53 miles ridden – 1200 feet climbed

Another beautiful yet very hot day began with a ferry ride on Lake Garda from Riva Del Garda to Garda itself as the roads round the lake are extremely busy with lots of curving ‘blind corner’ tunnels which are to be avoided on a bike. The cool, maybe even cold, breeze blowing across the lake created a false sense of comfort about just how hot it was going to be with some riders sat huddled in warm tops.

Leaving Garda, aside from a mile or two along the side of the lake, we climbed for about 2 miles. It was blisteringly hot – nearing noon – and we all found it very tough indeed although the view from the top was worthwhile. Today for the first time every Sue and I were cycling in matching gear – we are now officially a cycling couple:

We only had to cover about 13 miles to our lunch stop which was great in that it was around 1PM but the bowl of (delicious) pasta sat heavily as we set off for the next section to Verona. Sadly we didn’t have time to go round the city but it is quite a beautiful place, although not to the south where we had to negotiate a series of industrial estates and motorway intersections.

The route was flat all the way from there but it was HOT. Where we could we stuck to the cooling shadows of trees or buildings and a gentle headwind acted like a fan and helped keep us as comfortable as possible.

The latter section was a patchwork of fields and farms. A mixture of new and old buildings illustrated the mix between farming and very grand days gone by. Fields of maize reminded me of the Snake River in Idaho but the fields are so much smaller and soon morph into a different crop. On a much smaller scale the lanes zigzag their way though the patchwork of fields like in the Mid-West – maybe farming is farming wherever you are?

The main event of the day was Sue valiant attempt at bog snorkelling. At this juncture I was in front navigating and Sue was riding behind with Anthony and Laura when I heard a shriek. When I looked back I could only see two bikes and neither of the was Sue! When I got there Laura and Anthony were helping Sue out of the ditch (about 4 feet deep) although fortunately Sue was laughing (and the bike was OK). Once we got Sue cleaned off and established that she was OK to keep going the main concern was the battery had run out on Anthony’s GoPro so sadly the spectacular ‘ditch dive’ is something we cannot all enjoy.

I have to say though, Sue does look like a proper rider!

Tomorrow is a long, hot but very flat 81 miles. Mmmmm……