Photo by Rob Howard
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As You Bike It
By James Morgan, January & February 2007
On a two-wheel tour of Italy’s scenic Veneto region, the author puts his mettle to the pedal—and discovers his inner Lance Armstrong
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What would Lance do? The thought flashed through my head about the time a tour bus whooshed by three feet to my left, splashing rain and rocking the air in waves, wobbling my front wheel crazily toward the swollen canal rushing way too close to my right foot. My glasses were fogged, the sky was blue-black with a sick tinge of yellow, I was nine miles into a 50-mile bike ride that I knew ended with a two-mile climb, and my new over-the-shoulder spandex biking pants—which the guides had urged me to buy, and which made me look like Spider-Man in his pension years—were beginning to chafe. “The first rule of biking,” said Jessica, one of the trip leaders, “is no underwear.” It’s not as sexy as it sounds. A huge garbage truck veered near to avoid colliding with a white Fiat passing on a curve in the driving rain. What would Lance do? I knew what he would do, and I was determined to do the same, if at all possible. In the meantime, I opened my mouth to the rain, then—contemplating six more days of biking through this “tranquil” region of Italy, as the catalog described it—screamed to the heavens: “This is insane!”
First impressions die hard—but they do, occasionally, fall by the wayside. So did I, a few times, during my week of bicycle touring. But I’m happy to report that, by the end of the trip, I was able to place beautiful scenery, comfortable villas, fantastic food, fine wine, great people, and a whole bunch of less tangible benefits in their rightful places alongside rain (which is unusual for October, when I traveled), hills (less unusual), and erratic Italian drivers (unavoidable regardless of season). Some things in life are more easily appreciated through a rearview mirror.
Our star-crossed pack of cyclists had first come together in the little town of Mira, west of Venice. I was an impostor—a wannabe among true cycling enthusiasts. I was also a little worried because at 61, I appeared to have 15 years on the oldest of the others. Then Char and Paul, both in their 70s, arrived, and I felt better—until I found out they had brought their own pedals. That spoke to a certain seriousness that left me, maybe literally, in the dust. I had been “working out” for a month—reading novels while riding a stationary bike—but these people looked hungry for the Alps. The catalog for Bike Riders, our tour company, stresses that the trips are vacations, not races, and that all are free to go at their own pace—or even to ride in the ever-present and extremely comfortable van whenever they get tired. Those are nice words, but it’s still the nature of the beast to size up the rest of the pack.
Our warm-up ride together was a 12-mile jaunt under threatening skies to and from the Andrea Palladio-designed Villa Malcontenta, a house named for the thieves and robbers—malcontenti, in Italian—who used to hide out in the nearby marshes. “Thomas Jefferson and other famous Americans came here,” our wry tour guide said as we stood in a circle in the back garden, “which is why Washington, D.C., looks the way it does. Palladio was a maniac for symmetry.”
That first evening we gathered over bubbly prosecco—the Italian version of champagne—to toast the coming week’s rides. The Veneto is where 16th- and 17th-century Venetian swells built their summer places, many located along the Brenta Canal, a man-made diversion of the once wild Brenta River. The catalog had been positively rhapsodic about the area: “This tranquil region in the Northeast of Italy has enough gardens, Renaissance villas, and sophisticated little towns to inspire us all.” Beginning on day two, we would ride north into the wine country, where for the rest of the week we would visit cute hilltop villages, taste prosecco and grappa, and even have a cooking lesson at a medieval castle. Alas, one thing the catalog couldn’t have foreseen for our particular tour: rain.
I was thinking about all this as I began the steep climb into the renowned walled village of Asolo at the end of the second-day ride. The hill hurt, and riding the bike in low-low gear was so slow that I almost fell over several times. What would Lance do? He would reach deep down inside himself and gut it out. So that’s what I did—reached far down into that deep reservoir of self that yearned to be filled by the coldest, iciest, dust-cuttingest beer in the history of man. And at the end of the climb, in the bountiful garden of Villa Cipriani, where we were to stay the night, I looked over the cedar-peaked valley now thankfully below me and slowly sipped my reward.
The subject of rewards was much on my mind during my week in the Veneto. I am, it should be noted, more a read-by-the-pool vacationer than an action-adventure guy—which is why my wife couldn’t stop laughing as she imagined me climbing hills in the rain.
I had to admit, the evenings were fun—lots of laughter, great stories, delicious meals, and very, very nice Italian wines. Jessica and Gilbert, our two trip leaders, would later tell us our group had “jelled” surprisingly fast. Any thoughts of age differences quickly fell by the wayside. We were just a group of new friends gathering each evening to rehash our day’s adventures. Of course, those evenings were the first obstacles we faced in the mornings. Our days began at 9:00 a.m., with a route briefing, and we were usually on the road by 9:30. “Wine goes straight to the legs,” a more experienced rider told me. Right. This was especially evident on day three, when I grasped a previously overlooked drawback to cute hillside villages: they’re on hills.
The Bike Riders catalog had rated this trip 1A/B—“Flat to gently rolling terrain, a few hills”—but after a few days of riding through vineyards undulating in the shadow of the Dolomites, even some of the fitter ones remarked the going was harder than they had expected. “Those ratings don’t really mean anything,” Jessica said, shockingly, one day over our usual carb-loaded lunch.
“What?” I nearly choked on my spaghetti con funghi. I had pored over the various trips to find the right one, and the ratings had been key to my final selection. She pointed out that it’s impossible to gauge the difficulty of a ride to all comers. To someone like me who hasn’t ridden for years, ten miles is a long ride. Yet to a seasoned cyclist, it’s not so tough.
“You worked out for only a month before coming?” Jessica said. “We recommend three months, minimum.” I didn’t remember seeing that in the catalog, but clearly these bike vacations require, and assume, a certain level of fitness (see "Before You Go"). What would Lance do? Well, first, he would’ve gotten his fool self in shape.
On day three, I grasped a previously overlooked drawback to cute hillside villages: they’re on hills.
The rhythm of the rides seemed to develop effortlessly, if you can apply that word to what we were doing. There was no competition and no judgment: Two couples from Quebec who quickly became known as the Canadians generally led, Paul and Char set an easy pace in the back, and I found that I liked riding alone in the middle. For one thing, there was nobody around to watch me wheezing up the hills; for another, I didn’t have to argue with anyone over directions. But the main pleasure of riding alone was looking at the scenery and daydreaming. I missed some turns this way, though I didn’t mind. If I got lost, Jessica or Gilbert would find me. They were never far away, and would double back if you weren’t in view. In the meantime, I noticed that the cornstalks were greener in the highlands than in the lowlands, watched a dapper little gent flirting with a pretty neighborhood lady, and barked at dogs.
Another pleasure was getting to the tops of hills, which I discovered was always worth it. One afternoon in Asolo, following a luxurious postride shower, I wandered up the winding street from Villa Cipriani into the heart of town. This was Piazza Garibaldi, whose centerpiece is a beautiful 16th-century fountain fed by a Roman aqueduct. I took a table at a nearby café, ordered a glass of the local wine, and started to work on my day’s notes. For the life of me, I’ve never understood how writers like Hemingway could get anything done in cafés—all I can do is look like a writer while watching people come and go. In time I discovered that the café menu listed the names of luminaries who had sat on that same terrace overlooking that same peaceful piazza—Robert Browning, Henry James, and old Hemingway himself, among them. This was close to A Farewell to Arms country, and as I ordered another wine, I imagined Hemingway penning his timeless tale of love and loss to the sound of that ancient fountain.
Friday was my worst, and best, day. Friday was the day I began to “get it.” I woke up sick from all the rich food we’d been eating, and I phoned Gilbert to tell him I wasn’t riding. Then, after facing myself in the mirror, I called him back. Struggling into my Spider-Man suit, I checked the day’s itinerary. It was a 26.2-mile excursion through the Prosecco wine region, ending in the village of Follina, where we would spend the next two nights. “Our route becomes rolling as we head into wine country…,” the instructions stated cheerily, but I couldn’t help noticing the ominous deletion of the word gently before rolling.
Sure enough, the hills came early and often, though even under gray skies the terrain, geometric with reddening fall vines, was the most picturesque yet. We made a morning stop at sculptor Antonio Canova’s monument to himself—his Pantheon—which was so far up a long, steep hill, and my legs were so rubbery and my stomach so fluttery, that I just got off and walked the bike up. A couple of hours later, when we finally pulled into a trattoria for lunch, I thought I couldn’t eat a thing. Then I wolfed down a vegetable plate of beets, beans, peas, and tomatoes, a bowl of pasta with meat sauce, and four pieces of bread sopped in olive oil.
The rain started lightly just after lunch. By the time we got to the Bisol winery three miles away, it was coming down hard. “Taste a lot of prosecco,” said Gilbert, eyeing the sky. So we did. An hour later we emerged, not into sunlight but into blue gloom and a cold, steady rain, the heaviest in days. Follina was about eight miles away, over slick country hills and along a busy highway at rush hour. “Who’s riding?” said Gilbert. For reasons I still can’t fathom, I knew I was riding the bike. Maybe I didn’t have enough courage to take the van.
As Gilbert loaded up the others’ bicycles, four of us—three of the Canadians and me—headed into the darkening Italian countryside. We were soaked in no time, and soon the first hill showed up like a schoolyard bully. The three of them climbed it quickly and then waited for me at the top. I no longer felt embarrassed by being slower. Over the week I had learned that it’s not me versus them. If anything it’s me versus me, and it doesn’t even have to be that.
After the hills, we turned left onto the busy highway toward Follina, still some two miles away. In the dusk, one of the Canadians began riding behind me because his jacket had a reflector on the back, and mine, of course, didn’t. Besides, my jacket was black. What kind of idiot buys all-black clothes when heading out to dodge Italian drivers? This ride provided me ample opportunity to dissect the staggering stupidity of my so-called preparation. Not being an avid cyclist, I hadn’t wanted to spend lots of money on cool gear that I might not use again; one day in the rain, though, and I learned that cool gear is better than cold gear—my cotton T-shirts were always wet, while the others’ Lycra shirts dried quickly. My inexpensive waterproof jacket was good to keep out the rain, but it also kept in the sweat. I was cold all the time. Bottom line: you don’t need lots of clothes if you have the right stuff—a pair of padded bike shorts, long bike pants, a shirt or two, and a jacket. The Canadians brought no more than two shirts apiece, washing one each night with something called Zero. Their clothes were dry in the morning, while my cotton shirts were wet for days.
The traffic was as dense as the rain, and we stuck to our few inches of pavement and prayed. “Hold your ground,” Gilbert had instructed. I was just glad that the ground we were holding was flat. Summoning up my best Lance face, I glared straight ahead toward the finish line. In due time, the lights of Follina twinkled through my wet glasses, and soon the four of us were squishing into the lobby of the luxurious Hotel Villa Abbazia. I was hoping for a bathtub, but my room came with a shower—a very, very good one. Stripping off my sopping clothes and shoes, I turned on the hot water and sat underneath it on the floor for 20 minutes, letting it spill over me like a steaming, healing spring. Was this fun? It was hard to say yes, but I couldn’t say no, either. Would I do it again? Who knows? All I knew for sure was that I had a feeling I didn’t get from reading by the pool.
On our final night Jessica and Gilbert presented me with a certificate proclaiming me Biker of the Week. And the strongest rider of the group shook my hand and said, “You really showed what you’re made of.” It was a wonderful ending to a week that had looked mighty bleak at the beginning. Over our farewell dinner, as we toasted our success and exchanged addresses, I thought about all the times my wife and I had passed a string of bicyclists on a busy thoroughfare and I had said, “Who are those fools?” Now I was one of them, a fact that made me, surprisingly, inexplicably proud.
Besides, a Spider-Man suit is a terrible thing to waste.
James Morgan’s most recent book is Chasing Matisse: A Year in France Living My Dream (Free Press, 2005).
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