The plan had been to borrow a tandem. See if we liked it. Try a short local tour. Buy our own tandem. Build up the miles and eventually celebrate with a tandem tour in Italy. A perfectly reasonable 3 year plan.

On the other hand, we could just order a tandem.

Put down a deposit on a European tour. Borrow a friend’s tandem. Have it rebuilt. Wait for the ice to melt. Learn to ride between snow storms.

Take delivery of our new tandem. Ride the 5 Boros of New York City with 32,000 other bicyclists. And celebrate our survival with a ride across Italy 3 weeks later.

In character, Grandpa Pig, “Snort”, went with option 2.

And survived. Barely.

Sharon graciously agreed to try to learn Italian for the trip. I had no doubt 4 months was plenty of time. Sharon rolled her eyes.

The Burley Rumba – Back to the Future

We ordered our Co-Motion Carrera Tandem towards the end of January. Delivery date Mid April.

Friends had a Burley Rumba Tandem in their basement- untouched for a decade+. Dreams unfulfilled. They most graciously offered to loan it to us.

The Burley needed some work.  One makeover later, we had a new old bike:

“New shifters, old derailleurs (the compatibility chart is 3 pages long), running 8-speed shifting with only 7 gears (it’s a 7-speed rear wheel). Road brake levers with Canti brakes…  I came in ready to rebuild a tandem and see just how many things don’t work together – standard practice.

This is where it gets weird, everything worked.  Perhaps a little too well,

I was expecting to have to replace the 7-speed chain with an 8-speed, but I didn’t.  All of the cables were showing rust, so I changed all of them. The shifting and the brakes worked like a new bike right out of the box.”

Back to the Future.

Riding a Tandem – Never ever dump the Stoker

Riding a tandem is different than riding a single bike. A tandem is longer and heavier and balance isn’t the same.

Then there is the division of responsibilities, the challenge of synchronicity and the not-so-minor issue of trust.

There is an old saying about couples and tandems:

Wherever your relationship is headed, a tandem will get you there quicker!

Ed gave us the 15 minute beginners crash course in a parking lot across from the shop. Conclusion: Sharon was a natural stoker (2nd seat) – no fear, no wobble.

Yours truly, the captain, had a steeper learning curve ahead. Steering, braking, shifting and balance on stops needed work.

Ed summed my responsibilities up: Never, ever, dump the stoker!

Mid-March, we rolled the Burley a quarter mile across a snowfield to get to our first ride around a local pond.

Our Co-Motion Carrera – You must like to ride fast

Our Carrera tandem arrived right on schedule in April. A most beautiful bike. Complete with custom lettering: Advencha before Dementia and our grandparent names by the seat posts: Amona and Papo.

We had picked metallic blue. A nod to the color of the full metal jacket of the main character in the Japanese SF novel All You Need is Kill.

Carrera Specs:

• 700c wheels with rack and fender mounts

• Reynolds 631 steel tubing

• Dual disc brakes and Shimano Ultegra kit

• Tapered headtube & carbon tandem disc fork

• Rolf Prima tandem disc wheels

• Gates Carbon Drive timing belt

Gary, who put our tandem rack on our old Audi, took one look at the bike and noted:

You must like to go fast!

I didn’t understand then.

I do now.

NYC 5 Boro Bike Tour – If they get in your way, run them over

We were going to NYC to visit our son and his family- the same weekend as the 40th 5 Boro Bike Tour. 40 miles through 5 boros, NYC route streets closed to cars. I figured we could handle it.

Ed wasn’t quite so sure. The distance didn’t worry him. The other 32,000 bicyclists did. Especially the congestion at the start. His advice on how to deal with on-street aggression:

If they get in your way, run them over

Here we are in the official start photo. We were upfront because we had VIP tickets, the only ones available when I signed us up.

As it turned out, we had no problems with other riders or the official tour.

The most challenging part was the last few miles back to our hotel in the rain.

The first stretch post-tour was the 4 miles back to the Staten Island Ferry.

No problem there, with the ice-cream and party favors.

Manhattan on a tandem, mid-day, in the rain, was another matter altogether.

We used Google Maps Bicycle with turn-by-turn directions.

Which kind-of worked, except that the traffic noise drowned out the audio and I couldn’t read the screen.

And then the rain hit.

The dodgiest moments were the wet steel plates over excavations, in traffic, on curves.

Back at our hotel we walked dripping across the lobby, swung the tandem vertical, rolled into the tight elevator and breathed a sigh of relief.

One test down. Next up Italy. But first we had to pack our bike.

We had ordered our tandem with couplers so it could be taken apart, put into two standard-sized suitcases and checked as regular luggage.

The not-so-minor wrinkle was that the entire bike had to be disassembled.

And then put back together on arrival.

I figured I’d have time to master the process.

Not a chance.

With Ed’s help, the cases were filled and –  by a hair’s breath – latched.

I looked at Sharon. She looked at me. it was understood. We weren’t opening them again until Italy.

Then TSA got ahold of them. Then Air France lost one – for a while.

Italy

We flew from Boston to Florence with a transfer in Paris, where we ran a couple of miles to catch our plane. We would have missed it, but the pilot was late. We were last on- across the tarmac and up a mobile stairway.

We almost landed in Florence the first time. Pulled up 100′ from touchdown. The second try, we just flew around circling hesitantly. The third time we touched down.

The announced explanation was that winds were the problem. The whispered version had the pilot intimidated by Florence’s short runway.

In any case, he did hit those brakes hard.

When the Florence baggage carousel shut down, we were one case, or 1/2 a tandem short.

1/2 a tandem is less than nothing, and Italian bureaucracy only promised to deliver- eventually, so we camped out.

Thankfully the missing case arrived 2 hours later on the next flight from Paris.

By then the rest of the tour group had left in the fancy bus for Spoleto. We followed in the support van with our Italian guide Giovani.

Our tour would take us up through Umbria, across Tuscany, finishing in Liguria on the Italian Riviera. All by tandem.

There were ten other tandem couples on the tour including our tour leaders. An interesting group – early 50s to early 70s. All, except us, seemed tough as nails. Fast too.

We kept up just fine on the flats, but the serious climbs were something else altogether.

20% grades we walked.

In total we rode over 350 miles and climbed over 20,000 feet.

There were no grade signs posted on the toughest stretch of our most difficult day.

Probably a good thing.

Arrezo to Villa Lecchi was 57 miles with 4530 feet of climbing, most of which came in 4 miles.

There’s a reason they call them “Hill Towns.”

Umbria

We had been up almost 24 hours when we rolled into Spoleto from the Florence Airport. Mr Sun was setting. Sharon needed to lie down. In a fog, I reassembled our bike with critical help from our tour mechanic.

Note to self, do yourself a favor next time and schedule a buffer day on arrival.

Spoleto is in Umbria, the only Italian region having neither a coastline nor a border with other countries. We liked Umbria.

Umbria was the pleasant surprise of the trip. Not as refined as Tuscany. But every bit as interesting and beautiful. Far fewer tourists too, though the roads were a bit rougher.

Small price to pay.

Our first day we did a short-ish loop ride out of Spoleto.

I would guess some of the climb was over a 10% grade.

Just about killed me.

At the bottom of the descent, right before this pic, I just about dumped Sharon when I misjudged my footing.

We’ve all done it, the others kindly said. For the rest of the trip the memory lived on in my left side.

Our next stop was Assisi. Home town of St. Francis.

Sharon and I took the day off, as most of the others went off for another loop ride.

We had a great time wandering the narrow medieval streets.

Lost, we were making our way back up towards one of the towers along the perimeter wall.

Through an iron gate we caught a glimpse of a red Lamborghini parked cockeyed in amongst olive trees. A metaphor or sorts for today’s Italy.

A local tour guide took us through the Basilica. Photo to the left.

Sharon loved the guy. He knew his history.

Afterwards Sharon went up and thanked him, somewhat extensively in Italian.

He looked a bit shocked and said,

I didn’t know you spoke Italian. 

Afterwards, Sharon explained to me,

I can’t say much, but what I say I say well. Yup.

Our hotel was drop-dead gorgeous. Once a nunnery, it was slated for condos until Roman ruins were discovered underneath.

The Roman ruins have been preserved as part of a spa and the whole place done over in High Italian Modern.

On theme, the female receptionist wore an impossibly tight, short skirt and dangerously high heels. Food was fabulous.

Assisi was the favorite of the trip. Layers of history. Wonderful views. Interesting all around. Would go back in a second. Our room was behind the last two windows at the corner in the photo above. We had our own private interior stair. Great views.

Tuscany

If Umbria was our initiation, Tuscany was the tease.

We rode by many fantastic-looking towns. Anghiari above.

The epitome was San Gimignano. City of Beautiful Towers. One of the best-preserved medieval towns in Tuscany.

This is as close as we got. Perhaps we’ll get there some day.

We spent our second night in Tuscany at Villa Lecchi, a restored 19th century residence in the middle of nowhere. Site goes back at least to the 900s. Below.

The Russian Ferrari/Porsche crowd likes Villa Lecchi.

Here is Sharon checking out their wheels.

On the way in our GPS acted up. We were alone and lost.

We flagged down a local in a dust-caked, old battered car.

Zero English. No surprise there.

He and Sharon had a very Latin, animated, convivial, loud conversation in Italian.

A very entertaining travel moment, & his directions were good.

We stayed 2 nights in Lucca, with a loop-ride to Pisa. Lucca is a sophisticated historic town. Narrow winding streets with high end shopping in every direction. Great gelato.

Pisa, on the other hand, was overrun with tourists. As we approached the Piazza del Duomo, there was no room to ride. We walked our bikes. The guards wouldn’t let us even lean our bikes against the wall. After 20 minutes or so, we headed back to Lucca.

Nonetheless the Piazza del Duomo, with the Leaning Tower is a rather remarkable place.

The next day, we rode our last stretch from Lucca to the coast and up to Lerici, Liguria and the Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera.

Liguria

We rolled into Lerichi on our own, a bit worse for wear. We had blown a tire and then dropped behind on the climbs. The good news was that Sharon had mastered our Garmin GPS, so on the way in, we knew where we were and where we were going.

We could take our time.

As we were walking our bike up through a series of steep switchbacks, we passed this memorial to Vilmo Montanari. We have no idea of his story, but it seems his life ended here in 1984 age 49, most likely on a bike, and clearly some folks still care. A poignant moment.

Note to self: Take care on those tight corners.

We reached the top of the climb and headed down. We were high up with views out over Lerichi to the sea. A great way to end the tandem part of our trip.

The tandem wrap: This tour was a stretch for us beginners- a tandem intensive, if you will. After riding with a fast, experienced crowd we now know we have a lot of work to do and miles to log. Spin classes are fine and well, but no substitute for time on the road.

The rough plan is to try to ride a minimum of 1500 miles in the next 12 months, and learn climbing techniques. And then ride the Finnish Archipelago next year.

My Mother passed this year and asked that her ashes be thrown into the Baltic Sea from a particular rock in Hanko Finland. We could bring the tandem and ride to Hanko down through the Finnish Archipelago from Turku.

Suspect Mom would approve.

We still had a day to explore Cinque Terre – an Italian national park and World Heritage site comprising 5 villages and surrounding hillsides. No bicycles for us, just a relaxed ferry cruise up the coast.

Untouched by time. Odysseus would know his way around this coastline. We joked about Cyclops popping up and throwing boulders at the ferry.

The villages were impossibly picturesque and choked with tourists. Rick Steves described the Cinque Terre as “one of God’s great gifts to tourism.” An edgy comment for Rick, but perfectly put.

Florence

Our tour dropped us off at an airport hotel in Florence mid-day.

Check-in wasn’t for a few hours.

What to do with our spare time?

The obvious solution was to catch a taxi into Florence and see the sites.

But where to start?

The young woman at the tourist office had a 3 hour plan.

“Don’t go in anywhere. Just walk the city.

Here’s a map. Here is a route. Come back to Florence, when you have more time.”

Wise advice.

We circumambulated the Duomo and Baptistery, then headed to the Piazza Della Signoria to see a replica of Michelangelo’s David where it first stood.  The original is now safely stored away in a museum. Then it was over to the Biblioteca Nationale and across the River Arno with a climb to Piazzale Michelangelo and its sweeping views across the city – photo below.

Then back across the Arno via the Ponte Vecchio, a medieval stone bridge complete with shops, and then up to the Museo di Santa Maria Novella, where we caught a taxi back to the hotel.

Catching a taxi in Florence is a little different than in the USA.

No taxi stands.

They don’t stop if you wave. You have to call the office. I passed the phone to Sharon who took care of business, in Italian, of course.

Our taxi driver didn’t speak a word of English.

Sharon told me he said,

I’ve driven a taxi here for 30 years, I’ve never heard of your hotel. 

A quick google search later and he laughed, and said in Italian, Oh that hotel, they changed the name last week. 

Then he and Sharon exchanged jokes, in Italian, as we raced through the back streets, cutting across parking lots to save time.

Perhaps we will return to Florence in the not so distant future. No bike. Focus: Museums, Walking and Sightseeing.

Grandpa Pig owes Sharon this one.

Vamos a ver. We shall see.