"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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