The Hills are Alive in Tirano

I finally made it to the proper high mountains. It took a while coming, but it has happened now - and I'm glad to have overcome that very big hurdle! Just because you're in Italy does not mean that you are always riding up the legendary climbs featured in the Giro d'Italia - far from it! Milan sits in a plain and for about 30 miles in each direction there is barely a ramp in the road - a bit like the Vale of York. The local cyclists around here ride the flat lanes and canal paths between Milan and Pavia where there are only gentle climbs. The cycling is far from gentle though, as the folks are damn quick sprinters from what I can see. There is one hill here in Milan - basically a rubbish dump that has been reclaimed to look like natural land - how pretty! I know a girl whose hill training consists of just running/cycling up and down that hill for about 3 hours - what fun!

If you go further out, towards Bergamo and the lakes (Como/Lecco/Maggiore) you are in the Brianza area which then gets hilly. At that point you are faced with lovely switchbacks that take you up to around seven or eight hundred metres above sea level, with the highest peaks around 1300m. That is more like what you get in the North of England or Cornwall, but less grim and without the comically steep climbs. For those, you need to go a little bit further North. Try the Valtellina area - which is where I went.

Earlier this month I took the train to one of the gateway towns of Valtellina, Tirano, and was based there for a couple of days. It is quite a touristic town, on account of the church, known as the Madonna del Tirano. It is also a start point for the Bernina Express, a mountain train that goes through some of the most spectacular landscape, to reach St Moritz and other areas in Switzerland.

Tirano is also a hub for getting to some of the most famous mountain passes - the Bernina Pass, Passo di Gavia, Mortirolo and the mighty Stelvio. These, along with various other climbs to reach mouintainside villages are the diet of any road cyclist who comes to the area - and I am glad to have been there.

Milan keeps it real for the Giro

Being in Milan is handy for seeing some of the cycle races. Earlier this year I went to Piazza Castello to see the start of the Milan-San Remo. Later this year I plan to see the Tour of Lombardy, which will start in nearby Bergamo.

At the end of May I was lucky enough to go and see the queen of Italian cycling events, the final stage of the Giro d'Italia. I would have liked to have seen a few of the other nearby stages as well, like the team time trial in Verona, or the mountain stage to Lecco. But like with alot of things, life got in the way so it wasn't possible.
So, I just had to settle for an afternoon around Piazza Castello and Piazza del Duomo!

Last year I saw the final stage of the Tour de France, so was interested to compare the atmosphere of the final stage of these two grand tours.

What struck me about the Giro, and very similarly with the Milan-San Remo was how easy it was to get near the action. There was a cordoned off section for the press and VIPs - though that was mainly to get clear photographic viewing points, or easier access to Prosecco's and aperitivos.
The time trial started at Piazza Castello and went around the Parco Sempione before doing a circuit of Milan and returning to Piazza del Duomo.
Even on the early section of the route it was easy to get a clear view of the rider as there was a lot of space to see what was happening. I saw the mighty Geraint Thomas of Sky power round the corner, but my photographic skills were only good enough for me to snap his back wheel as he sailed away through the trees!

The start gantry area was a little bit more crowded, but again there was a clear view of riders. Also, as it was a time trial the various riders warmed up on turbo trainers next to their team buses and all these areas were open season to the public. I got a good view of Michele Scarponi warming up.
You could even accompany a rider right up to the green room as he rode along to the start. At one point a huge crowd ran alongside a rider. I didn't know who it was, until I realised Ivan Basso had just brushed past me!
Once these guys are at the green room you see them all sitting, waiting their turn to start racing. In some cases the sense of nervousness and tension was palpable - even when standing 10feet away. You didn't need to be a fly on the wall to sense the atmoshphere between Ryder Hesjedal and Joaquim Rodriguez before their rides!

It was interesting to wander around the different team buses and see the gear that these professional teams come with to such events. The mechanic's van would be like paradise to the gadget geeks! I also noticed the various suitcases of the riders. It looked as though many of them would be leaving Milan right after the presentation ceremony. It was a clear message to say - "I'll get this ride done and then I'm out of here as soon as...!"
Well, why wouldn't you? If you've been away from your family for the best part of 3 weeks getting a sore bum riding round some of the toughest roads in Italy, it's quite normal to want to get home and relax at your earliest convenience!

Anyway, the whole thing was set up in such a way that the public could mill around, mixing with riders taking photos of them - sometimes even with them. There were expo stands of different bike related items, and other side shows, including an urban DJ sound system. Piazza del Duomo lends itself very well to the presentation as the square is big enough to accommodate everyone. There was exciting commentary both in Italian and in English (care of London's finest, Anthony MacCrossan), a big screen alongside the actual presentation stage so that everyone got to see the action.

On balance, I would say I preferred my day out at the final day of the Giro, over my final day at the Tour de France. Granted, the Tour also makes for a great day out, but the Giro certainly has a more relaxed, human feel about it and you feel closer to the action.

Sixty years of turning those wheels!

Just wanted to say a very Happy Diamond Jubilee to Queen Elizabeth II. I managed to find this old photo of her as a child, riding her bike in Hyde Park. How would this young carefree child have known that less than 20 years later she'd be crowned queen - and even more, that she'd be doing the same job more than 70 years later!
Such a thought would have properly freaked me out!

I guess being a royal and the head of over 60 million subjects as well as millions around the Commonwealth countries must have its priviledges. I wouldn't mind having regal homes in St James's Park, Windsor Castle or up in Scotland. It would be great having a chauffeur to drive me around in my Bentley, or even a few horse drawn carriages - not to mention a stable of horses and 100 corgies!

But when it comes down to it, being the Queen must be a bit of a chore sometimes - having to get up everyday to visit various people, opening museums and attending functions up and down the country - and beyond. Even having to meet with Gordon Brown or David Cameron every week!!

You always have to look immaculate and smile, or at least not frown. You can't look tired and you can't complain. You just have to get up every morning and do it all again, following all the formalities and doing what is constitutionally correct. The wheels are continuously turning. You can't break a chain or slip a gear.

If I were her I'd certainly wish I could just be an ordinary young woman, (or even and older woman!) just riding my bike and enjoying a life without so much ceremony.

So I must say, I have alot of admiration for Queen Elizabeth II. Through the good times and the difficult times of the Royal Family she's had to show continuity and correctness. I think that for her 60 years on the throne she hasn't done badly at all, and is a good example to us.

Anyway, I'm off to ride my bicycle, and will give a thought to our admirable and dutiful Queen who over all these years has never thrown a sickie at the prospect of having to meet with a slimey Prime Minister or stand through a rainy river pageant!

And if you do, decide to just bunk off for one day and ride your bike, I don't think people would mind too much!

Happy Diamond Jubilee!

My Cycling Moment of the Week - 5

Interview with a Legend

A few weeks ago I rode the Gran Fondo Felice Gimondi cyclosportive. While I was there I had the pleasure of interviewing the great man himself.

When people talk about great Italian racing cyclists they mention Alfredo Binda, Fausto Coppi or Gino Bartali, and from more recently, Francesco Moser, Marco Pantani or even Mario Cippolini.
But when it comes to the 60s and 70s Felice Gimondi is the man.
At that epoch his great rival was Eddie "The Cannibal" Merckx, who effectively gobbled up every cycle racing title in his blistering path. But "The Phoenix's" successes can't be underestimated.

This racer from the Bergamo hills is one of only five road racers to have won all three of the grand tours - the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia (which he won 3 times) and Vuelta a Espana. He also won the Tour of Lombardy, Paris Roubaix, Milan-San Remo and the World Championships.

Felice raced against Britain's Tom Simpson on many occasions and got to know him over his sadly shortened career.

Nowadays the sprightly Italian, who will soon turn 70 is still very much involved in cycling and it is apparent that this sport is still his great love.

I enjoyed talking to the charming Mr Gimondi and it was definitely the highpoint of my couple of days at the event!
The interview will be out in due course. (photos - GF Felice Gimondi Press Office/Bianchi(C))

Giro dei Navigli (Canals of Milan) - 2

Last time I wrote about the canals of Milan it was about the Naviglio Grande, the canal that leads from the Darsena channel out towards Abbiategrasso and then North to Lake Maggiore. I spend alot of time on this waterway as it is within five minutes of where I live. I ride along it to get to work, I go running along the canal, and when it comes to weekend drinks this place is a no-brainer given the number of bars and restaurants. And after a night out it's easy to stumble home without worrying about catching trams or taxis.
This time I will focus on the Naviglio Martesana - the canal which starts from near Milan's Central Station and heads north-west towards Bergamo and Lecco. This is a little bit out of my zone as it is to the North of the city. It takes around half an hour to cycle to the start of the canal.

The Naviglio Martesana has a different feel to the Naviglio Grande. There are no bars at all along here. You just see the backs of people's houses and urban parks, some adorned with residential tower blocks. If drawing comparisons with south London, you basically see a bit of Dulwich, and a bit of Peckham along this section! In any case, you get a good slice of what life is like in Milan.

If there's one thing I also know about the people in that part of Milan it is that they like their sport. Lots of people are out rollerblading, playing football, running and cycling - people of all shapes, sizes and ages are active. The whole family may be out cycling, including the 3-year-old on stabilisers. If you are too young to ride a bike you end up either going on a special child's seat attached to your parent's bike, or being seated in a specially constructed carriage that is attached to the front or back of your parent's bike. People learn about cycling at an early age here!

The other thing that people are into - at least the authorities seem to tolerate it is graffiti. There is lots of it here. This stuff would give Banksy a run for his money. There are all kinds of designs and slogans - Tags, declarations of love, and more and more with these difficult economic times, political statements. I don't know alot about TAV and Bossi, but it seems like they are not well liked in Milan if the graffitti is anything to go by!

Once across the city limits of Milan, you get to the canal proper. A sign lets you know how far it is to the various villages, which is handy. It's actually 23km to a place called Cassano d' Adda which is on the border between Milan province and Bergamo province. Bear in mind that it is 23km from that sign, which comes in at 5km into the canal ride. As I have an 8km ride to get from the southwest of the city up to the north-east then by the time I've done the whole journey it is 72km round trip. That makes for a pretty decent work-out as well.

Before reaching Cassano there is a series of rather picturesque villages - Cernusco sul Naviglio, which has a forest and picnic site, and then there's Gorgonzola. And don't think of finding any cheese in Gorgonzola. It's produced in Piedmont nowadays. Nevertheless Gorgonzola is a pleasant village with a 16th Century church. Some say that a piece of cheese was left in the church and that is how the town got its name. I guess no one will be eating that mouldy cheese any time soon!

After alot of rolling over very flat, easy terrain through the countryside you arrive in Cassano. Not only is it a convenient stop-off point for a picnic along the River Adda, but there is also an ice cream parlour that does very tasty gelatti. Mind you, is there a place in Italy that doesn't do nice ice cream??
Then when you're done you can either ride back, to Milan, or skip across to the nearby train station where you can be whisked back to the city.

Route map is here

My Cycling Moment of the Week - 4

Boris Rides Again!

So BoJo has been voted back in as Mayor of London. That's quite a coup since the Conservative Party did pretty badly in most other parts of the country during the local elections. Also, the fact that many  who voted for Boris Johnson normally vote Labour goes to show that Boris got in because people like him, rather than because he's a Tory.

I saw him at a meeting last autumn in Sutton and he certainly seemed to be a hit with the folks in the packed theatre, even though that borough is Liberal Democrat.

Whether you like it or not, it has to be said that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson seems to know how to win people over. Where many Londoners dismiss the likes of George Osborne and David Cameron as out-of-touch toffs, people in the Capital of all classes and races warm to this posh Etonian with a blonde mop that hardly ever sees a comb!

Boris Johnson is always willing to have a go at activities and get down with the people, despite being quite clumsy and even pretty rubbish sometimes! Who could forget his feeble attempts at trying to shoot at basketball when visiting a youth centre, or when he ended up waist deep in a river while visiting an environmental centre. But people like the way that he keeps it real. Folks can identify with that.


As well as his Mayoral salary, his extra £250,000 for writing a newspaper column means that he is not short of a penny or two. He could be chauffered around London, but instead he chooses to ride a bicycle. He may be in a different socio-economic class, but riding a bicycle immediately puts him at a classless level and makes him closer to the ordinary man or woman in the street - literally! 

Having said that, many people are not impressed with his track record so far. He has not fully delivered his cycling plans and cyclists in London do not feel any safer than they did prior to 2008.  The blue hire bicycles work well, but the system is heavily subsidised by Barclays Bank. The Cycle Superhighways are nothing more than existing cycle paths that have been painted in Barclays blue! Even worse, we had a sharp increase in the number of cycling fatalities last year, including two people who were killed right on this special cycle lane at Bow Roundabout. But still, we voted him back in!

During this year's mayoral campaign, Boris pledged his commitment to the London Cycling Campaign's "Love London Go Dutch" initiative.

In case he has forgotten what he promised, Britsh Cycling and London Cycling Campaign (LCC) recently wrote to our re-elected Mayor. (Letter below).

Hopefully this will serve as a good aid-memoire whenever he goes to his offices at City Hall!


"Congratulations on your victory in the London Mayoral election - one in which cycling was a major issue as never before. We would like to wish you the very best in meeting the many challenges London faces over the next four years.
"Please allow us to also reiterate our immense appreciation for your public pre-election commitments to appoint a cycling commissioner, put a cycling representative on the London Roads Task Force, and meet the three key tests of LCC’s Love London, Go Dutch campaign. We also look forward to working with your Sentencing Unit to assist you in making representations to the Ministry of Justice to strengthen the criminal justice procedures and sentencing guidelines that deal with cyclist deaths and serious injuries.
"We stand ready to help in the delivery of these very important commitments and in particular would greatly welcome a meeting with you to discuss their implementation. We do hope you will be able to look positively on this request given your undoubtedly hectic schedule as you begin the next mayoralty."


On yer bike, Monsieur Sarkozy!

While Boris Johnson was cracking open the champagne, poor old Nicolas Sarkozy was drowning his sorrows after being voted out of his presidential seat. He is the first president, since Valery Giscard d'Estaing in 1981, to be voted out after just one term. Bear in mind too, that back in those days one term was 7 years. The French had enough of Sarkozy after just 5 years!
Ironically, the international community had really been rooting for him as it was believed that he had a more robust economic rescue plan in place for France and the wider European community compared with the woolly, unrealistic ideas of his socialist contender.
Unfortunately for Nicolas Sarkozy, no amount of bike riding and charm could win over the French public! Pas de Chance - Quel dommage pour vous, Monsieur Sarkozy! Au Revoir!

Shoot Story - South East London and Docklands

In this month's issue of Cycling Active I have a ride story about south east London and Docklands (entitled Industrial Revolutions). That was the feel I had about quite a few of the different venues we were in when taking the photos.

It was another of those cold, but sunny days in January. One of the problems when you do photo shoots at that time of year, when the days are short, is getting everything done before dark.

On the day that we did the shoot we rode from Crystal Palace to Blackheath, went around Greenwich and the Thames Path, through the tunnel to Docklands, then onwards to the Excel Centre and Royal Albert area.

Ideally I would have preferred to have done it in the order that I did the reccie and eventual route - an anticlockwise loop starting at Blackheath, over to Greenwich, through the tunnel, on to Docklands and Excel, back to South London via the Woolwich Ferry and then along the Thames Path to reach Greenwich and Blackheath.

Because the Woolwich Ferry was closed on this date, we had to do the former itinerary described above, so in effect we went back on ourselves on both sides of the river and that took more time. By the time we finished, it was getting dark. I didn't have any lights on me so we had to take public transport. Fine, I thought - we can ride along the Cycle Superhighway to Shadwell and pick up the East London Line - Not possible, engineering works. Ok, so we continue along the Superhighway to Tower Hill and pick up the District Line to Victoria. (Bikes are allowed on the District Line on Sundays). Not possible, engineering works. Oh dear - we then ended up riding to Waterloo to get a suburban train to Clapham Junction and get a connection to Crystal Palace. Trains were running as far as Streatham Hill and there was a replacement bus service to stations beyond. Crystal Palace is beyond Streatham Hill, however bikes are not admitted on replacement buses! The plot thickens.

I ended up going to Higg's place and staying over till Monday when I could cycle home in daylight. London Transport is great!

After all our frustrations, the photos turned out well in the final article.

As well as learning how rubbish London Transport can be, I also learned that there are a few places around London that make for unlikely tourist spots.

Naturally there were lots of families out on Blackheath, and loads of tourists in Greenwich. Surprisingly though, we saw alot of people walking along the Thames Path, especially the section by the Thames Barrier. People were intrigued by this construction.

There were still lots of folks who had come to see Docklands and Canary Wharf as well. It's not just finance professionals and management consultants who are attracted to the glassy jungle then!


The theme of our ride story had been to reflect on the industrial age in London - past and present. With that in mind we drew references from the song "Jerusalem". A few of the locations we were at made me think of some of the lines from that song - "England's green and pleasant land", "clouded hills" etc. Some lyrics that particularly struck Higg as I rode past the Canary Wharf complex under cloudy skies were "dark satanic mills". In keeping with that theme, I have included a few photos of experimental shots that Higg put into sepia tones when we were recce'ing the Industrial Revolutions itinerary.

Enjoy!

Photos by Higg