Distance is a barrier to attending school, receiving healthcare, delivering goods to market and other critical services needed to thrive.
With the extraordinary generosity of all of our donors from all over the world, we greatly exceeded our goal, providing, not ten but, FOURTEEN bicycles to help empower women and girls around the world, shortening distances and toppling barriers.
Bicycles help children get to school and stay in school. Bicycles enable health workers to visit more patients’ homes, more often. Bicycles provide greater carrying capacity, enabling entrepreneurs to transport more and save valuable time.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Last Sunday, the day of the ride, the forecast was grim: thunderstorms all morning, day and night. Thankfully, sandwiched between the rocky foothills of the Alps and the vast Po river valley, you can’t predict the weather.
Instead, we awoke early to the inimitable sound of mountain silence. The sky was clear, and the morning sun was just beginning to highlight the fake and fading Neoclassical facade of the apartment across from our bed and breakfast. After hastily eating half a sandwich and finishing my morning ablutions, we were off!
Through the uncannily clean city streets of Riva del Garda we made our way to Liberty Park where we had decided to start and finish the ride. After a few quick photos, I set off along the palm-lined streets guiding us down the eastern side of Lake Garda.
The first stretch of the ride, a mere warmup of sixty kilometres from Riva to Peschiera (both “del Garda”), was some of the best cycling I have ever done. Having left early enough, the only traffic at first was my long-suffering wife and brother-in-law-cum-photographer, leapfrogging me in the car and getting these amazing shots.
The spectacle of exiting a dank narrow tunnel to see the colossal expanse of the mountains across the lake glimmering in the early morning light is something I will never forget. They say that the light is different in Italy, and I’d say that, whether it’s from the refraction through plumes of adolescent cigarette smoke in crowded city squares or in the sparkle of crystalline waters in isolated glacial lakes, I’m inclined to agree.
About two-thirds of the way down we re-enter civilization, gliding through roundabouts and finally encountering others on the road. The highlight of this portion is Movieland and Gardaland, the biggest, best and brightest of all amusement parks in Italy! Gardaland is also home to my least favourite garnish but all-time favourite mascot of anything ever, Prezzemolo!
Finally, after only two hours or riding and 62km of ground covered, I enter Peschiera through the old brick gate of Porta Verona and make my first stop at the park of Catullus, my favourite raunchy ancient poem writer.
After a quick pose, pee, stretch and sandwich, I’m back on the road for the most crowded and obnoxious part of the journey: into the overflowing streets of Sirmione, Desenzano and Salò. While they’re each individually pretty with their own unique histories and cultures, the roads connecting the three cities are far too crowded with lackadaisical grannies coasting uphill, meandering tourists tripping in circles, rambunctious toddlers teetering into the street, broken down vintage cars stalling in roundabouts, Germans in Ferraris, Italians in Porches, Swiss being Swiss, and the Dutch.
I chose to do the tour in the clockwise direction as I was told the wind would favour me in the morning, and the prevailing advice was right, I made great time! However, I’d begun to head northward, and upward, so things got a bit more difficult for me as I strove to evade the afore-mentioned ever-present obstacles. To help mentally speed things up as my pace slowed and the streets narrowed, I decided to play a game: could I guess the nationality of the license plate based on how aggressively I was being passed/buzzed/yelled at? As it turns out, all of my preconceived notions and prejudices were precisely correct about half of the time. Everyone is just as good as they are bad, more or less.
“Oh wow they’ve given me lots of space and smoothly passed me by with no fuss at all, they must be cycle-friendly Berliners.” “Oh wow, they’ve angrily tried to clip my handlebars with their side mirror even though there’s lots of room, they must be awful autobahn-habituated Bavarians.”
After dipping down into Salò to refill my water bottles and hastily swallow some caffeine-sugar-gel, I hit a nice stretch of road surrounded by short walls which seemed to block the wind well enough. Up and down we go, winding this way and that through a few more small towns before I hit the only real ascent, culminating in a weird line of cars waiting for nothing at a red light inside a tunnel, before finally getting out and reaching the “summit” of the whole tour.
Another brief break followed, and then the final descent, twisting through the last 25km of tunnels back to where it all began in Liberty Park!
Thank you again to Antonella the driver and Matteo the photographer for helping me record this epic journey!
And finally, after changing and hobbling downtown, Matteo’s family was waiting so wonderfully at a local pub, where I could refresh myself in the proper fashion!
A Nix in Brixia 