The Eroica: Story of a vintage bicycle race (& wine drinking) in Chianti, Tuscany.

I’m in.  Yep, I’ve got a place through the lottery for the Eroica.  For a long time I’ve thought about taking part but then for one reason or another I didn’t do it.  The day the registrations opened I applied. I paid the famous 2 euro. And after a short while the acceptance mail arrived.  Incredible. Beginner’s luck.

 

Time passes and I keep thinking I’ve time to get organised and instead here I am a few days from the event with the bike still to fix up, no place to sleep, I still have work out how to organise things with my daughter Bianca, and work of course which is still keeping me busy.

I’ll take the chariot to be checked-over by Giovanni, indisputable master. It would be great if it was ready Thursday, as Friday I have to go and do the Eroica, don’t muck up the timings, the bike has to be ready on Thursday at the latest.  Obviously the bike was ready at midday Friday and with internal brake cables.  That’s no good.  Oh well, there’s no time now, I’ll sort it out when I get there, to Gaiole in Chianti. In the end I leave at six pm.  Alessandro, my photographer friend, is leaving the next morning, as are friends from Modena, the crew in the OfficineGrandi61 strip.  I take my time and it’s dark when I arrive.  The agriturismo (B&B) is nice and welcoming.  The typical Tuscan manner of the owners does the rest.  I unload the car and go and have dinner. On my own. Perfect dinner. Homemade ravioli with a pepper sauce that has never tasted so good.  Wine, chianti, excellent.  I go to my room and collapse in bed.  The next morning I wake up thanks to a massive storm. Rain and wind like there was no tomorrow.  I hope it doesn’t last, that the weather throws everything it’s got at us now and then the sun comes out…

I have breakfast and then head into town to pick up my race number.  It’s raining.  However, loads of people start to gather.  I go to register, that way I’ll be free to wander around and look at the different stands.  I speak to Alessandro who is on his way and will arrive by about lunchtime. Under the rainfall I wander in and out of the stands.  Immediately I spot someone who is selling five bicycles and nothing else; but they are incredibly beautiful.  I stop and admire a Colnago and a Tommasini both are the right size for me. I start to talk to the guy who tells me the history of the two bikes and reveals the price.  It’s high but not impossible and above all it is less than I thought it would be.  Furthermore he adds the magic word: negotiable.  I say goodbye and wander around where, still under the rain, I admire bicycles that I have previously only seen in books.  Like a child in a playground I keep looking and asking the prices, the prices however are absolutely aimed at adults, or rather financial tycoons.  Over the top.  I end up at the Chianti tasting stand where I try to forget about the rain that keeps falling. I buy some excellent chianti riserva, waiting while a heaven-sent mechanic puts the correct brake levers on my beautiful Renesto bike with a double vertical tube.  Taking it out and about I am attracting looks of curiousity from a lot of people.  I am proud of it.   As soon as I leave the Chianti stand I call my friends from Modena who have since arrived.  I join them at the race number table and hang around with them until obviously we end up in a bar in the town centre for a beer.  They really are exceptional.  Incredibly nice, they tell me all about their adventures during the different stages of the Giro d’Italia d’Epoca.  In the meantime Alessandro joins us and cannot believe his eyes.  It is 4pm and we’re in a bar drinking beer as though it was the evening.  He starts taking photos of us and everyone who goes by.  Obviously the rain doesn’t let up.  But the beer and the company make me forget the bad weather and my worries about the race the next day.  In the late afternoon I say goodbye to the Officinegrandi61 crew as they go to the football stadium to put up the tent where they’ll sleep that night.  Ale and I go back to the village with the stand.  I take him to see the two splendid bicycles that I’d seen that morning and between one thing and the other I start the negotiation with the seller for the Tommasini. In the end clearing out every single euro I’ve got in my pockets and borrowing some money from Alessandro I put an amount in the hands of the seller that I hope he will accept. He hesitates and then he accepts.  Excellent! I have a new bike.  Beautiful and perfect.  At least in my eyes.  Ale and I take it and we go. I stop for a minute to wait for Alessandro who needs to go to the bathroom.  While I’m waiting a lady comes over to me and looks carefully at my new purchase.  We talk for a bit and I realise that she is a real bike expert.  Friendly, she compliments me on my purchase and tells me that it is a great price, it has been well maintained and is worth decidedly more than I paid for it.  I thank her and introduce myself: I’m Marco and I’ve come from Milan for the race tomorrow and I ask her how she knows so much about bicycles; she tells me that she works for Tommasini and she’s called Roberta, Roberta Tommasini.  Did I hear it right? Roberta Tommasini? So, a relative? Yes, I’m his daughter.  Wow, what a piece of news. I smile without knowing what to say.  She gives me a Tommasini cap and we say goodbye.  She tells me that if I want to send the bike to the company, she’ll arrange for it to be serviced and made as good as new.  I thank her again and rather flabbergasted, together with Alessandro we go to put the bike in the car.  As I walk I say to Alessandro that what has just happened must be a sign: tomorrow I’ll use the new bike.  Quite rightly Ale tells me that it’s not sensible not ever having even tried it out.  But I am hell-bent and as always riding the wave of enthusiasm answer back: but what do you think will happen…

We go to dinner with my friends from Modena eating meat and drinking litres of chianti.  We end up back in the bar for a few beers. Ale and I surrender and say goodnight at one in the morning.  See you tomorrow at the start. Goodnight!

 

We go back to the agriturismo and I still have to prepare everything.  I take the bike into the appartment and I do the basic maintenance.  I prepare my clothes and I burrow under the covers.  It’s gone two in the morning.  Ale has to get up at 5am to go and take photos of the start of the first group.  I think that he’ll never make it.  At seven I wake up when he comes back.  Incredible, but he managed to get up in time.  I get ready and in the meantime he takes photos.  Amazing but true, the sun is out.  We went to bed with the rain that had accompanied us all day and now there is a spring sky.  Happy and slightly nervous I go out, load up the bike and head towards Gaiole.  As soon as I arrive in the village, a sea of bikes and cyclists all dressed up as though they had just come out of a vintage sticker book welcomes me.  Splendid. A smile stamps itself onto my face. It stays with me the entire day.  We park quite a long way away and in the saddle of the new flaming chariot I head to the start.  An uninterrupted stream of happy and friendly people twists its way through the village.  I try to call my friends from Modena and they are only just getting up!  They went to bed after 3am. Incurable.  The sea of bikes starts to move slowly towards the first checkpoint where they put the first stamp before the start.  Alessandro and I decide to enjoy the spirit of the race and we dash to a cafe for breakfast and to exchange a few words with other cyclists. The atmosphere is absolutely indescribable: there a sense of joy and liberty from times gone by. And the reason for this is obvious.  We are taking part in the Eroica race. We are in the Eroica race of another time.  I get on the bike and start the race along with the sea of people.  The first part is easy but straight away there is the climb up to the Brolio castle. A mud track, it has an incredible incline.  If you get out of the saddle it’s all over. A shame nobody told me before.  A few metres from the top I give in and put my foot down.  So do many others luckily.  And as I will soon discover it is a bit the leitmotif of the race.  On the following descent some of the most beautiful panoramas that I have ever seen open up in front of me.  The race winds between the hills of chianti between Gaiole in Chianti and Radda in Chianti.  A continuous and devastating up and down on white roads that cross areas of rare beauty.  All of the participants that I meet are smiling and appreciating the scenery, paying close attention to the countryside and the beauty of the bikes that pass them. A friendly spirit of pure enjoyment hangs in the air.  With not a little effort, I keep pedalling.  The relationship of Campagnolo mounted on the Tommasini is definitely not designed for mountains and not even hills.  Often I find myself having to pedal as never before.  I am surprised by the pleasantness of the ride and also by my performance.  I manage to go uphill staying in the saddle, but I know that the most difficult climbs are after the first refreshment stop in Radda in Chianti.  We arrive and it is practically a party.  Stalls where they are offering bread and jam.  Bread soaked in wine and water. I stop and go to the bar.  I order wine.  I leave and under a summer sun I start to talk to anyone and everyone.  Alessando joins me shortly afterwards by car.

We continue to drink and we eat in an enoteca (wine cellar and restaurant) that overlooks the piazza.  No hurry. The time in this race is relative.  You can roll along slowly and no-one thinks anything of it.  When I set off again an hour later many people are still arriving and just as many are sitting eating and talking.  I change bicycles. The wheel of the Tommasini seems to have gone off-centre and has started to rub against one of the chain stays.  I mount the Renesto, happy not to have had a puncture up until now and I throw myself into the descent.  A few hundred metres and boooom, a sudden blast together with a frightening skid tells me that I have a puncture. As I laugh I call Alessandro and tell him that I’m coming back up to Radda on foot as I have a puncture.  He meets me and gives me back the Tommasini laughing like a madman. Now as I set off again he joins me and takes photos.  He passes me, goes ahead, stops, and takes pictures as I go by…after a few kilometres he tells me he is going ahead….a few bends and boooom another bang.  Another flat…I call Alessandro again, who laughing and mocking me continuously, comes back and photographs me on the side of the road whilst I’m changing the back tyre.  A shame that in the rush I didn’t bring the glue.  Ok, I inflate the tyre well and say to myself that as I’m going slowly I shouldn’t have any problems.  I get back on the route and arrive at the rest and refreshment stop that everyone is really aiming for.  The Cecchini rest stop.  Yes, really him: the legendary butcher.  It is useless to try to describe the situation.  Tables laden with toasted bread and italian sausage, pasta spread with lard and chianti wine as though it was raining down from the sky.  Cecchini himself and his friends mixing with the cyclists, distributing chianti as though he has to empty out the cellars.  At the same time, inside his shop the stereo speakers are throwing out AC/DC.  Ale and I, happy and smiling, sit eating and drinking as though it was our last meal.  I refill the water bottle I’m carrying with chianti and head towards the most difficult climb. A few hundred metres at an 18% incline.  Thank goodness I have been drinking and so I have an excuse. At the halfway point I get off and start to push.  I exchange a few words with an American guy who lives in London who is also pushing his bike.  He’s called Quentin. Well, from that moment we do the rest of the Eroica race together.  Really nice guy.  As we cycle he tells me the story of his life, and I tell him mine.  We get to the last refreshment point where we eat soup and drink more chianti.  Practically half drunk we continue and we throw ourselves down the hill at 60km an hour.  At the moment in which Quentin tells me that we’re going at 64km/h I remember that I have the fixed the puncture without glue.  Ah well, if I’ve got this far I can risk a little.  We laugh and continue on our way taking on the last climbs.  When in the distance we can see Gaiole we give ourselves a satisfied and proud smile.  We’ve done it.  We cross the finish line with our arms in the air.

 

The final meeting point is in the square of the village where everyone stops tired but full of a joy that is difficult to describe. We spend the next three hours celebrating, drinking and laughing with everyone.  Some tell anecdotes and tales of misadventures with a happiness I’ve never seen before.   The spirit that hangs over the whole square is of incredible joy and satisfaction.  Thousands of  Eroici (“heroes”) brought together by a passion have spent a weekend in a magic place in a retro and amiable atmosphere.  At the end of the day I think that if Italians were given the possibility to manage themselves better they would be able to return this country to the splendor of the past.  The joyful spirit that has always been part of us exudes from every part of this event. I will definitely be back even if I don’t win a place in the lottery.

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