We woke by the river, still wet from the night’s storms, and covered in sand.
Our first port of call was the water fountain in the town up the road, where Will rather ceremoniously washed his feet, hands and face, while Stef tutted and contemplated just the level we had sunk to. Regardless, a bleeping of a phone heralded good news – we had found a Warm Showers host in Turin, and we would be able to spend some time exploring the city – The sun was shining again!
Back onto the bikes, we followed the rather scary large roads that fed into Italy’s first capital, and then, on a whim, ducked onto a river path that led into the grand promenades of Turin. Following a tip from a previous Warm Shower host, we made a straight line to the Monte Dei Cappucini, home to Italy’s national Alpine museum, but also one of the singularly most comprehensive panorama of this city beneath the mountains. After a blitz up the rather steep gradients, we took in the city from a distance.
The outlook was good.
We wandered into town and took a walk along and through the labyrinth of columns and colonnades, stopping only for a restorative pannino and a icey coffee. Needless to say, taking in such a pretty town was a daunting and challenging task, but one at which we were happy to put some effort into.
Come 17hrs, the time had come for us to rendez-vous with our host – Maurizio. Living a stone’s throw from the station, Mauri was a hugely warm and welcoming guy, with a proper lust for life and adventure. With a great many more miles under his belt than us, we spent the evening being treated royally, with fantastic food, good music and brilliant company, including that of another local tourer, Fabio.
Turin it seemed, was our kind of place.
The next day, we woke early to run a few errands. Having been without gas for nearly a week, we hot footed it to a Decathlon and found the right connection, right there on the shelf. It was a hallelujah moment. Also righting the wrong of Will’s tired and worn out boots, a pair of trainers were purchased for an ungodly and unwholesomely low price, which begs a few questions.
Regardless, Cinderella style, they fitted perfectly and we spent a little time wandering around the city, taking in the main market, the central piazza, and of course, a couple of the famed eateries.
Maurizio insisting on preparing a lunch for us, we went back to his apartment for noon, and sat down to yet another amazing meal. This was the Italy we’d been missing. Following lunch, we went for a ride around town, using all the back lanes and bike paths you could never find on a short stop-over like our own, and even took in Maurizio’s own bike shop – Trip Bike.
After sharing a beer with the mechanics, we moved on to a bar, and soon felt like quite the regulars, drinking red ale and talking nonsense with a gaggle of Mauri’s pals – In short, it was a brilliant evening. Curtailed only by a severe downpour, we squiggled, we don’t quite remember how, back into the flat, and slept in order to further evade our impending hangovers.
The hangovers found us though – feeling queezy, our good intentions of mountain climbing were put on hold, and instead, we limited our route to the foothills. Insisting that he help us escape the tangle of Turin’s main roads, Maurizio once more led the way, showing us through the lanes past a number of attractions familiar to anyone that might have seen the Italian Job. Avoiding Michael Caine impressions, we ended up in Avigliana, by two lakes and in the shadow of mountain valleys. The Alps had begun.
We spent the night by one of these lakes as Maurizio took a train back to Turin. Surprised to still find mosquitoes at our altitude, we marveled at glow worms and fireflies instead of concentrating on the buggers nibbling our ankles. The next day though, it quickly became apparent that Will was feeling rotten again. Not just a prolonged hangover, a racing heartbeat and a banging headache, walking around the supermarket was a challenge enough, let alone cycling.
Taking it slowly, we waited a while in the air conditioned shade of a shop front, in a spectacle that nearly earned us copper coins from passers by. Soon enough, things started to get better, and Stef paced Will up the valley road towards Susa – the starting point for our biggest challenge yet.
Regailed in pink bunting and with flowers on every corner, it was quite clear to see that Susa had been celebrating something. Upon Maurizio’s insistence, we had come to this town in order to tackle the monster of a climb that bridges the Susa valley and it’s neighbour, towards Sestriere. The pink bunting itself was of course a mark of the recent passing of the Giro d’Italia. Yes indeed, and the climb we were about to undertake was the deciding moment of this year’s tour.
The Colle Delle Finestre sits at just 2176 meters above sea level, but the climbing starts from just 400 meters above salt water, meaning that the pure elevation gain is pretty painful. Couple with this the fact that the climb is 18 kilometres long, you get a sense of just how unyieldingly steep this summit is. With warnings from all the townsfolk about what we were about to undertake, we were rather daunted by the prospect of tackling such a fearsome climb fully loaded.
All the statistics proved to be true.
Stopping the night before in a grassy field next to a roman amphitheatre, we rose super early with the intention of beating the sun to the summit. The climb beginning with a rather breathy ramp into Meana, things get fun when 5 kilometres into the climb, you hit a succession of 26 hairpin bends, all shaded in the steep pine forest that clings to the cliff.
With the weight already heavy on our bikes, we puffed onwards, with a rally of Vespas speeding past us. As we neared the end of this wooded section, one of the now many cyclists blitzing by us cried out – “Maurizio is coming!!!”.
Eyes now looking back as well as ahead, we kept the pedals turning at a steady rate and eventually found our informant 2 kilometres up the road, taking water at a fountain.
“Have you seen him yet?”
We explained that we’d kept on, but the words had barely left our lips when a cheer went up and Mauri rounded the corner. After a little chat and a splash of water, they both continued onwards to the summit on their carbon racers while we were about to face one of Finestre’s biggest obstacles – the gravel.
Normally compacted for the Giro, the road surface had been fairly churned up with the numerous little mopeds wheelspinning up the mountain. Making our life a little more perilous, we began weaving stones as well as trying to keep pedalling in the face of steep slopes. Eventually though, we stopped for lunch, and cooked ourselves a little pasta alla genovese by the roadside, regained some energy and set off once more.
Winding out of the trees and into the light, the heat of the day was strong, but we kept on and slowly, slowly edged our way onwards over the eight thousand remaining metres towards the abondoned fort that this road was built to supply. The views though, were certainly worth it.
We stayed at the top, taking the applause and “complimenti” of a number of other cyclists and motorbikers. After the mandatory photos, we sat down and cooked ourselves a pasta. With the novelty of being over 2000 meters in altitude, we found ourselves hitting boiling point fairly quickly, and watched for a couple of hours as the light changed and the day began to fade.
With all our gear right with us, we decided to keep our altitude for the night, camp just under the lip of the mountain and keep out of the wind. So, we took on one of the most beautiful and gloriously sweeping descents, past marmottes and into the shade of the mountain. Here, we stumbled upon Alpe Pintas – a bar come restaurant come local product emporium. Deciding to get ourselves a desert, we settled down on a bench.
Our hosts clearly rather interested in who the straggly trampy types were, came and asked some questions. With the outdoor area nice and flat, protected from the wind and with stunning views, we asked whether we would be able to put up our tent. The answer shot back, “yes – and with use of the bathroom. We normally do it as a bivouac thing, for €7.” This bay far the cheapest campsite proposition yet, we shook hands. Soon enough, as the cold set in, we moved indoors and away from the awesome valley views. Now sat opposite a party of locals clearly making the best of the night, we had a little beer, and exchanged some words across the room.
As the night drew on, shots seemed to arrive at our table – courtesy of the band of boisterous farmers and locals across the room. Sampling liqueurs and digestivi flavoured with Génépi and wild mountain thyme, we had a real mountain experience, shacked up and banded together from the cold night. With the football playing through a laptop on a chair and conversation bouncing across the bar, we enjoyed another night of fantastic company. With the intentions of leaving early the next day, we went to settle up at the bar, only to find that our new-found friends across the room had already paid our bill – including that for our tent.
“In Italy – you don’t pay – you’re our guests.” was the only response to our protests.
As the bar staff dwindled in number and as the moon continued to rise, we headed out to put up our little yellow abode in the moonlit silhouette of the Finestre. It had been a truly fantastic day.
The next morning, wanting to pay at least a little for our stay, we made sure to grab a pastry and a coffee before starting our 12km wind down to the valley floor. Our day’s target was Sestriere, but having started at 2000m, we were due to descend to a poultry 1500 – leaving us quite some altitude to gain once more. Slowly ramping up past the litter of Olympic venues from the 2006 winter games, we slowly made ground into the ski station town between the mountains. Pausing to get a postcard and search out an ice cream, we took in the rather touristic bent of the place before deciding we needed to move on sharpish.
Taking the descent down towards Cesana, a popped tyre and quick repair were the only interruptions in what was another slinking and speedy fall into the town. After finding little in the way of supermarkets, Will stopped by a bike hire place to ask for tools to adjust his brakes, having found the previous descent a little hairier than expected. The day growing late, but with little option for camping, we began the final ascent out of Italy, towards the town of Claviere, right on the border.
Climbing though was tough work. With this our second ascent to 2000 meters within a day, when we hit upon a couple of benches wedged on a mountainside between two cycle tunnels, the temptation to stop was overwhelming. We made camp and boiled up our pasta, had a nice meal and then jumped into the tent, with just 2 kilometres to make it to the border in the morning.
With the sound of freehubs clicking echoing down the tunnel, we woke for 7am, packed up and made the last few thousand metres past cliff-side walks and via ferratas.Hitting the road just in time to wave at the carabinieri rolling down the mountain, we pulled into Claviere, bought a pair of croissants and ordered a coffee at Caffé Torino. Forging our plans for the day, we reached out to Warm Showers, to see whether we could find ourselves a host around Briançon, and slowly, set off again, turning the pedals to the border sign that marked our transition back into the land of baguettes, biscuits and Les Cols Briançonnais.
