L'eroica 24 hours and counting

What an absolute b*stard of a drive. In the car for 29 hours in total. UK fine, even London fine. Picked up the bikes from Mr.Bridger. Hit the Eurotunnel sooner than expected. Straight on to an earlier train just before 10.00pm. The drive starts well but before you know it Groundhog Day. In June I drove to Corsica with two mates for the start of the Tour through non stop rain. The only difference this time was the addition of thunder and lightning. Grabbed a couple of hours kip at one of the many service stations around 4.00am. Up, coffee, crack on towards the alps. Pay for the pleasure of the Mont Blanc tunnel. This drive never seems to end. French and Italian roads full of pretty easy going drivers until I hit the Milan area around late afternoon. Have to say the sat nav I have been leant is brilliant map and photo image at all interchanges, through the hills in back of beyond Tuscany, right to my door. 

Bed, sleep. Woken by big thunderstorm clattering around the valley. Lightning forking outside. Wake up to this beautiful view of the Italian countryside....

A pea soup soon to be followed by deluge after deluge of rain throughout the day..... met up with Lance, Merlin and Algy. Great pizza in the piazza..'Who ordered tomato, mushroom and water?' cried the waiter!

Registration amongst rumblings of the whole event being called off, though die hards said it would never be so. Health and safety wont be featuring tomorrow.

A great mix of nationalities signing up. L'eroica Brittania and L'eroica Japan being launched next year. Bakewell or Mount Fuji......

A good afternoon wandering around the numerous stalls and sheltering from the rain was followed by an evening of pasta, cappuccino and brandies sheltering from the rain......

Off to bed its gunna be an early start!!

6 and counting

So this is the little beauty I will be riding at L'Eroica this Sunday. Many hours of hard work and graft have been applied by Bruno Pearson to bring this to fruition. My job is to get it round the course in a respectable time.

Its a Holdsworth. Good old London bike builder. They still have a shop in Putney and sell a nice retro bike that echoes back to the old days of steel bikes when 531 Reynolds was the best tubing you could get. With such a beauty to ride need to sort some decent kit for the ride. Hoping for some warm autumn sunshine so it has to be the Road Rags 'Hoxton' perfect for such weather and recently given 8/10 by Urban Cyclist Magazine in their review and its damn hard to get better than that. Those guys are tough!! Match in with a pair of our 'under test' merino mid length touring shorts and a pair of Quoc Pham leather 'daisy roots' and we will be pretty much set.

Hoping the weather is better than Cav, Wiggins and that Froome chappy endured last weekend... Now to find a Euro sat nav, get a few euros and prepare for a long route trip...but it will be 'Italian Job' soundtracks through the mountains though not in an Aston or E type.

Looking forward to hooking up with Lance McCormack and his fine lads, sharing a few glasses and indulging in the bike festival on the Saturday.... Question is, do we really need to head back on Monday or can a little more time be squeezed out of the adventure...

At the end of the day it's all down to Bruno who put the bikes together and made all this possible...

He's not looking his most dapper here...certainly not Tweed Run dapper that's for sure but he's just finished a days chroming and polishing......Top work Bruno!!

L'Eroica 2013 is coming closer...

As L'Eroica 2013 looms upon us we have picked up the frames and started on a rebuild. Its a Holdsworth and Claud Butler that are destined for the Tuscany hills this autumn. We had been hoping for a good month of training on these beauties but nothing runs smoothly in the world of vintage lightweights and craftsmanship has no time-scale. 

Our boys are flat out polishing up wheels, pedals, stems and quills, anything that needs to shine is getting the treatment.

Accommodation is booked. Cheap and cheerful in a nearby farmhouse. Eurotunnel booked and the long trip ahead awaits. Bringing back memories of this summers earlier dash through France to Corsica with the 'magnificent seven' of that little adventure.

So off to the hills we shall go. Hoping for autumn sunshine on our backs. Looking forward to those meats, cheeses and vino on the refuel stops. Note to self don't drink the vino too early! We will be starting about 5.30a.m.

Union Jack and chrome combo's on the Holdsworth and Claud Butler heading to Tuscany.