We tied the two ends of the string together today, finishing up where we started 64 days ago. It’s been a great trip and we actually had some time to reminisce about it as we cruised down the Ticino river along the same bike path we rode for our ‘new bike shake down’ ride on the 10th April.
Another short day with only one moderate climb right at the start, which about halfway up we realized we didn’t need to climb at all as we would loose the elevation we gained just to rejoin the main road out of town that we had turned off … the one that went along the flat lake shore …. with very little traffic on it!
If you look close on the map you’ll see a short little spur near the start. That’s it. We’ll just chalk this up as a little bit of exercise that we probably didn’t need. It’s s good thing we got that out of the way early in the day (not that early as we didn’t start to ride until about 10:45!) as it turned into a very hot one.
Not much to say about the day. No drama really, a stop in Borgomanero for a salad, some shade and some cold fizzy water; a short section of rough ‘stony trail’ where we had two tractors pulling ‘organic fertilizer’ spreaders to avoid; some quiet country roads; another water and gelato stop in Sesto Calende on Lake Maggiore and then some great bike trail along the Ticino river to finish the day …. And the trip!
We pulled into Agriturismo Sant’Anna and were warmly greeted by Margaret, gave Buddy the Dog a belly rub, and had our post ride sweaty bevy. A fine end to the day and the trip.
The creatures of habit that we are saw us return to Castigo for dinner, the same place we ate at twice when we were here in April. Happy to report that the third time was just as good as the other two!
Tomorrow is ‘packing’ day but it will be one of the easiest we’ve had as everything we need has been stored away in Margaret’s garage for the last two months.
This will be the last ‘regular’ post. We’ll probably put in some travel / transit updates and will certainly give a trip recap and ‘best of’ post, but not until we’re back at home.
As always for me, the trip isn’t over until the bikes are back in the garage in Canmore … and sometimes that’s a few days after we actually get there thanks to AC or WestJet baggage handling! So the scheduled ‘trip over’ date is 6 July but we’ll see what happens. In the interim, we’re still going to be doing some touring around in Europe, but by car, not bike … so that won’t make into this cycling journal!
With that, thanks to everyone who followed along and gave us comments along the way. As we’ve said before, the main driver for doing a journal is so that we can keep these long trips straight in our own heads, but it’s nice to be able to share the experience with others, and we thank all of you who shared it with us.
The route we were following, the R10 bike route that went from Lake Orta to the south end of Lake Maggiore. The errant finger in the pic is pointing that out
… we see one of K’s nemesis’s approaching! Pretty tight road to squeeze by that. What are the chances of having this happen on the only short section of rough road we have all day!
Caption Contest!!!! “Kirsten was all excited about getting a chocolate milkshake, but who knew (__BLANK___)” Fill in the blank with a comment below. The winner will get an amazing prize!
Mike Haden“Who knew that everything would taste of organic fertilizer for another few hours” - judging by the look of disgust/surprise on her face! Reply to this comment 1 day ago
After our gelato and water stop in Sesto Calende we headed down the bike trail alongside the Ticino river, the same ride we took on 10 April .. and probably the same group of swans as well
Lovely evening and it cooled off a bit once the sun went down. We had a great Rose from Cai di Frati, our friends Andrea and Maria Chiara’s winery in Simirone
Looks like a big splat, but there’s really good aubergine and scam or a (oh Jesus Christ Apple, I typed SCAMORZA) cheese ravioli under that really good tomato sauce!
… and we shared this Secondi of roasted squid with carrot, ginger and pine nut cream. The folks were very concerned that we ordered too much food … their fears were misplaced … let’s get some dessert now.
For most of this trip I carried around a lot of ‘expectation baggage’ from my 1982 trip, and it all paid off in the last few weeks, so here’s a classic from 1982 (and I can vividly remember hearing this playing in a SPAR in North Yorkshire while I was picking up some food), and I think the chorus is a good way to end this…
More Than This, Roxy Music 1982
‘More than this You know there’s nothing More than this Tell me one thing More than this No, there’s nothing‘
Every generation had their “Lounge Lizard’ music, Bryan Ferry kinda filled that in the ‘80’s.
Actual comment from this video on You Tube:
“I love their music it's always so sleazy somehow, all those nights clubbing in the 70's & 80's, can smell the perfume and beer“ …. Say’s it all!
Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles) Total: 2,731 km (1,696 miles)
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Scott AndersonWhat a terrific tour you had! I'm sorry it didn't work out for us to meet up with you at the end, but life got in the way. Next time! Reply to this comment 1 day ago
Mike HadenThanks for the time invested in the journal, L & K - I enjoyed following your tour through areas new and old to me. A good introduction for me to the CB culture! Reply to this comment 19 hours ago
