Bella Italia Stage 14

Rieti to Calascio

Strava: 107.3 km, 2,914m, 7:48 (13:02 elapsed time), 407 shifts

Well it seems today was a new ‘best day of the tour’! I am still glowing. You never really can tell what this crazy Italy Unite route will be like. Figure that the days will be bigger and more adventurous than you expect and you won’t be disappointed.

After a pretty big breakfast of pastries in Rieti, we headed out before 9. Pretty soon the gravel route delivered a very steep (22%) long climb. At the top I said, “Ok I’m awake now!” We popped out onto an old paved road that went straight down so we went from slogging up at 6 kph in our lowest gears to coasting for free at over 50 in a few seconds. But that didn’t last long. The next climb was beyond ridiculous. We pushed up a faint trail for days, finally coming out on a rideable dirt road. It was the complete experience pushing through clinging berry vines, over rocks, a full body workout.

Then a descent to a town where there was a bar with panini and pastries. We inhaled a lot of food and pressed on, now climbing steeply up a little used but paved road. It turned to dirt and got steeper and we got slower. Now is where my memory gets foggy. There was a two hour long section climbing some crappy rocky trails, in the middle of nowhere. I had to push up some of this but after a really long time we summited and rode down a little and there was a restaurant – Wytze said “proof that God exists”. We were up over 1,100m but still it was super crowded late on Sunday afternoon.

We had a couple of rounds of appetizers, lots of water and fanta, then a round of pastas. Unfortunately this took over an hour. We refilled our water bottles from unused bottled water at outdoor tables. After I demonstrated how to do it with water, Wytze went one up and scored an entire tiramisu. Around this time Andrew realized one of his pedals was screwed. If he slid his foot sideways, the pedal came off the bike, attached to his shoe. This made steep climbs harder but he certainly did not complain.

Now it was after 5 pm and we had something like 40 km to go. So we slightly cheated and took a road instead of the gravel path on one climb. Andrew’s fault. Now it was 6 pm and there were no more options to cheat. It was the gravel route or nothing. Up popped a 10.5 km climb on my Garmin, better get used to climbing in low gear up rocks for a very long time. This one was tough but magical. The sun was going down and as we got close to the top, the mountains were lit up so red. I’ve seen a lot of mountain sunsets but this one was really spectacular.

Finally we were on top and could coast a bit, but it was getting dark. The trail was super rocky and tricky. I am SO glad we had no crashes. Full time concentration absolutely required. There was one more medium climb, and at the top of that one we hit pavement! Kind of a hallelujah moment. It was 2.6 km down, fast, exciting and kind of dark. We hit the main road and a sign said ‘Calascio 5 km’. I couldn’t believe it! I was hoping for 10 and prepared to see 15. So we took off, in the dark, all our lights on and it turned out to be five km of gentle descent! Amazing. So we arrived in town right before true pitch dark. We were well after our 7:30 dinner reservation so went directly there. Having a reservation at the one open restaurant in town was key as multiple groups were turned away later.

Appetizers, beers, water, lots of wine, then pasta, dessert and Amaro to finish it off. In this nice restaurant in our bike clothes – no one said anything. Now it was 9:45 and we had to find our apartment. We rode up to the top of town, about the right area. There are no addresses so it’s complicated. Luckily our hostess (who also made the restaurant reservation) had sent a video: how to walk to the apartment from the parking area. So once we found the parking area it was easy (not)! We fumbled around looking for the lock box and finally I found it. I pulled out the key but it didn’t work. Of course there was another key that did and we were in! The place is fantastic, spacious and no sharing beds!

We fired up the washing machine, had showers and I wrote this up. We also made a reservation for tomorrow night in a town with a bike shop where we hope to solve the pedal problem.