the beginning the directions for Susa, easy I think, wrong I say later because at the decisive turn I bump into the post of ‘no entry for bicycles’ … I ask and I am directed to via Pianezza which takes me to Susa by five in the afternoon … I did not think not even for a second to stop there … the late departure of yesterday and the cyclist of today delayed my cycling schedule this is a very long uphill … demanding considered my overall weight … at the beginning it is hot I jet sweat continuously … I miss my cap which I kept under the helmet until Cairo where it flew away while pissed off I was looking for a hotel with a place for the bicycle … from afar I see lighting and black clouds … close I see many writings ‘NO TAV’ … I do not know well the reasons of the ‘NO TAV’ … but getting annoyed with a train which will favor the moving of people in Europe … I do not like it A PRIORI … with all the things putting the environment in danger this one seems to me a forced one … moreover we are not speaking about a virgin valley there is already a railway and a highway … as I was suffering on the pedals thinking about this and thousands other things … the rain has come first as a light refreshing blessing … then it became a universal downpour … as I was looking for the rain mantle which I too optimistically had put at the bottom of the right pannier, with in my hands everything which was on top of it … two pretty French girls stopped to ask me if I wanted to put the bike on their car and go with them … I said no thank you I want to pedal until London … then their car was not starting anymore … so on the uphill under the downpour we also had to push … somebody indicated the Gran Scala within 5 kilometers … but they were a few more, like in Africa … at the end I was climbing with a scary enthusiasm and a decent speed too … Ethiopia has worked …
The Chinese have accompanied me since the beginning of this journey, up to now, there has been not country where I did not meet many from Zambia to Italy, I am curious to see how the situation in France and Britain is …
At the hotel restaurant there is very heterogeneous people, German motor bikers delight in speaking in Italian, a group of grandchildren who took the grandparents out for dinner and were trying to teach them how to send and read texts, a group of lesbians eating a bread stick until kissing one another, and a French biker who when the waitress said I had come by bicycle from Zambia … said ‘ah yes I saw you on television and wanted to take a picture of me …’ … I could not stop myself from laughing …
San Germano Vercellese N 45° 34.992’ E 8° 24.708’ – The Grande Scala along the uphill at the Moncenisio mountain border post N 45° 21.863’ E 6° 95.722’ 157 km