Bless the twittersphere and blogosphere.
How else would I be pointed to the new promo videos from the great tours and the Italian classics if links were not popping up all over the place today.
Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Strada Bianchi, Milan San Remo, Tour of Lombardy in four minutes.
As one blogger put it “goosebumps”
Bring on the season.
This is the first of my Christmas holiday posts where I catch up on some of the missing subjects I promised myself I would write about at the time and never quite got round to. Some reflections, maybe a few thanks, but above all else the things I can catch up on when the rain is howling in horizontally across the countryside and it is time for another piece of cake.
Among this year’s new discoveries that I wanted to share were some of Europe’s communities of vintage racing bike enthusiasts. I had frequently marveled at the massive queues for what I could only characterised as a “load of old scrap” when I visited some of the popular bike rallies in the UK but the scale of the sector had passed me by.
However I do know that I always enjoyed seeing a restored classic and this year I have learned so much more about the community and culture behind the world of classic bikes.
Firstly I started a rather urgent mission to reduce the volume of cycling stuff I was going to relocate to Belgium. I knew I had a couple of nice classic bikes that needed a good home because I was never going to give them due respect. But I had no idea that when I delved into my old bits box I would be uncovering the items that power a whole community of collectors and restorers.
Secondly I began the long drawn out process of restoring my own period classic. I conceived the project over a year ago on my 50th birthday because the bike itself is of a similar vintage and frankly at fifty there are not so many toys you can buy a bloke. But it was only this year that I got the frame refurbed and started to think properly about the parts.
In both cases I have been hugely impressed by the community over on www.retrobike.co.uk , there just doesn’t seem to be anything that they don’t know about bike bits. And the ability to identify a part or a bike from just a single photo or a clumsy description is only matched by their ability to conjure up just the missing part from a secret store, often in mint condition.
I had carried a bit of a prejudice that this was a mainly British community of eccentrics with some similar enthusiasts in North America. The tribe runs on a diet of old English handmade frames and the period components that go with them. However it hasn’t taken long in my travels this year to discover that there is an alternative theme that runs across Europe, one that runs on pure Italian vintage, with Colnago and Bianchi at its head. Just goes to show how little I really know about anything when I make assumptions about national character.
First I found the amazing Bikelager in Vienna – café, galley and homage to the finest Italian frames and bikes which I mentioned in one of my Vienna posts in May. I am looking forward to paying them another visit next year for one of the coolest coffees in town.
Then I in September my newest discovery was Bici D’Epoca, (“Bikes of the ages”) the period bike exhibition at the Padua Cycle Show. As with everything Italian and cycling from this period the twin gods of Coppi and Bartali looked down on everything. I guess it is a form of insurance for the company that they have to give equal billing to both.
It was a feast of Campagnolo, Bianchi, clothing and parts stretching over more than 50 years. Coppi’s 1954 World Championship winning bike as star, but I enjoyed just as much bikes with local histories such as the tandem from the local Padova club which was used to win an Italian national championship, complete with black and white photos of its riders. 
So despite being surrounded by some of the most exciting modern bikes on the planet I kept sneaking back to their stall at the Padua fair to soak up some of the legends.
The spiritual home of this stuff and one of the drivers of the rediscovery of the era has become the classic ride L’Eroica (“the heroic one”) which has spawned a whole generation of spinoff rides including a Giro d’Italia d’Epoca. These rides only allow riders to compete on classic bikes with period clothing to preserve the classic images of the sport. L’Eroica itself was created to draw attention to the paving over of the legendary white dirt roads of Tuscany. It can be credited with the decision by the organisers of the Giro D’Italia to take one of the monuments of cycling over little known dirt tracks, days which have changed the destiny of the race. And a professional version of the L’Eroica in the spring is fast becoming a classic. Together they have rehabilitated both the strada bianchi and the classic bikes of Italy.
I almost imagined I had a small part in the original Eroica this year because one of the participants was credited in the event reports with wearing “some natty punched leather Gianni Motta shoes”, the ones I had sold him just a few weeks before just for the occasion. Now I know that this is a proper missing link in my cycling CV, one for the bucket list to be sure.
So when I could be putting up more blog posts, riding my bike or restoring my own bike I seem to be able click around for ages www.bicidepoca.com for their events, parts, accessories, clothing, historical articles and some great photos of the bikes including the story about that Coppi championship winning bike. And if not I will be sneaking my regular look at www.retrobike.co.uk to see if anyone really does need some of my old tat, for say the price of a cup of coffee?
Hey “I Do Not Despair” made it into national Italian news about cycling. Sadly I think my two appearances on stage at Italian bike shows were not the cause for the use of the quote that headlines my blog. But it was good news all the same.
National newspaper La Repubblica reported yesterday that in recently published figures 2011 bike sales beat car sales for the first time since the second world war. “Le biciclette sorpassano le automobili”. Print version below, with good graphic.
But more importantly for “I do not Despair” I learned H. G. Wells might have said “Ogni volta che vedo un adulto in bicicletta penso che per il genere umano ci sia ancora speranza.”
Although Google Translate doesn’t offer the word “despair” anywhere I was really pleased to see the quote in use, it felt so topical after my recent trips to Italy.
I hope the Italians are able to use this momentum too, The President of my hosts FIAB is quoted saying “I do not think that Italy will return to the levels of car sales prior to 2008. It is an opportunity to change lifestyle” Because this is almost old news in northern Europe, even less confident British cyclists bought about a million more bikes than cars last year.
Lots more work to do in Italy!
Although it is much less well known than some of its more famous neighbours Venice and Verona I think Padua is a great place to ride a bike and should make a good stopping point for any passing cycle tourists or advocates interested in seeing a fully traffic calmed city in Italy. (Thinks out loud “Padua for my English readers or Padova out of respect for its proper name? No idea – use a bit of both.”)
Last week in Verona I was lucky enough to be guided and helped by the cycle tours organised by local volunteers but here in Padua the local FIAB volunteers were flat out proving cycling fun for children visiting the Padova Expobici cycling show so I was a bit more on my own.
However they did provide the equipment, a mountain bike that was a reasonable steed for the cobbled streets throughout the city centre. Unfortunately when I first collected it from the hotel baggage room it had a flat which did lead to one of the most entertaining misunderstandings of my ventures into Italian.
My hosts asked me to bring the bike to the children’s try out area at the show where the volunteers had said they would stick in a new tube. So of course along I pop pushing the bike and wander up to the desk. Unfortunately the chap on the desk was the one person not in the know and he was convinced I was a 50 year old juvenile who wanted to play on the kids track! I was sent off to play with the big kids despite all my attempted explanations. It was all resolved with considerable amusement a bit later by the rest of FIAB Padova.
Anyway back to my trips into the city.
The photos here come from two excursions into the town which I fitted around my work at the Expobici. On Saturday morning when the flat tyre was discovered I walked the city which led to my early discovery of the great contrast with Verona that I blogged about last week.
I keep mentioning in my posts how much I like mornings, there is something quite different about a city waking up, especially when the dominant noise is the rattling of bicycles and the shouts of the market traders , not to mention the fact that you can actually smell pastries and coffee everywhere.
On Saturday evening I also had a ride into town but unfortunately no time for photos as I was off to dinner with my hosts. This gave me a ride through the city from north to south and a great chance to zig zag around the narrow alleys and short cuts. However I was stopped in my tracks when I emerged into Piazza Prato della Valle. It is the most enormous open square that I have ever seen in a city of this size. I was immediately reminded of Plaza de Espana in Seville but this seemed even bigger.
This gave me the itinerary for my Sunday morning ride because I really wanted to see the Piazza in daylight, even if the morning was a bit gloomy. But this time because I had a bike I was able to take a slightly longer route and I decided to circle around the branch of a river which serves as a historic moat around the inner city. Riding along waterways you often see bits of architecture and heritage that survive from different eras and the water itself can be great. Turned out that Padova was no exception, the western branch of the river took me along quiet streets with some gorgeous old bridges, buildings and perspectives on the city.
With time running out I swung back towards the centre of the city along the ample cycle lanes and came to Piazza Prato della Valle again. The translation is “Meadow of the Valley” so I can only imagine that at one time this was a vast open space leading to the river. Today it is a formal square with a ring of water features, statutes and seats in the middle and a vast open expanse of walking and cycling space. At one end Abbazia di Santa Giustina is a huge church and abbey but even it seems lost in the corner of the open space.
The cyclists mooching through the square just showed the scale, they looked tiny and even a club group of 20 road riders turned out in immaculately matching club colours could not make it look busy.
Great place to ride a bike. And on a human level some final thoughts. When Venice was a city state Padua was its university town, a tradition it keeps up today. So the first thing I noticed about the cyclists and pedestrians was the large numbers of young people, something cycling shares with other great university centres, surely something we must keep building on throughout the world. 
And also in keeping with the great cycling centres of Amsterdam and Copenhagen I am sure that a significant majority of the cyclists I saw were women. 
As advocates we are always told that when you make your cycling cities female friendly 
you are on the right path, Padua cycling culture must be a great example because it is young, female and wearing ordinary clothes.. The Cycle Chic movement writ large, excellent.
Now if only the cycling shows could understand that ….. But that is another story.
I have been pretty rude about the politics of transport in Verona in my previous post, especially when compared to Padua which has taken a completely different path.
However in typical contrary style the negative conditions for cycling have resulted in a strong cyclists’ movement with the Verona branch of Federation Italiana Amici della Bici (FIAB) having its largest branch in the city, over 2000 members.
It also has a really strong sports cycling tradition too having hosted the world cycling championship twice in modern times. (2004, 1999)
I was there to work at the EICA trade fair and to have meetings with some of the national leadership of FIAB but the local members were such excellent hosts I have to give them a write up, especially as they gave me a great insight into their city, warts and all.
First up was Giorgio, president of the branch who turned up at my hotel first thing on Saturday to provide me with a bike for the weekend and set me off to the show. As I have written many times, it’s not about the bike and the fact that he gave me his careworn town bike with its rattles and pannier meant that I wasn’t too worried about where it got locked up or how I rode it.
In the afternoon I was invited down to the city centre to meet the local branch who were launching the first weekend of European Mobility Week by holding a series of guided rides. No prospect of a Car Free Day here so this was an exercise in grabbing the city’s attention. I could soon see why this group was well established in the city. The agenda for the day was to invite different professional groups to come for a guided ride at a set time in the day, either professions that were supportive of the group or some groups of friends. Simple, but so effective because it encourages existing networks to encourage their friends and contacts to come along.
I went out with the teachers and thirty minutes later our tour was followed by the bio-architects, which apparently translates organic architects, a new trend in the profession. (Means nothing to me either!)
The ride itself was a tourist tour but it was also to boldly go through the streets in bunch and be proud to be cyclists whether it was on the one or two pedestrianized streets or out into the busier roads. That was made clear by the bibs with slogans we were asked to wear, and because Paulo our guide had a PA rigged up to his bike. I assumed this was because he was going to give us a tour. Oh no, he was using the PA to shout to the crowds, not just us. My Italian is non-existent but it doesn’t take much to hear the word “bici” repeated with great enthusiasm and to get warm smiles from the pedestrians to see that the man is a natural entertainer.
A nice ride, repeating some of the areas I had walked the previous day, but great fun from the saddle and with company. Oh and here’s a thing (not one for my wife). I had to ask why the group of teachers were all women? I was astonished to be told that all teachers in Italy are women. I checked that this didn’t just mean primary schools like many countries but I assured that almost all teachers in Italy are female without really being able to understand why.
The professional groups idea was certainly a success, a group of up to 20 every half an hour meant that there was a steady flow of people through the day learning about cycling in Verona.
There were also quite a lot of cyclists around in the town and I was just generally snapping a few as a backdrop to for a blog post. I was just snapping this chap when I realised a group of sports cyclists were passing by in the background – none other than the bike show test ride coming back from their spin with Mario Cipollini who as if to order had popped into the corner of the frame. The test circuit let show visitors take a huge range of road, electric and mountain bikes out for a spin of up to 15km around Verona returning through the main square.
Who’s this just passing by on his bike?
As well as the group rides I was also told I had been invited out to a concert in the evening by one of our local hosts. “Concert” I ask, “what sort of concert?” Nobody actually knew, other than it was going to be at a building called Lazzaretto outside the city. From what I could briefly glean on my smart phone I thought it was some sort of restored stately home. About the music, no idea.
So that’s how I ended up at a sort of modern jazz outdoor concert for the Italian National Trust to promote the fact that they had acquired the grounds and ruin of a former isolation hospital and military base that had been partly blown up by anarchists. “Concerto in Bronze” had a celebrated percussionist beating out music on the bronze statues of Gino Bogoni while a dancer and narrator telling the story of the sculptor’s life. I had the introductory speech by the National Trust translated so I learned a bit about the rotunda that had been at the heart of the old hospital. But I didn’t understand a word of the narration and I have to admit that a grown man lying on a bronze statue shaped like a melted bar of chocolate hitting it with his fists stretches my definition of music.
But how can I top sitting in open parkland with a slight chill in the air surrounded by people who really cared about the place we were in and the city they live in, listening to tawny owls hooting in the trees around us. Magical.
And on the way home I was treated to a trip up to the terraces of an old castle which sat above the Roman theatre I had been on earlier in the day. Fantastic views of the city from above.
On Sunday the lure of the test ride circuit and the views from the castle drew me and I couldn’t wait to get out in the early evening and do a proper tourist ride. Even better I was told that the circuit was actually part of the world road race circuit used twice in the past. I was soon zigzagging up the hairpins on a good climb out of the city, bit of a challenge on the single chainwheel of Giorgio’s bike but certainly rideable.
Before long I was up to a good height and able to look over to the valley beyond as well as great views back over the city itself. On one side the old city with its mediaeval roofs and Roman origins, but it was easy to see on the other valley why this is also a strong industrial area too.
The road itself kept the higher ground and looped round above the city until I came down to the Santuario Madonna Di Lourdes, a domed church set high above the city and one of the most distinctive sights on the city horizon. 
It was a stunning spot and I got some great views from its terraces, including a nice view back across to the previous climb. But even here I could not resist a mental rant that they just could not keep cars out of what should have been an oasis of silence.
However the café behind the Stantuario did offer a very tasty espresso and tiramisu, a classy step up on the coffee and cake at home.
Then a great descent into town at 50kmph before rolling back through the old streets.
In fact, I enjoyed it so much I went back again in the early morning for an final spin, a bit cloudier than the previous day but still a lovely ride.
Thanks to all the FIAB members in Verona, your hospitality made it a very special visit. I wish you every success in your frustrating battle to create a cycle friendly city.
I am currently processing a whole sequence of photos and stories about my visits to the two Italian cities of Verona and Padua (Padova).
But here is an opening thought. They are only 50km apart, they share many aspects in common in terms of size, culture, antiquity. But in just one aspect of policy one has been returned to us as a liveable, likeable vibrant city. The other is being strangled to death by laissez faire.
Verona is still gripped by the absolute tyranny of the car. There has been almost no attempt to restrict the disfigurement of the city by congestion, parking, noise and fumes. The restricted area in the city centre for motorised traffic is tiny and any priority given to alternatives is minimal. There are almost no cycling and bus lanes. All but one main square has full access to cars all day.
But of course in true “I do not despair” spirit this doesn’t stop me finding cycling in and around the city being an uplifting feeling, not least because it is a beautiful place, but by far my best moments were quite roads and corners, where I could find them.
A week later Padua. Nowhere near as celebrated as Verona internationally and with much fewer tourists.
Yesterday morning I wandered into the city early on foot and last night I was able to shoot around the streets on a borrowed bike from my local hosts.
Immediately outside the hotel I came across the first of 150km of cycle paths. And then once I had slipped past the boundary of the old city walls I was almost immediately into the extensive pedestrianized centre. It isn’t entirely car free, there are designated through routes and access is allowed to some areas. But at 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning the contrast is just incredible.
The streets were not silent – oh no. But the sounds were precious. Firstly people talking – as they walked and cycled and opened the many market stalls. But best of all the almost permanent sound of rattling metal – bicycles on cobbles – the endless array of cheap town bikes that dominate the Italian domestic cycling market bouncing their way around the streets.
It reminded very much of my trip to Bologna in May, again not such a celebrity city as Verona but one where civic pride manifests itself in giving the streets to its people and its visitors. As an international advocate for cycling and sustainability the most important lesson I keep being given is that we spend a lot of time addressing national and even international policies that affect cycling. But within the same country, the same funding climate, the same road laws, the same culture local political will is the determining factor in whether a city wants to be liveable or not.
I will be posting a few more highlights from my visits in the next week or so, but I’ll complete this post with two photographs.
Both are cathedral squares. Which one would you like to spend time in?
Thank you FIAB Verona – great fun, great hosts.
Kevin Mayne partecipa a Inbicianch’io – Oggi tra le 16 alle 17 in via Roma a Verona
Kevin Mayne, responsabile Sviluppo di ECF, European Cyclists’ Federation, organizzazione che riunisce le associazioni dei ciclisti urbani europee cui aderisce anche la Fiab, parteciperà oggi alla bici-staffetta Inbicianch’io organizzata in via Roma dagli Amici della Bicicletta di Verona. La gara a squadre toccherà il suo clou tra le 16 e le 17 quando sfileranno i gruppi dei medici, degli architetti, degli insegnanti e dei soci Fiab cui si unirà anche Mayne. Il dirigente ECF è a Verona per la Fiera della bicicletta Eica, alla quale interverrà domenica mattina alle 11 con un discorso pubblico a VeronaFiere.
Ufficio Stampa Amici della Bicicletta-Fiab Verona
I wandered Verona in the late afternoon – still probably 25 degrees temperature and a glaring sun.
Odd mixture of a place – the main central attractions were interesting enough, but slightly lost in people and traffic, not least the terrible tourist trap that is Juliet’s house and balcony.
But on the banks of the river Adige I found some wonderful spots – the old roman theatre clambering up the hillside with multiple layers of medieval development on top of the roman base. Views across the river to St Georgio church and a tower way up on a hill beyond. The Castelvecchio with its calm inner courtyard and then access onto the delightful walled bridge the Ponte Scaligero which was wonderfully picked out in the evening light and thronging with walkers and cyclists using it to get home. If I lived here I would go a long way round to use this traffic free route on my way home to avoid the busy streets.
And of course as always in Italy the gems. Tucked away in side streets are tiny scenes of calm, balconies and porticoes with tables to eat and swathes of greenery.
My favourite so far? The Roman Theatre is set up as an amphitheatre for plays and music and while I was wandering up its many layers a band was doing sound checks and playing odd tracks through the speakers. The sound was muffled outside, but as I climbed up the many chambers, cloisters and secret gardens the perfect acoustics of the theatre forced it to well up and drifted through windows, around corners and into private corners where I was almost alone and away from the city. Precious.
….the sky is blue, the rooftops are red and the street is bustling with noise.
Welcome to Verona, city of Romeo and Juliet.
More from the weekend at the EICA bike show to come later.
I was going to publish a few pictures from the Eurobike trade show over the weekend.
But probably the best show of the week was on a giant screen set in a large stylish black booth in the Italian hall. It takes a lot to overshadow Colnago and Pinarello, but if anyone was going to it would be Super Mario.
Us cycle racing fans of just a few years back just loved the Saeco red train which was virtually the first time we saw the mass leadout on our TV screens. And the emotion of the Italian team when they finally united behind him to win the world champs at Zolder was great.
Some may think he was just a showman – but I think he was great for the sport, so this one goes in the video library.
