Everybody Rides On Sunday!

In Italy and especially in this region, the seat of cycling, everyone with a racing bike rides, typically with their club and club kits. One after another the groups go by; the young, the middle aged and the pensioners, thin, fat and in between they are all out. Forget church. Cycling is their religion on Sunday.
I left at 7 am, figuring to find my way to Marostica (where in the middle of the square, is a human sized chesboard, one of 2 in Italy, the other being in Gubbio), and them find a climb up to Conco that I had ridden before.

I found my way to Marostica, and then hoped the right hand turn I was looking for would be marked, and it was. Better yet I saw a man on a bike turning just then. I caught up to him and asked if this was the way to Conco. He said yes and asked me to join him. His team was ahead of him. I said I went quite slowly in the mountains, and he said that was fine, as so did he. He said together we would go slowly. He asked where I lived and I told him and he said, ah, a friend of George Bush!, I said no, but as we caught up to his teamates he introduced me as a friendly Texan and friend og George Bush. It was all in good fun and there were perhaps 10 guys, all over 60, from Cittadella, a village south of Bassano. The climb to Conco took about an hour and a half, and eventually the group split and I rode in the first group with their three "fastest" riders. When we reached Conco and waited for the others I took their pictures and told them I was going to a bar I knew for my cappucino. They asked me to come with them another 6 miles up to another mountain top, where they were all going to drink wine. They said it makes you fly down the mountain! I said it would make me fall off the mountain! So we parted ways with hearty handshakes and great memories and I went to my favourite bar for my much anticipated caffe.

As I sipped my cappucino I realised how much more richer this trip's experiences have been because I have spent all my time with Italians and no Americans, as I have in the past. I made the right decision not to come with George's group as I have the past three years.

A Presto