Cycling

I bought a gravel bike, and I organized a tour with friends around a lesser group of mountains in Trentino (Italy), called the Lagorai group.

Now, if the mountains were gods I would be instantly struck by thunderbolts for having called it a “lesser” mountain. Despite not being as famous as the nearby Dolomites, these are serious mountains, less spectacular perhaps but wilder; there are no crowds on its trails, no fancy mountain huts serving prosecco with pumping music in the background. And if you happen to be in Bellamonte, you would certainly notice these dark and imposing lines of jagged peaks, often obscured by heavy clouds.

October 2016, I finally get the chance to ride my Nicolai Mojo in a proper setting. And what a test it has been!

I have been riding for seven days straight on some wonderful trails mostly around the Huesca province in Spain, south of the Pyrenees. That means mostly Ainsa, for the more knowledgeable bikers, that may remember the 2015 Enduro World Series race.

And yes I should mention the geological significance of Ainsa too. In fact, I have been in this part of the world years ago – around 2006 if memory serves well – but honestly the emotions you get from riding on these rocks are way above those you get from studying them.

Since I last wrote about (stolen) bikes my friend Phil (from T-P 2010) convinced me to get a bike which I would have never thought of buying; a short-travel, full-suspension Norco with 29" wheels. The price was very reasonable too, which I think was essential for my decision.

I have had this Norco since March 2014, and rode it everywhere; from banal cross-country loops to gnarly rocky trails in Finale Ligure (my preferred training playground). It was a blast, and since then I have had only positive thoughts for big wheelers. After a while, I began pushing the bike to its limits and I was considering to upgrade fork and shock but it sounded like one of those stupid upgrades where I had to spend more than what the bike was worth to have truly significant changes.

Last month two bikes were stolen from a certain garage in San Donato Milanese. Those were my mountain bikes; the garage, well that wasn’t mine¹.

And it was dead easy to open the garage for these gentlemen. Not only did they steal my two most precious bikes, leaving the city bikes untouched, but also my tire pump and all of my tools like allen keys and sockets etc. These gentlemen, they were really into bikes and knew their stuff pretty well. I hope they won’t be so stupid to go ride my bikes in Finale Ligure.

It’s been years since I started using Google Calendar to keep track my sports activities. I guess there are countless apps to do this but all I needed is something basic that I can access from anywhere. Since I already have synced my iPhone with Google Calendar, I can basically enter data from wherever I am, even if there is no internet connection, and then have it synced back to my main repository on Google servers as soon as I’m back online.

June 2012, my wife Giulia is 7 months pregnant and we’re having our last holiday together, before the baby comes and wipes clean our current life¹.

We drive our van to Elba, a beatiful island off the coast of Tuscany, just before the hoards of tourists take over the whole place. We spend these 7 days camping in the only campsite that has no animation and no music; and we notice the relation between the percentage of non-italians staying in this campsite and how quiet this place is, and we connect the dots.

A comment on Italians’ ability to manage confusion:

the Italians broke the laws of physics and created instant order out of utter disorder and chaos. We were waved and whistled by the police, straight through to the start area.

About cyclists (especially roadies) shaving their legs:

In fact, it was based on sound principles of physics and human anatomy, where the hairs help in a small way to allow the evaporation of sweat, which takes energy from the surrounding skin to do so. I was always hit by arguments like about how unhygienic it was and how much better a shaved leg would be. But I had read that shaved skin was more likely to suffer infection, which just left the questions about aerodynamics, aesthetics and conforming to my peer group.

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A short recap on how to build and install open mtb maps under OS X.

Essentially, a shorter version of the detailed instructions given on mtb-forum.it, written for my own convenience – but I thought somebody could find it useful especially to see the result of using different ‘styles’.

##tools

• gmapbuilder: to convert the OpenMtbMaps into the .gmapi format.
• MapInstall/MapManager to install the .gmapi files into the system, ready to be used by Basecamp and/or copied into a Garmin gps.
• Basecamp (also available on the AppStore): the main application to view and plan routes.

##data ##

This is so good it’s a shame it lies forgotten in an old issue of DirtRag.

Source: DirtRag issue 145, october 2009.

A 1945 video on Raleigh bicycles, worth watching for historical reasons but also for something that the speaker says towards the end of the movie (around the 16'45" mark):

[…] There are bicycles for all purposes, suitable for men, women boys and girls. A bycicle is a comfortable and cheap way of getting about, a great boon to men, ideal for shopping, easy to park […] A faithful friend ever ready to take tired workers back home and after work to bring relaxation, health and happiness.

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Yesterday evening I had the idea of taking a few shots during this special edition of Critical Mass Milano (special because it was the 10th year anniversary). It’s carnival time too so I figured there would have been good photo opportunities.

But I have a huge backlog of photos to check, catalog and process, so the last thing I wanted was to have another batch of photos waiting to be checked, catalogued and processed.

As promised before, here’s episode 2 of the miniseries “Winter Riding Milano”.

It was shot with Masatomo on Monte Canto, another beatiful riding spot close to Milan with lots of natural trails. What is shown here is a classic one: starting from Sotto il Monte we cycled up to the top and then down on the Kompressor trail.

Again it was such great fun (and again we were incredibly lucky with the weather, doesn’t really look like it’s winter!) that at the end we cycled back up and then came down again – but this time with no stops for shooting video, only a clean and fun ride down the mountains!

Last October I’ve spent a great weekend riding and racing (and eating!) in Finale Ligure with Phil, Will and Fiona. I’ve collected all photos on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aadm/sets/72157629004495851/with/6751815233/

So I’ve been busy shooting some videos with a friend and what I discovered is this: it’s a lot of work to ride hunting for location and constantly stop to shoot a five seconds clip !

Anyway, the idea was to show in 3 episodes the kind of riding you can do around Milano; it’s not Liguria, it’s not mediterranean rocky trails, but it’s close and it’s fun.

There’s lots to improve, like for example the shaky camera; I’ve used for 90% of the shots a monopod which is light and easy to setup, but doesn’t give you steady shots – and this has some impact on the final perceived quality of the video.

“They don’t appear to enjoy what they’re doing. […] One does not ride, one trains.”

– Bike Snob, about road cyclists and triathletes.