I shouldn't say hot as hell so close to the Vatican ... but it is. I rode out to the registration location as well as the start location yesterday. The former is a lot closer than the latter. No doubt a group of us will be riding to both locations on Saturday and then Sunday but it's quite possible that I'll be returning alone from the start/end locations, Club Mirage, after the ride. This is assuming, of course, that I don't DNF in the heat.
Over 90F during the day, I guarantee you that riding the streets of Roma it was over 100 with the traffic. In fact, riding to the Mirage sporting club, the last stretch is actually out of the city proper in grassy fields and it was like riding in a furnace, the air hot to breathe. The only time that I remember air that hot was when we descended from altitude to the desert on the last day of the Gold Rush 1200k a few years ago.
So I rode about 10 miles total to/from Massimo the registration location and then 20 total for the Mirage. The latter follows a path along the Tiber. Now I understand why Romans drink water out of bottles. You wouldn't want water out of the Tiber !
There are only a couple of rideable ramps down to and up from that Tiber bicycle path. On the way, I carried my bike down a long set of stairs. On the way back, I continued to follow the path until I found a ramp a mile or two later and then wandered through the city to find my way back to the hotel. Thank goodness for GPS's ! I could see my track and meandered through roads, always up, to that track until I recognized where I was.
Going to the Massimo, I realized that I'd plotted the route with ridewithgps using "walk" vs "cycle" or "drive". "Walk" has a couple of disadvantages -- 1) you can walk the wrong way on a one-way street and 2) you can use stairs. Yes, there were two long flights of stairs down which and then up, shouldering my bike. I've now plotted a new route !
Our (Hamid, Shab and I) hotel is in the outskirts of Travestere, narrow alleys, restaurants, reminding me of where we were last year in Italy. Mostly "traffico limitato", it was me and pedestrians. Just over 1 mile from the hotel on the way to Mirage, I went through St. Peter's Square / the Vatican. A lot has happened in the 25 years since Sandy and I were last here ... barricades everywhere; trucks blocking access roads, police cars ... in fact, the selfie that I took has a police car in the foreground with the dome of St. Peter's in the background.
Is that separation of church and state ?
Two separate rides with time in between to dry my cycling clothes, only they weren't dry yet when I went back out. Yucch.
I heard from Shab a little while ago that they'd landed in Rome and were awaiting their rental car. Shab is doing to be driving support for the two of us. I'm not sure how that's going to work as I don't know if we'll be riding together. I'd like to but I intend to get myself onto (if possible) a normal schedule of finishing late in the day and heading out early, vs finishing each day after dawn and sleeping part of the morning. That was a killer last time and I don't want to do it that way again. Hamid intends to make it to Pompeii the first day which is 375 kms, give or take. With an 8am start that would likely be dawn with the climbing involved. I'd rather stop earlier and leave earlier; perhaps we'll sync by the 2nd night.
I see from FB that the Seattle crew has arrived. They had a group picture from the restaurant last night. The group of them have rented an apartment for the duration. Never having patience for a restaurant by myself, I picked up some items from a grocery store - some salami, grilled veggies, greek salad, lots of water, one beer. Tonight I'll be with Hamid and Shab.
Onward ?
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