Blog – Day 10 – Fuscaldo to Gioia Tauro(Rosarno)

 

Today we left Fuscaldo expecting an easy day of 87 miles of easy terrain but we hit the major climb of  5 miles rising 1,250 feet at Vivo Vallentia, only 20 miles from the finish of the day in Gioia Tauro.

We also saw the rider who joined in Bologna going through the 1,000 and we all celebrated the occasion with group dance !  James however had done 1,350 kms at this point and Andrew and Tom 1,175 kms each.

The morning was essentially  uneventful  and it was clear that everyone was tired. When we finally got to the mountain climb we saw Phil attack the lead group very early.  This caused a very aggressive reaction with Ben racing away from the group to win the hill prime chased by Neil, Tim, Joel, Ted, Tom and myself.  This was a really difficult climb and we were all very tired over the top but continued to attack and counter attack all the way to the final destination of Gioia Tauro.  Ben tucked into the 7 person group averaging 25mph on the ride down to the Hotel.

See a selection of pictures with us having a coffee at lunch, as well as  Scott, Joe, Soph, Tom and Phil cycling along the coast road and another of James and Paul on the same stretch.

 

Joe wrote :

At breakfast this morning a bunch of very tired looking cyclists sat without much formal conversation.  Mainly grunting and complaining of pain.  Rob kept us very amused last night with tales of his 4 plane crashes, Cars smashes and sailing near misses.  It doesn’t seem funny writing it here but he tells a good tail!  Reliving this at breakfast at least perked us up somewhat.

 

We strolled out of the hotel not before a few of us got another 10 mins of sleep.  A straight path down the coast for 80 odd miles.  This proved true for 50, riding with the sea to our right and some fairly steep mountains to out left.

Inevitably and somewhat intriguingly after 50 miles we turned left.  Into the mountains we climbed and it was actually quite fun.  Soph found her mountain legs and was overtaking several other riders without a need to stop, she really is becoming a cyclist, although Im not sure she’ll agree with this?

Lunch came and it was very welcome.  A nice patisserie and some comfy chairs gaves us all the rest we needed.  A few of us were talking and it was not our legs that were tired any more it was our bodies.  I could have fallen asleep within seconds if I had the chance.

After lunch we had 30 miles to go and were within on a few miles of the 1000 km mark.  You guessed it the dancing shoes came out again.  Tim suggested we do this and it ended with the same results as last year, Embarrassment!

Another hill arrived looking quite innocuous we stared a climb which turned out to be the hardest of this trip.  An ever increasing gradient for about 3 miles.  At one stage I pulled away from the group so I decided to stop and turn down the hill about 1 km.  When they asked me why I did this I joked “its because I enjoyed it so much I wanted to do it twice” this didn’t go down very well with a few of the struggling hill riders so I shut up and let everyone get on with it.

As we reached the top we knew a desent would follow so we continued on for a few miles at which time Guy’s chain came off in a way I have never seen.  It wrapped around his peddle about 4 times, I have no idea how this happened but we managed to fix it and carry on.

Going down the hill was fun as usual but someone had cut a large part the road up which created some unwanted vibrations on our expensive bikes.  Whilst we we on this road soph had a red coloured gel packet in her mouth and as Rob looked back he thought she had blood projecting out of her mouth.  It would have been quite some reaction to riding down hill had this have actually happened lol.

Another hot day today and tomorrow the last proper day so we are in slightly higher spirits just waiting for that nice cold beer at the end of play tomorrow.

 

Joe x