Italy day 1......The international man of mystery

And then there was 4.......+ 1

Of course the rules on international bike riding training don't require you to actually ride your bike in a foreign country, participation in the training (drinking and eating) camp does not mean a mandatory dash to the local passport office to renew your 15 year old, dog eared, little red book.

Only 4 of the Dales training camp actually were riding in Italy this year (that's of course if you count Bob who was in the Dales in spirit but actually lying in bed in Cumbria in reality) the rest were just tagging along in the Dales for the Beer and laughs.

Joining the 4 of us, Alan, Andy, Bob and I would be Bob's mate Dave. Dave at this moment was a mystery to us, could he ride a bike? Could he drink beer? Could he understand Alan's jokes? Could anyone understand Alan's jokes, especially as Sam was not coming along to translate! Could he speak Italian? 'Hold on..... can anyone speak Italian?' Well the last one answered itself soon enough.

After a very early start we walked across the Edinburgh Airport tarmac to board the 07:00 Easyjet flight to Milan Malpensa airport. Squeezing past the 'tourists' on the plane we caught a glimpse of the man himself, the International man of mystery had managed to get through airport security and check in without being spotted by our eagled eyed Bob and was sitting neatly in his seat waiting to take off.

We met Dave properly in the mini bus in Italy on the transfer to Bormio. International he was, he'd been that many places on cycling holidays he had forgotten a few!



L to R. Andy, Bob, Dave and Alan

We soon cleared customs and found our taxi, after squezzing the bags and bikes into the back we headed of for what was supposed to be a '3.5 hour' transfer! Well 2.5 hours, of the craziest Italian driving I've ever experienced, later we arrived in Bormio. The most memorable thing about the journey was how the driver managed to hold a telephone conversation the whole journey while doing 140 km/hr 6 inches behind every vehicle he could find, if there was any gap between him and the car in front, he filled it!

So arriving earlier than expected we ordered mid afternoon pasta and then set about unpacking the bikes. Bob and Dave had decided to hire bikes but unfortunately they would not ready until after the mid afternoon siesta (about 7 pm!) so Alan Andy and I headed up the nearest pass we could find to test the bikes and the legs.



Climbing out of Bormio to the ski resort.

Andy and Alan at Bormio 2000.



Italy 2013 - Early spring preparation.....very thinly disguised.

'What about Kendo Nagasaki?'

I'm not sure what triggered the conversation but I was obviously somewhere else or at least engrossed in my next turn at Giant Jenga. The tower must not fall, the tower must not fall......competitive me...no!

Anyway I joined the surreal conversation in mid flight, from what I could make out I had joined a group of middle aged men deciding to have a tag wrestling match in the middle of the youth hostel lounge! Actually maybe not a group, just Alan leading the way and Sam, his son, feeding the fire (who, for the record is far from middle aged)...how Sam knew the names of 1960/70's wrestlers I have no idea (its obviously the company he keeps/forced to keep back home), 'Mick McManus'.......

'We'll have a weekend in the dales' was the plan, 'it'll be a mini training weekend', actually it was more a mini social weekend, thinly disguised as a training weekend to get it past the financial controllers back home. But we did get in some quality riding as well as some quality steak, quality chips and quality beer so all in all it was three quality grand days out.

So that was it, Alan had sat on his bike so was now fit, Neil realised that the white fluff poking out of his tyre was supposed to be covered by at least a millimeter or two of rubber, Bob P found out that a ford across a river normally used by a well know Vet in an Austin 7 was slippier than a north sea kipper having a piggy back on a jellyfish, Sam realised that he still could not yet quite kick his Dads arse on a bike (but he's getting closer), Andy day dreamed about pink swimming helmets and being from the fatherland (another equally disturbing story), Pete rode his bike taking in all the mayhem and quietly chuckled to himself, Bob S slept in and so stayed at home with his new wife and I wondered how I had managed to find myself in amongst this group of slightly deranged but generally friendly quadra/quinquagenarians. Except Sam, of course, who is a vicenarian.

This picture needs no explanation

Paying respects to the 'erman Bike

Halten Gill in Littondale