dolce vita roma

what a day again…

like mentioned before, first thing in the morning was to pump the patched tubes (their valves were too short for my pump, additionally the O-ring responsible for holding built up pressure wore down that much that it only works up to 3bar)
So I went to the next small gas station where Google streetview let me recognize they’re having an water/air station as well. All good, breakfast and andiamo by bike to the small bikestore I figured out. It didn’t look like he‘ld have what I‘ld need because it was that small. But he got it, even a good price and so I went plunging myself into napoletian traffic-nervewracking, confidence-building and concentration-training it was.
after hitting a small truck with my knuckles when passing and high-fiving a child whose car I passed at the right with like no space at all to just make us two smile there was only 200km left to rome. I then discovered some movement in my rearhub and wasn’t sure how it‘ld hold up so after talkin to a sram worker I was confident again about it holding up.
Some 40ks later after re-pumping twice at local „gommistas“ (tire vendors) there was no way for my front tire to survive so I changed it at the next gommista.
From that moment I was looking at things like that as a small quest, challenge or whatever you may call it. This „above and beyond“ call for action really changed my perspective about how to look at and then handle problems. I also had to think about Helmut Stadler who once replied to me: ‚we don’t have problems; we‘re offering solutions !‘ that really made me think

Then I realized my original booking in Rome which also made me rush to rome in the first place got cancelled because they weren’t available for further hosting. So I searched for another one and I found one which closed reception at 8pm..

All good, mood was up and focused; 140 to go.
Gaeta looked like the most beautiful city on the „open“ coast I saw yet.
some kilometers further up the road I reached the loong straight of Via Appia. I somehow felt like I‘ve heard of that before and from then on my 5th grade latin teacher wouldn’t stop talkin in my head😅
Actually it’s been the longest straight I‘ve ever ridden or seen, very beautifully covered by pine trees, but somehow boring to ride😂

At growing concerns about my steerer bearings and decreasing steerability I‘ve decided to stop and try to fix it at a fruit vending farm on the side of the road. I asked for a peach and got it for free, later also some watermelon which was foraged just some meters away.
I then discovered a crack in my headtube right before I found out the outer ring of my lower steerer bearing now broke into 3 pieces…

Being focused as before, I put the broken pieces back together and because there’s no space to expand, it kept its position and even worked better than before - man that was a feeling! Also the clamp-the-crack-through-lowering-the-stem hack worked fine.

With all those problems fixed I felt wonderful and the last 15k‘s pushing harder again into Rome really revived me and filled me with joy.

I was super happy having made it to Rome which felt like a real pre-destination.

Check in went easy after I told the lady why I was late and then I enjoyed at least an hour of rental-e-bike touring through rome with stops for Pinsa, Carbonara and a drink.Read more