*luxery Ladies Bottom Less*

Tappa 4 to Civita Castellana

It's raining at night, that I believe that the world may perish. It pladdert only way down, I believe, in the narrow alley down there would arise between my hotel and the house across the street, is a small river.

buzzing after six quarters of my cell phone: SMS in China, my darling let me know. I smile at the dawning day and decide to get up. I start my day with Goethe, whose famous travel rod I cross again today and will follow up Naples:

"For out of impatience to get ahead, I sleep dressed in white and not pretty, be a wake before the day to sit down too quickly into the car and drive between sleep and wakefulness, the date upon and to exercise it, the first best fantasy images at will. "

Well, I do not sleep dressed, but naked (other way of putting the 30 degree "cold" nights in Umbria not endure), but probably I wake before dawn in order to finally get going today but wakes me the rain. It thunders and lightning, it grumbles and rumbles. .. thunderstorms in the morning

will keep the weather is glorious Na

is -?. at least initially after a turn, unfortunately, only sweet breakfast I'm going back to the big highway that will carry me to Rome, I will achieve still not sure.

In the hotel I asked the concierge just like the weather today would be well: he looked at me quizzically. And again: Will it rain or not?

"Can be." He said. "Or not."
Aha.

I kept asking. This time, two Carabinieri, how do I get the best for Roma: They send me back on the highway. Okay, I think me, if need be.

"Hold the right -. And drive carefully," she advised me. I will, I promise!

The Road goes off like hell, I can give you gas, come super fast at 35 kph Light-to-reach section forward and join me soon in a round kick. Radtrance in the morning, it must be the!

The highway is fenced in by about 1.20 meters high concrete walls. Each direction of travel for himself, two lanes in each direction and relatively quiet market. outdated now and a truck rumbling me, otherwise I can get free and of good character. Spoleto is my first goal - and although the wind is slow - first from the side, later coming from the front - I have the best mood.

What could be better than free and unfettered to pass through the land? Only the bike under the rear, a small bag of back, free, free as a migrant bird, free, free ... I take a deep breath, breathe the oxygen, the sun-impregnated, but moist air Umbria and am ... happy.

spectacular curls the Lanmdschaft next to me on and off, villages, sometimes elegant, sometimes even adventurous built into the rock, only accessible by narrow, steep streets, castles, palaces, monasteries, wineries - I regret that I betonerne the dragon, this modern highway only keeps them here to look even beyond the high-tech ways to see, to be really close, here what I can only admire from afar breathlessly: idyllic, beautiful space, perfect world.

appear before me at the first mountains, which must soon be Spoleto, I think the first car next to me honks. Screw you, I think, lick me: Your Carabinieri, it allows me!

Just before the city I get lost, because I believe I have found an exit, which brings me to a parallel road from which I was told: empty country road, not this road-racing track, it would be now. It is of course not: I wander around for about 10 kilometers, before I go back to the highway.

Also I decide today not to go to Rieti, but straight to Civita Castellana. And while

I still think, I almost collided with a mountain of Spoleto is: a castle perched at the top, including a nearly vertical rock wall, which I shoot at 40 km / h and soon disappears in a tunnel.

internal shocks me back my sunglasses, which I preserved to me and wonder why my heart rate reached at once the 200 limit and I feel this strange pull in the throat: Danger! And before me, the next truck, which is only 30 cm next to me with 100 km / h rushing past me frightened to death again, I shoot even out of the tunnel.

managed 40 kilometers, it is just before 9 clock - the first break at the motorway service station in Spoleto.

I sit in the sun, enjoy ice cold iced tea - the liquid in bottles has exceeded my thanks to sunlight, shortly after leaving the 40-degree mark - eat two panini and type some text message to the loved ones at home.

verabsschiede I am soon back in Spoleto, waving the back of the castle, and make me into the increase, of which one had told me at the hotel in Foligno: We would be long, very long and very steep to be. Lots of traffic. Much risk. Well look, let's see.

Things happen as they had promised me the sun first appears to be just on the back. No, she bangs. I can almost physically feel how to make their rays, the fabric of my jerseys, bounce and squeeze the heat on my skin, under my skin. Water, a precious wet my body, enriched with even more precious salts, they push out.

Well. And then, then it comes: the rise. Significantly, it attracts, it goes up. Before me, I'll look at them closely, are nearly 2,000 meters ramp. Straight, ascending, no curvature, nothing - only gradient upward. And then, as above, just before the towering wall of green, forested mountain-grown, as it bends to the right.

view is not what is behind the curve. But I suspect there will be no departure. No, I rather suspect it will continue. Top. Top. Only to the top - until we have circled the mountain.

I'm right. I shall drop me up the climb. I leave a trail dripping sweat, a trail of blood, a tear trace precious salt.

If I get my head up - because my neck muscles repeatedly denied their service - I see nothing but green walls around all around me and a gray band that more and more increasing. Up and up.

I look down once, I see shiny calf, strained tendons and muscles, sweat-covered strands, which are struggling to turn a crank.
A hero is different.

But then you hear the mountain below me. Just like that. The road becomes Bridge. Seamless, you hardly notice it. At first, anyway. But then, when the hillside behind and below me ever further away, and I begin to understand that this bridge spans here in at least 100 meters above a deep gorge, reach me gusts to force pull nasty winds on my bike and me to the highest concentration - and the fans continue to take me to get over 100 mph in their tricked-out Fiat at least not increased consideration.

ask only one thing I am: Who builds a bridge please to rise above a canyon?

Eventually I manage.
some point it's there, the final corner. I reach, take note of them - no power to delight. No sigh of relief, a winning photo, or any reaction. I drive over the vertex, sign that the pedals turn more easily, high, the more lowered the roadway. And then, I go around a curve, the road emerges from under me and then I recorded the wake of the inclined plane. He pulls me, I accelerated, making that my bangs wind in your hair, makes that the freewheeling hums a song of praise for the departure.

I am away duck, duck me and I will quickly faster and faster. Shoot from a curve in the next, joints, correct, join me, if it is just flat, brake times, when the serpentine curves are too narrow. Then I shoot from a last tunnel, a final exit and go to my second stop point: Terni.

arrival. Descending. Sit down.

I sit down to a few gentlemen to discuss the proposed in the midday heat, look at the map to see where I am and drink two Lipton iced tea away just like that, I make myself a huge Panino with Parma and mozzarella - in the climb, I hardly noticed how much I had already sent my stomach cramping warning: Hardly imagine what a Bonking would have done!

you babbling beside me, as if there were plans to hurry a revolution. Somehow infected by them, I saddle after a few minutes later my bike and drive off to cross Terni.

says about this city in my travel companion Goethe:

"The town is situated in a delightful place I gazed on a tour of her with joy, at the beginning of a beautiful Plaine, between mountains, which all still lime are . Like Bologna over there, so of Terni is over here down at the foot of the mountain. "

Well, the river I fail to see, but the few minutes I carried in the city to shoot, I delight in the beauty of this little gem on pituresken Velino. I regret that I do a little way to the highest waterfalls in Europe, the Marmore "can not afford and step back inside.

Behind Terni receives me start again a mountain range that I However, after a brief increase and overcome more cautious descent.

is flatter, with retreat of the mountains, only when I turn around I see what I've just crossed, and only when I look forward to open those Plaine, of which the Lord Weimar Privy writes. Terni, the output from the mountains, I have done.

I think.

It goes through some small villages. The road gets narrower and narrower, also makes the surface more and more to be desired. Apparently, the municipalities or the state for the mountain passes more money than the flat sections. So I have time after time away from my - actually comfortable width - shoulder and go at times almost entirely in the middle of the road.

course - it no one honks. They all get on seeing a rapid, but safe.
Well, 'tis containing Ferrari land here.

It goes uphill again at some point, which is to get over, because the increase is hardly the question value. But the headwind, which now gets caught in my wheel on my body and my helmet, is preparing to rob me of the nerve.

Fiese gusts slowing me jerk off to low twenties. I have trouble to accelerate again, the eternal switching and in particular the switch from small on the large sheet and then again from the great little leaf away my nerves.
Soon I am screaming annoyed against the O2 overkill.

the Wind God disturbs all of this, of course. On the contrary, he puts something extra: In league with the slope of God.

The road is preparing to go back to being perpendicular to the wall.

Before I can enjoy this view, I'm fighting myself a few kilometers up an ever increasing absurd, ever closer, small country road. I look up, I see more and more winding, with each part of the 200 year-old passer-by, I overtake, whose smile is wider. You know the good, I'm apparently not the first racing cyclist who is doing this slope here.

some point I read what I try to just desperate to reach: Narni.

top, I pass through a gate of thick stones. But the road does not on the plane. On the contrary, with each meter, which I am opposed to the center of this place the gradient seems to be steeper. Absurd, my muscles groaning. But there is no answer: no more energy for the brain. Stupid do the legs, which was applied to them at the foot of the mountain.

some point I'm up. Stand there and see what is Narni: a dream city. One, like those from "Lord of the Rings." Adventurous carved into the rock, buildings cling to the hillside. Far below, in the valley since ironed, zero slope, of the modern smooth, the highway winds through the woods. But up here I breathe Italy. I see history - because I know I just know that every stone - even those elaborately carved from a block of stone bench on which I have a break enjoy - historically.

Whether Goethe had not sat here on this rock terrace, one day? Here, where now my great carbon-powered car so casually leaning on the grid?

Everything is so beautiful here, to look so beautiful. Italy, I finally understand why they are all so passionate about this country, its beauty, this wilderness - that nature. Or is it because every stone away from the old Roman trade route Via Flaminia, where I reel off my miles for some miles, breathes really history?

"What am I not become the last 8 weeks guilty of friends and insight, but also trouble cost me's. I just keep my eyes open and always hit me the items a right. . Judgments I would not if it were only possible "

right has he, sir. This flow so many things on me that I'm glad it at night to be able to reasonably fully capture in my diary
so overwhelmed me everything here, so completely freed from everyday life, be free!. Here am I "

I stand for a while and enjoy the view Not to good to be true, I think, and forget it it also determines the disadvantages of living up here: everyone going to the Supermarket is a 30 minute drive to Terni, every minute of free time is here again show running for delighted tourists - what I as a traveler passing through lovely idyll, may be annoying to residents everyday.

What is this, to be 17 years old in Narni? Is there a disco?

I look around me, as I leave the city - high above I go on the narrow ridge of the mountain, on whose back this old city is built. And I look forward in eager anticipation: Sure it's steep and fast downhill as soon as I have come earlier steep uphill and absurd.

nil. Mile after mile, the road winds high on the back of the mountain. Almost an hour I curve around - but realize that it steadily downhill. But as disappointing slowly that I hardly ever break through the 40 mark.

is boring me here, however, because all around me is spreading around a beautiful green valley where the sun is very pretty. Fruitful because it may be down: the olive harvest here, which I love so much?

The road is little traveled. They probably all take the highway. I want it to be right. I have time to look around me have to step thanks to the slight downward trend of the road have low and can finally relax on the bike.

What is difficult, for both back and legs to sign in slowly, I was in the mountains is clear: Tired, tired. The slope of work takes its toll.

When I'm there?
20 km? Rather
30, right?

More and more I fall in Raddepression. What half an hour ago could still evoke the highest ecstasy rebounds, now in my jaded mood: I can not anymore.

The headwind has increased again and the deeper I get, the more I feel it. Needs to come hard, has a lot of work for my km / h.

The road leaves me back to the Mind. This is not a coating, which are ancient mosaics, they have just sloppily put back together. Each groove, every little hole caused me pain in the butt, especially the wrists.

evasion has become meaningless: The whole road is a patchwork of asphalt fragments. It seems as if an entire Panzer army on a brutal march had passed through here.
And also listens to the sound produced by my 8-bar relentlessly hard tires on the ground.

have roles?
No way!

Then, coming as it does, the departure. Briefly catapulted me to 55 mph - I still wonder how my Carbon this Schütteltour abkann ever, and already it is over.
I must go through a small forest - a few rows of trees impenetrable hear my side of the highway - then cross over on a bridge and selbige I find myself in a plane.

It's hot.
hot Brooding. Stopping means exposing yourself to the perfect calm. That's going to be like in a convection oven. Only without air circulation. I can see the sweat evaporate. Even the incessant chirping of the crickets seems to be hard. Here it may be in the sun very well be 47, 48 degrees.

And then: A shield. The rescue! "Civita Castellana Centro" it says.
What? Already the center? Then it can indeed not be far!
New Hope germinates in me. I take a deep train of the hot broth, which was once iced tea and try reinzutreten.

I kick and kick and kick me in hot trance. Need only smile about the signs that line the avenue, and the "town center" tell where this is not even a city, nothing, only fields and trees, the plane and this shimmering heat to me all the water from the veins draws. It deafened in my head cool, I need cooling. My travel companion Goethe was driving on the very same road as before:

"The road, from the height to Civita Castellana is in this very beautiful stone lava went smoothly, the city built on volcanic tufa, in which I believed ash, pumice and lava discover. From the castle, the view is very beautiful;. The mountain Soracte stands alone because even picturesque, probably belonging to the Apennine limestone "

Also I look at this Soracte that before me, elusive as the Cheops pyramid as a single obelisk out of the plane projects. Behind it, I think, must come at some point then Rome.

But from Rome, I may now have yet imagined. I drag myself along the road. In my cycling shoes prevailing conditions such as short after the Big Bang, I think to myself, woe to the receptionist who has to sell the same to me my room: I stink like a madman determined after the battle.

But still no city. No city, on which I made Goethe so desire.

misery goes along the road, go straight. In the end - nothing. Absolutely not. No goal in sight, no fixed point, not a place where I could say: Since, I have to go! Is still far away, but I can see it!
No, this is nothing.

Only the flicker of heat on the asphalt. Only my sound of rattling and clattering Lungeln links.
thirst.
water.
Stop! The

Pulse, here and now to stop just to be stronger and stronger. Just look for shade. Stop. Sit down. Just like that. Stop. Maintenance. Off.

And yet ...

some point, I am there. Eventually I see the city on the hill behind their strong walls. Above sits a church. Towering above homes. And up there, I know there is somewhere above a hotel in which I can take a shower immediately.

I rats - after I've entered via a narrow bridge, the city - over rough cobblestones, a police officer ask for a hotel and sent me on one of these narrow streets.

Then I stand at the 4-star outfit called Relay Falisco . Wow, I think, which is determined not be a cheap flophouse, and reserve the right than I am - a little shy and I contrast that make a sweaty, ready, stinking road cyclists here to the tasteful antique atmosphere must be fully aware. The interior promises top-class level.

80 euros for the "large single room" you want to have breakfast by myself. Well like that! And few minutes later, my toilet is in the journey 3.99 bathroom next to the exquisite hotel shampoos.

hole from the minibar I happy and satisfied an ice cold beer. Make myself comfortable in my really big, knight-like Bedroom and rub cream into my legs: for they have really done a great job today.

Then I nod off briefly, but arouses violent stomach growling me. I dress and look for the sometimes only 2 yards out after a narrow alleys Ristorante.

I pass a beautiful chapel, look down into the valley of the thick walls, you hear far away a mama mia Mama scold the children and follow my nose in a restaurant that looks very inviting.

Here I sit, let me bring a pint of excellent Umbrian house wine and order a pizza with wagenradgroße centimeter-thick layers of fresh arugula and Parma ham.

buzz next to me in his usual manner sympathetic aufrdringlich-two American women.

It turns out that the two are from my second favorite city in the U.S., from Seattle. And when they ask me where I was then, and I would drive home here so I also tell them that I finished in her hometown of Seattle a year ago my tour through Canada.

amazed because they tell me and again that they were on a 3-week shopping trip for an American pottery chain by Italy, Spain and Portugal. Oha, I'm there - no unpleasant way, a living to earn ...

Rochelle and Melinda are concerned, when I told them the news of the day tell - because France has a monster downpour today called for 15, 20 deaths. A single heavy rain, that's incredible, I say.

"Sounds like Texas," entgegenet Rochelle. And since I have to laugh.

The sun goes down, we stroll back to the hotel, because as it turns out, the relay is the only house in order. We are in the great hall, the foyer is now, I say goodbye to the Internet corner and write my sweet a love email, I too heavy, the creaking wooden stairs to climb up in my boudoir.

runs the TV, the stage of the Tour de Suisse, I'm still a Nastro Azzuro on and put your feet up. Done for today, I congratulate myself and cheers to my bike.

And tomorrow, tomorrow, then Rome. Morning, the 5th stage. The fifth and final stage - and finally a rest day in the city of cities. A day of rest. Peace. Time not connect. Time not torture. Time wheeze not thirsty.

Rome. Madness!

I turn around, puffing gleefully into bed and hold it as the Lord Privy Councillor of Weimar .

"Tomorrow night in Rome so I think it still hardly and if this desire is fulfilled, what should I do after? I know of nothing more than than that I might end up happy with my pheasant Kahn to home and meet my friends healthy, happy and benevolent. "

Well, my trip will be in Rome is not quite finished, on the contrary, but sounds nice anyway - and reminiscent of the overpowering, huge anticipation and excitement for the eternal city, I fall asleep, dawn away in the heat and dreaming


Stage 4 - Foligno-Civita Castellana

leg length.
107.7 km gross travel time: 4 h 30 min
Net travel time: 3 h 57 min
section: 22.1 km / h


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Christening Message Cards

Tappa 3 to Foligno

"Good morning, dear sun!" I rejoice when I look out my window in the morning and the powerful central star of our solar system is preparing to merge with faded just past the front of my house roof shingles.

Well, if that's not a good omen times, right?

I turn on my phone and my sweet text message arrives - she is very excited because now she will have to check in for their big flight to China. I smile, send you an electronic kiss and make me - once again as the first guest of the hotel - about the fresh buffet ago. Unfortunately, the morning meal at the Albergo Bice is not that great hope as the Lord's Supper was: Even back only candy and cereal. No meat, no ham. Whole grain? Not applicable.

Well, at least the coffee - as everywhere in Italy - is a stunner.

little later I'm sitting in my Prologo Saddle Cervélo-Renner, shouldered the sack, 1.5 liters of apple juice in the tanks under me and so I steer my bike on the road. Outside the Albergo I just need to turn left - already I'm on the road that I will bring to today's stage target: After Foligno, the heart of Umbria.

In the mountains it is today Go my first stage with continuous slopes and - I hope at least - some delicious descents. So I leave the Adriatic coast, say goodbye to Senigallia and step inside.

Direct is the last house in town then it already happening: the road runs noticeably - but not hard on. So it's really from the first few meters uphill.

early bird catches the worm ...

I'm making good progress. It's still very early, as usual are hardly any cars on the road, it's a breeze blowing from the front, the brakes but little me rather pleasantly cool. The sun is already quite high, even temporarily disappear when the trees and foliage in Myriarden of Schattenspielchen shines forth, but it is still quite fresh. With optimistic

28, 29 km / h uphill I connect - unfortunately, the road in an extremely bad state, so my progress now and likes to remind Cross or trial, for on road bike.

Still, a strange euphoria germinates in me. And I feel: The early bird - so I - will now get a big worm!

I quickly reach small towns like Ostra Ostra Vetere, or left and right of me to fold the first small, then, almost imperceptibly, at ever-growing hills. Agriculture is operating here - I can see wine groves, fields of lettuce, tomatoes and green corn, I see few fruits and even the first olive trees.

My countryman Goethe was unfortunately not over - he had a rather, well, let's say, more cultural selected route over the Apennines: Sure, because Perugia is the Lord Privy could not miss. But I can understand: What was the brilliant author of Dolktor fist at the beach of Rimini? Do not worry, I know, because I will cross his itinerary has yet again.

Light fog is still on wet ground, colorful flickering checkerboard fields with the sun in corner of my eye to race and I am beginning to realize then tweaking the pitch in my calves.

I drink a lot - every 15 to 20 minutes, I take one, two strong sips from my bottle. Sometimes there are tighter turns, which then also fold forward bends taking, small hillocks up, and when I go to the edge, I can see far left and right of me already handsomely in the valleys of Umbria. A wonderful sight.

But sometimes it is simply dead-straight on just a few kilometers. Then slim poplars lined my path, provide shade and I can hardly Blättergeraschel from their buzzing my Dura Ace differ.

How old like this street to be here, let me think, and try to imagine how Rome's legions here Two thousand years ago with her husband and baggage are taken off in the provinces, as this was perhaps one or the other Apostles and of the way - there! - Maybe this bridge, stood on this stone Caesar and eaten a banana?

bananas! How I miss that energy-giving miracle fruit! Daily for four to six pieces of this crooked, potassium-containing tropical fruits have taken me a year ago in the Rocky Mountains - here in Italy I've never eaten one of those power bombs. Or "have to eat," I should almost say, 'Am I really in better shape, that I can do without them?

Another elongated hill pulls Radtrance me out of my considerations.

I pass the turnoff to Montecarotte and got over 30 miles on the odometer, and more specifically, on my Garmin Forerunner, and is actually my first 30's break due. But it rolls just as well. I'm making such good progress - no, I think, stop, I can still later.

An increase in farewell

then signaled my phone a text message. I fummle the awkward part of my jersey and read at a speed of 25 that my mouse now climbs the plane. Last SMS from Germany. I smile, pain and joy simultaneously swell up in me, I have the impulse to call her, the last Chance to hear this fine, this my voice again, a greeting to say goodbye, only briefly, but quickly, the farewell ... than the road to a time bent up.

pulls noticeably to them, I have a need, two gears down. I put the phone back into the jersey away the pain of parting, my girl away - because someone has declared war. And with mountains I see no fun.

lies before me Arcevia. On top of the mountain a stately castle, a monastery or the like, the road seems to SSIE zuzulaufen, but will circle the mountain. I hope.

I quickly came closer, I form one, but the castle is growing only slowly in front of me to win, is taking shape, larger and larger. And looked very impressive from a distance what is now every hundred meters even more impressive - a fortification, which is impressive. Wartburg-scale, impressive!

Again and again I must turn my head demanding up to admire the castle.
I nurmehr 15, then 13 km / h I crank me the pitch that covers close to the castle hill, up, walk around half then the system and then throw myself out of breath in the first run of my tour of Italy.

curls in front of me, the road is heavily falling backward into a long, long right-hander. I shift up, accelerating so good I can reach the maximum speed of my cassette and go to the bottom arm posture. Then I concentrate on finding the optimal line, coordinating the transition between left-and right-hander trying to brake as little as necessary and sing in short, let loose for a moment my concentration in order to enjoy this departure - Wow, what a feeling!

My heart is pounding, my wheels hiss is the only way through the wind, only the free-wheeling rattles buzzing at me, or silence, I can even hear birds sing, when I descended whistling into the valley between two mountains, to me the wind, the overheated knee cooled and the sweat on the bare Breast dry.

After several minutes all over - but I'm so happy, adrenaline shoots me out to the ears. It is these moments that make forget the pain of a pitch!

Behind the castle a few miles I drive with a slight downward trend by a plane, flanked left and right of even higher mountains. At the end of a mountain range that blocks my way - over here I'll probably have to!

A Männerserpentine please

And then it comes the first real pitch bends, the first small pass, the first major climb from the bottom to the top: A few miles behind Arcevia. A mountain like a wall piles up in front of me. Meanwhile, it is just before 12 noon, then, I slap, klaro, because of course I do not break at the 30th kilometer and therefore made only a few drops of moisture in my bottles.

I look at a traffic sign: "6 cycles" is there, even if I do not speak Italian, I can see immediately what I want to say the sign. 6 times hairpin. 6 times suffer. Well then!

This increase is not for wimps, I can see the same. It goes from the first few meters from almost straight up. Even my - as "my road bike seller so beautiful? - "Trellis", ie the smallest sprocket is here at the limit.

I'm from and to pain in the saddle and after a few meters of the calves. It is exhausting than ever to push this up at least 16%. Even my toughest stages of the Estrellas del Serra in Portugal, the most vicious mountain in Japan or even the two 1,300 meter high passes in Canada can not get to this little streets in Umbria: The thing requires all!

The worst thing in the hairpin bends. Here, the gradient increases to temporarily post more than 20% and you have to be careful to have enough momentum: even if I could get here fast enough click-in/click-out to stop: a re-start would be at this pitch impossible!


The first three hairpins I master. Barely so. Then I stop, save me in a shadow, click off, turn of the wheel and yell "Fuck-o-mio grande!" in the gorge.
age Swede - what is this? I think we look at the road. Sure, this is how steep Hulle, but SO?

I think of my recumbent bike and I drove to the slopes. There I had a Rohloff mounted Speedhub who let me crank up the steepest slopes with a minimum of 6 mph. 6 km an hour - I remember well the Coquihalla Pass in Canada. A whole hour and it could take even longer until I den Berg had mastered. Infinite crank work.

And now, with road and "trellis"? I am amazed when I was a couple of minutes later weighing am stepping into the pitch: Rich 15 km / h I do - so you get the bike up the hill twice as fast as with a recumbent bike.

That the saddle so much mind, I would not have thought!

goes behind the mountain is slightly downhill. Disappointed and betrayed if my salary, I fight my hinturch slope under the firm now, the sun shining. No cool shade, the water bottles are almost empty.

In front of me again one of these Umbrian valleys: Left and right do not very far away, some mountains, and lift gently on a type of plane that is broken again and again by waves. Agriculture, small farms and from time to time a small village ... FUUUIIIIIIII! ... makes it as a time.

rush to me, "Ciao!" bellowing about 30 bikes over. An entire platoon pursued by a police van with colorful stickers. Before I can raise your hand, the guys are over. Oha.

It smells of cardamom, coriander to, so intense that I seem like one of those narrow side streets in New York's Chinatown. I have such an intense smell of a field has never been perceived. I stop and stand at an onion field with flowers as big as a child's head. I could almost imagine myself in my sun delusion that they are millions of microphones that I be kept here, contrary to catch a statement.

Umbria, Umbria mio!

is steeper. The slopes where I go fall off nasty. The slopes themselves are getting longer and longer and the views that I can enjoy now, the more spectacular. I am now in the middle of it, in Umbria, I think, as a bead one or two drops of sweat from his nose.

People in Senigallia asked me to drive over Cheggia. At some point I'm at the junction there and have the election. The road that I could drive well, continuing on decent ground, as far as I can see that.
The other, on Cheggia, winds up in front of me first elaborate a ridge.

So not Cheggia.

I do not regret my choice. It continues at a moderate pace - always around the 30 km / h - on the one and the other shaft. Places with such beautiful names as Nocero Umbra I pass from time to time a car, very very little traffic, which may be due to the midday heat and remoteness of this area.

My mood is fine, although visibly evaporates the pavement. People, our German catastrophe streets are the cleanest luxury pad against the Aspahltpuzzle about which I have here in Crossermanier jolt!

I fight again one up in this short but toxic mountains, than I only get about a hermit. White-bearded, with root wood floor and nothing of it as the jute on his body, he is comfortable. A pilgrim?

top of the slope suits me a racing cyclist. Sweaty and pale - he has just climbed, I would rush down the same. We greet us - then I reach the summit, gas and can give half a minute to enjoy 60 km / h. Up comes the next wave.

If I want to Foligno and Cheggia not, then I have to Fabriano. This is so very crystal clear from my credit card. I fight a few waves, maybe a dozen, on through the shimmering heat, my Trikt is now fully open again, but the cooling effect is rather modest.

Every truck that comes towards me and by the wind, I get a scrubbed, is welcome to me: Cool! Whether me every time slows down by 5, 6 mph. Sometimes, however, is for a quarter of an hour not a single car. It blows no breeze. Just me, my hot breath and my butt, the logs slowly again.

Then finally a break. The gas station is well attended, a bunch of old men has made himself comfortable at the next table and moan about this and that.

I drink my first mandatory bottle of iced tea, plus a huge eat baguette with a centimeter layer of Parma ham. The whole baguette € 1.20. Madness, I think the chatter of the boys next door: In Germany you pay for a nanometer thin slice of Parma with a price hell - here they pop the stuff to you, such as masonry mortar around the ears!

filled the bottles, cooled quickly and still gepieselt behind the gas station, I saddle my horse, I buckle the bag and to kick in - heat out of the way! I want to Foligno!

Can not be far away, too: At least I'll be right in Fabriano, and I have one more time to cross a mountain range - that's it!

Really?

When I finally arrived in Fabriano I have a grin on his cheeks: shallow Last 6 kilometers it went, but noticeably downhill. Perceptible, that I am pretty comfortable with 35 things the worst potholes could still sail around - and yet in manner Racer first to the gigantic work of the household appliance manufacturer Indesit fly past and soon after arriving at the large roundabout by Fabriano.

And prune.

In no signs of Foligno is identified. Uh, hello?

As I stand in the heat of the day at the large roundabout and I am wrong. Somehow.
laugh in a Harley shop far away. The nasty kind, the kind where you can hear: "Ah, once again such a fool to here runterpeest the departure and has no idea."

One of the rockers come to me, go with me to the door and show it to me.
His finger is going uphill.
The route back, I came down.
some point, he says, up there, it's going to Rome. And since I had to turn.

Ah. Great.


fate and give something mad at myself, I chastise myself back up the slope. Na, 12 km detour, as we had been worse! I think I kick in and.

Kiss my ass is hot! My calves suffocated under layer of sunscreen, like pearls on top of an even thicker layer of milky-white sweat, punctuated by fine black dust particles from road and exhaust.
Herrlich.

The first bottle is already all. After an eternity
sheer then the sign - must actually to Roma I.

straight Sassoferrato as the monsters slope has nearly killed me earlier, and now say after Roma. First time on my Trip that I see a sign for the capital of Italy. Hello, Premiere!

Rome, I will be in 3 days. Rome, because I will have a rest day ... Peace ... Peace ... how far it sounds! Not to have to connect to squat in not stooping to 700 grams of carbon, which seems like a strange concept of an even more alien culture.
I've become the cyclists. For nomads. Fused with my companions. Another movement than those in times of need boost - unthinkable for me!

Well. And then they come. The real mountains. Those who are made for men. The ones I would probably get it. I would run over Cheggia. Since it folds up in front of me, the earth. Since listening fields and villages on abruptly, any civilization ends. I ride on the little sheet, select a low gear. 20 km / h, it goes up from, and I have to swallow - pressure on the ears. Slope in the legs while my legs crawling up the slope. Breathtakingly beautiful

here. Thuringian Forest. Alps. Rockies. So it looks here - but without snow on the peaks. Moist, lush green forests, the smell, I crank on slopes along me, screw me later. And with each meter decoupled I am more than ever, the civilization here in Umrbien, anyway, seems very far away.

alone. Paradise in pain. It is a dream!

I do not know how long I struggle up the hill. It is in long sweeping corners on the slope along. Time the mountain is right, sometimes left. Sometimes I have to look almost straight down when I turn my head, sometimes signs warn me from falling rocks from above. Knock on wood, I think - I've got a super helmet!

bloody stupid!

And then I reach him, the apex. I notice it because it is always easier to kick, shift up as I can, because from 20 km / h 25 are suddenly and then 30

I'm up. One last time swallowing the last time take a sip from the bottle and then I rolled around the corner and see him: The entrance to the tunnel.

Na Hossa!

I whistling in the tube - slowly at first, because it is still uphill. Silence and darkness surrounds me, immediately I can see anything. The tunnel describes a curve, so I can perceive no light at the end. A sinking feeling creeps up in me, as always when I drive through tunnels. I know these already, but the tunnel from various adventures, mainly Canada and Japan had to offer as some, but routine I do not dare to talk - Tunnels are always exciting, and negative.

I try as much as possible to drive right. not to far if whether there are under my broken glass, holes or drains, I can not see. Too far left, and the cars or even trucks have a good chance to take me.

I accelerate, notice that I can be faster - it goes down. I shift up, then on the large sheets - how fast I might now be? 40, 50? No idea. The sparse lighting above me to hear, no more lights, but I now see the light of day - because the very back.

Then a car roars past me, then another. By the echo in the tunnel walls, it sounds like teen cries during a Tokio Hotel concert. "No light," I cry to myself, as my knowledge of the by shrugs, that I do not travel more in my recumbent spaceship with SON lie Edelux and automatic sensor, but on a completely reflectionless bike without any lights.

Ah, no, my Sidis have even a small reflection from the bottom layer - this is what for!
Then I shoot out of the tunnel at last. Wow! What a ride, I tremble in the heat of me welcoming other side! And as it falls to me like scales from the eyes, the old error: I was flipping idiot standing around all the time on my sunglasses! Leeeeuuuute, please!

But to think is not a long time because my bike jumps with joy turning into the exit. It takes a few minutes with 60 km / h - unfortunately not because of the headwind - downhill into elongated curves. I enjoy the intermediate sprints, all the time in the bottom arm position and am pleased me because that's really the reward for the arduous climb. Sometimes I can go along the lee of a van a few hundred feet, sometimes I push the air turbulence from trucks with a short time jerk.
Wonderful.

After 15 minutes I'm down, get fired from the mountains and find myself in a broad valley. Like a hose it winds through the flanking mountains, which seem to exclude it from the outside world.
Up Foligno only 20 kilometers.

I drive parallel to the highway, which shoots only a few hundred meters away from me as flat straight across the landscape. My luck, because it leaves the road relatively empty and I can enjoy the ride - my bad luck, because the road is there in every hill, riding from each wave, waiting often with - on biting ramps - usually only one hundred meters long. It is a kind of stop-and-go traffic, is to round kick out of the question.

And then a rain shower.

strike muscle

My mood has once again I'm dry halfway, increased only moderately again. hanging over me thick, fluffy clouds, it is hot but very humid, it steams and rumbles, the hot stones and steam from the asphalt and my lungs H2O whistle on the last hole. Even the ice cold iced tea, which I've just got to a gas station, is already almost cooked. It's beginning to grow tiresome.

As I take me a heart, "Fuck!" I holler into the wonderful landscape and turn. On the highway. For the hill in front of me there, nope, let me, now serpentine and such jokes? Not with me!

And again: hard shoulder - stepped in, eyes and go! I haue clean and can hold a 40 average. There are no hills, miles and miles It's like a high street by Umbria. No one honks, well, one, two, but do not mean it that way. I come and crank and kick me in a trance, anger wells up in me, I can not, but I want, want, now wants to aim! So I crank me into a rage and fear that Carabinieri could discover cash in me and drives me even further.

last few miles from Foligno I take a break in a side street to a farm. Next to a cactus, which is certainly already 300 years old, I let myself sink into the grass, drank greedily from my iced tea boiling and breathe hard. Wow, what a stage! Think to myself.

My bike looks such as Hull, dirt and spray an unsightly film on the snow-white Cervélo frames were formed. Not pretty. Equally unattractive, as my calves that look as if they had just won a mountain bike race mud.

Well then - sit - the lezten five kilometers I can do too!

Through thick and thin

happy to have finally made it, I drive on the highway, not without another me anhupt, it goes a kilometer through increasingly dense urban traffic in the city - already I think my eyes open for a hotel. For, as Foligno originally was not on my route, I have booked anything.

I approach a large roundabout - as I am to a time in my nose goes on: A smell that I pulled together the intestines. It does not smell, it smells here: Here decayed somewhat.

"age", I call, it is almost unbearable, my face, what's the matter?

Then I get to the roundabout and must blink, what is there? Large clusters ... pink ... Stuff? The cars around curves, I come closer, as I see it, recognize it at last relaxed in the hot sun, there are probably 40 degrees, a huge pile of rotting offal. It stinks so pathetic that tears to my eyes and breathe I can hardly stand. Wow, to describe!

But I still shoot with 35 km / h on this huge pile of intestines, cars manschen through thick and thin, and it squirts splatattert, across the street from a slurry flows Innereimansche and blood. It is the most disgusting I have ever seen. !

watching, I think, as I narrow my road bike tire in the massacre navigate - too much slope and I slid out. Brakes impossible. I drive through the mass, it makes a noise as if I would have tapered even vomit, mushy Ekelmasse against my lower leg - in the corner of my eye I see people look at the edge of the roundabout. Well, if what is already happening in Foligno, then they want to see here.

I swear me: If I crash now in this Stinkebrei, I never go bike!

Finally I get to the Old Town, the pedestrian zone as iszt deserted: There are probably all at the roundabout. A sign points the way to a four-star hotel, I follow him.

My choice proves to be lucky in every way: The room here in the Hotel Italia is huge, it is very tastefully decorated and the ladies at the reception as friendly as ever. I roll into the well-tempered rooms in the medieval knight style, turn of my Cervvélo and let me first of all a bath.

I enjoy the bath, the so- great that I can put my 1,86 m comfortable in it, almost an hour. Ah, the wonderful: In hot water I wash my Ekelschaum the welcome from the innards.

foams me again with fresh water, and enjoying it easy to be penetrated into the heart of Umbria, and today these rushes, led me on idyllic country roads, picturesque mountains and canyons and the crazy highway.

Then I go a little bit of the old town, sit down on the meticulously restored market square, its dust breathes history, a drink, two Cappucchini that this cost only € let me two focaccias taste and the sun shine on your nose - Dolce Vita how I like it. Burn down the calves and the top I smell like a delicious shower - welch'Unterschied to smell the gut of the roundabout. Disgusting.

Back in the hotel room, I wash my clothes - extra two times, because who knows where everything is executed injected the sauce - and hang them on the shutters. Unfortunately, I look back on a scaffolding. I spend an even two hours in bed, nod off briefly, and then it's time for dinner DSAs.

And since I enjoy a fantastic Umbrian wine, warm, homemade bread, wonderful antipasti with me today, as I write this, re-run the mouth water. The main course is the best pasta I've ever had in my life, and also there is a salad that was previously cut you more of the fat moms that I could hear from my room.

Dregängemenü A-class - and all who come to Foligno, is the Hotel Italia and the great restaurant hereby highly recommended. There


evening again World Cup soccer, but I dawn away quickly, before raiding the mini bar and ice-cold planning to release the stage tomorrow: Tomorrow, I determine it is not to Rieti. But according to Civita Castellana.

And here, I know I will meet an old friend again: Mr Goethe.

Section 3 - Senigallia-Foligno

leg length: 132.8 km
gross travel time: 5 h 30 min journey time
net: 5 h 06 min
section: 25.7 km / h


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