Giro di Trentino e Veneto

This is a little travel writing celebrating a cyclotour two summers ago. I had entered it for a competition that came up in The Guardian, but it is far too geeky! Still, I thought it's a shame it was sitting around on my computer, rather than being published in the blogosphere!

Giro di Trentino e Veneto

Fixing the pedals onto a bike you must tighten them on each side in a forwards direction. That’s what didn’t seem obvious; when screwing ‘righty loosey’ I had thought the regurgitating thread was suffering from Ryan Air baggage handling. Amidst this frustration, was a cyclist’s urge to disappear into the landscape that had laid across the aeroplane’s descent over Lake Garda; a blue, mountainous profile, far exceeding the flyover on Google Earth, from where I premeditated on the route on which I was now a pixel:

Verona to Venice, nine days of cycling and camping in the Dolomites.

Outside were gentle waves of heat mixed with crop spray. Under a leisurely pace an elderly local man invited me along his evening ride, directing me the few miles to reach my cycling companion, who was waiting at the campsite on the south west shore of the lake. The photogenic peninsula of Sirmione became our decided point of departure, from where we travelled occidentale touching on Lake Garda’s small beaches and jetties, through adventurous tunnels, gallerias, to the Lego town of Limone. By the time we got to Riva, at the head of the lake, we already gleaned an advantage over motorists who had been unable to drive off the road before views, or stop chivalrously by drinking fountains.

Yet as a cyclotourist you can only ever envy the food and the lifestyle, you can’t take it with you, not even as a souvenir. In addition camping makes this so unattainable you may as well fall back on stove cooking, and so find yourselves frugally transgressing the equivalent of specials boards: Risotto, Porcini, Gnocchi - and stocking pesto and regional honey in panniers. Our mounting supplies of speck and rocket soon embroiled us in a customary two hour lunch every day, but despite a pressing schedule, we needed it.

From the second day we were cycling in the shadow of the Giro d’Italia, over the hills North East of Trento. Stages 14 and 15 of the Giro crossed the region in May. The road graffiti still faintly visible now cheered us on: “Cin cin” (here’s to another 16% climb). We lifted our water bottles sardonically to Alpe Pampeago. This was the gateway to the Dolomites, and the wild camping by Lago di Carezza was the epitome – the scenery sculpted and transfigured before us, the valleys thickly fertile over endless descents through the forest lines below dolomite outcrops – we were diving to once deep sea beds, where titanic coral reefs had been, in glacial motion, drawn up by the alps.

In the towns, the stove cooking went too far . When we had been sighted brewing tea in the market squares of Sacile and Treviso - both historic towns with an attractive café conscience – we were likely cast as touring tramps, with ice cream round our mouths.

But for all our efforts, the hospitality served along our tour was generous: in Longarone, we were given speck and strudels for one climb up to Erto. We happened on Giovanni Pinarello, winner of the Giro’s black jersey (for coming last) in 1951, who emerged from the back of his flagship store in Treviso to shake our hands. “He’s here all the time” the sales assistant rubbed past us, his celebrity vitality appearing exasperating – but before us was a man devoted to people who’d have died coming last - how overjoyed we were! Perhaps we ought to have been looking for a new bike.