Urbanus Magnus

We arrived safely back home at around 11:30pm Toronto time Monday the 18th, after 2 stopovers (one in Frankfurt, the other in Washington, DC), and a lot of confusion in the Naples Int'l Airport. Certainly a bad experience with staff, which lead to us both nearly missing our flight, and also damage to our bicycles. But more on that will come with the Naples posting later. Internet from Rome and south of there had been extremely spotty, and expensive at times (5 euro per hour at a few of our hotels - and still slow by N. American standards), so we haven't yet posted about our visits from Siena onwards. Besides, making time for blog-writing was difficult, what with all the sights planned. For the next few days, I will be writing-up the log of the rest of the trip. So, expect Montalcino's write-up tomorrow, then that of Montepulciano on Friday, followed by posts for Orvieto, Viterbo, Rome, Pompeii, and Napoli and our returning flight in the next week-and-a-bit. After a G...

Since we arrived late in Volterra the previous day, we had a quick walk around the town before we packed up and hit the road to Siena.   Starting with a height advantage helped, but the overall trip was still long, and it was a brutally hot day at times. We stopped for a break at the medieval fort of Monteriggioni halfway along the route to Siena. The road up and through the town gate was so steep that it had ridges created by interleaving the paving stones to give extra traction! One of the gates into Monteriggioni. The fort/town is one of Siena's defensive structures built around the 13th century to protect trade routes against attacks from their rival Florence. In fact, this is where the Dante Alleghieri hid out after he had angered some powerful Florentines with his caricatures of them in his Inferno.  It still has all of its tall walls and 13 turrets intact. Main square of Monteriggioni Siena is possibly a challenger to Florence, in terms of having impre...

We had a good ride from San Gimignano to Volterra.   We were mentally psyched because we knew the ride up to Volterra itself would be very steep.  We stopped by the Super Mercato located just outside of the walls of San Gimignano and bought some fruit, pane, formaggio and salami just before we left for our ride. This worked out well because there weren't a lot of little towns between San Gimignano and Volterra.  The first leg of the day was very ejoyable. It was fairly quiet with few cars. We did have the company a lot of little green lizards who were sunning themselves every few meters along the roadside. They would scury under the scrub brush and grass as we approached them. At one point we road along a gravel road with beautiful vistas of colourful Tuscan hills with rich olive groves, vineyards and grain fields.  Small volcano-like mountains jutting out of the hills in the distance; very picturesque. Riding along an old country road We learned...

We are finding it difficult to find time in between cycling, sleeping and seeing sights to update the blog. We made a few mental notes though, to remember what happened where and when, so we can write up the visits to all the towns we have seen once we reach Rome (or possibly Viterbo). Right now, we are in Orvieto, just preparing to see the town briefly and then check out and cycle to Viterbo.

Note: we are staggering our posts as we have been finding the internet to be slow and spotty coverage. All our posts are behind a few days. June 4 was our first true riding day, where we were tested by the Italian hills and our fully loaded bicycles. The weather cooperated with us for the most part, but we did have to stop around 2pm for about 45 minutes to avoid a down-pour. We found refuge under the overhang of the roof of San Andrea, a tiny country church, about a third of the way between Florence and San Gimignano. We were certainly expecting hills - but I think we (*Ryan*) somewhat underestimated the actual magnitude of the climbs. Here are some stats for our Florence-San Gimignano trek: Total Distance: 60.5 km Average (Moving) Speed: 9.98 km/h Max Speed: 49.3 km/h (gotta love the ride down, after the long climb up!) Min Elevation: 81 m Max Elevation: 443 m Total Elevation Gain: 2087 m We found that our unlocked Galaxy Nexus phone was invaluable for gui...

On Friday we flew in to Florence, after a 7-hour flight from Toronto to Frankfurt, and then a short 2 hour commuter jet brought us into the Gallileo Gallilei airport of Florence. Understandably we were slighty worried about how well our bicycles fared in the flight - or if they even followed us to Italy in the cargo hold of the plane. However, everything went smoothly and our bicycles survived undamaged - likely due to our "leave them no chances to break something" approach to packing them. It took us a little over and hour and a half to unpack the bikes again and move all our equipment from the duffel bags to our panniers, and then off we went. But very slowly, due to the narrower italian roads and zippy cars scooting about haphazardly. Our babies - they are ok! All packed and loaded on the way from the airport to the hotel. Although initially scary and seemingly devoid of order, we have come to find that Florentine roads have polite and highly skil...

This is the [very long] packing list of all the items that we are going to be bringing with us to Italy for our trip (other than our two bicycles, of course). All the items on the list are the totals for both of us combined, unless otherwise noted as per person (p.p.). Extra heavy or bulky equipment like the chain to lock up our bikes, will be bought in Italy once we arrive. Clothing (p.p.) 1 pair light cotton trousers 1 pair cotton shorts 2 pairs cycling shorts 3 pairs underwear 2 cycling jerseys 2 T-shirts 3 pairs socks 1 botton-up/nice long sleeved shirt 1 waterproof riding jacket 1 cycling cap 1 helmet 1 pair cycling gloves - only for Dad 1 pair light pajamas 1 pair running shoes 1 pair walking shoes – Dad buying his overseas Personals/Toiletries Toothbrushes 1 tube toothpaste Contact lenses Lens cases and solution 2 pairs sunglasses - and regular glas...

The Itinerary has been updated to include the next few weeks of detailed sights being seen and events for all our destinations up to Rome. See it here: Summer 2012 Italian Cycling Trip + Itinerary

My buddy O'Malley and I got up early Saturday morning, strapped our bikes onto the back of my family's van and drove up to East Duffins Headwaters for a few solid hours of biking. This fairily well-kept secret of the GTA is a hiking and mountain biking park located in Glen Major forest. The park is owned by the Toronto Regional Conservation Authority (TRCA) and, although not fitted out with large berms, beams or MTB-specific structures, it is spectacular for its single track and quite a few good hills. Not to mention the *huge* length of its trails - there are enough winds, forks, and parallel paths that you wouldn't have seen them all in one full day of riding. Its on Sideline 4, a few kilometers north of Concession Road 9. Here a map of the place: Lots of multi-use, and MTB-oriented, trails. I fooled about with my phone and set it up so that GPS was on, and tracked the expedition: View MTBing the Glen in a larger map --> There are some more routes on...

My new Shimano-hubbed Sunrim Cr-18 wheelset arrived the other day, and to my chagrin - it's not drilled for Schrader valves, but presta valves (those tall, thin metal ones with threads). Nothing is wrong with presta valves - in fact they actually retain air better at high pressures - but the availability of tubes for wider tires is somewhat limited. So what does one do to remedy this problem, short of replacing the rims? Well, you drill the valve holes out, of course. Presta valves are 6mm wide, with a 6.4mm (1/4in) valve hole. In contrast, Schrader valves are 8mm wide, and have an 8.3mm (21/64in) valve hole. Luckily for me, the Cr-18 rims are wide enough to accommodate this wider hole; don't try drilling out thin rims, or those rims with a strongly arched profile, or you may end up weakening the rim significantly. Flat profile rims; its easily drillable.   Select a few dill bit sizes for stepped drilling - this will prevent th...

Mechanical watches aren't yet relegated to the sidelines completely; there are still numerous companies manufacturing thrifty automatic watches in the $80-150 range. Possibly the best example of such a watch is my current timepiece, one from venerable the Seiko '5' line of watches. Unlike their quartz cousins, though mechanicals won't need batteries (and often don't need maintenance for over a decade), they do need adjustment to keep accurate time. My Seiko, which came from the factory about 5 s/day fast, has settled into a consistent 30s/day slow. Not wanting to pay a watchmaker $30 to do something I am capable of, I set about to adjust the mechanism.  Seiko 5 Auto-winding watch - pretty bulletproof, and looks decent to boot Here's what you'll need: A mechanical watch A computer with Audacity or equivalent sound-recording program A microphone A quiet room A set of micro screw drivers/bits A magnifying glass (optional) A watch case opener ...