Riding Day 2: Sept 10 Pianetto (Santa Sofia) to San Sepolcro
After the good sleep of exhaustion, I rolled out the front door and up the street, map showed a lane way down to main road. Didn't like the look of the "laneway" and could not see my riding companions there at bottom so I turned around and took nice roads to the agreed meeting point.
It was lovely cool day to start with. We rode on into Santa Sofia where we turned and started to climb. As expected, I was definitely the slowest of the bunch climbing. We gathered at the first summit for a rest and some photos.
The route planning had us dropping onto a side road at https://goo.gl/maps/zrBF13QbMV7cQjtv9.
That was Ok but when we got to https://goo.gl/maps/EbeVsKTUqPKJpt648, we proceeded on but maybe we should have instead taken the left turn back to the main road. From there on the road degraded into a track. Eventually Kate out front was riding/walking into a huge amount of nettles overgrowing the track - so at about https://goo.gl/maps/KB372Nxixs3SALt97 we decided to abandon and walk through the farmers field up the road.
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| Chris pushing thru the field (Chris is outstanding in his field?) |
If you are re-using Patrick's route, then either:
- Stay on the main road - do not turn off at first blue oval like we did,
- Or return to main road soon, turn left at second blue oval (there is a very faint road there used by cars).
Soon we were crossing the Passo del Carnaio
Great view!
We got up some great high speed (for some of us) descending and then more climbing. We had a pause at Verghereto (about 34 km done for me).
Lunch stop happened with about 38km done at "Il mulino da Elena e Lia" (<Facebook page here> -
where we were able to recharge the ebikes. They had pasta, beer, soft drinks, coffee etc etc.
To get to our destination we had to take a road closed to cars and popular with cyclists:
At some stage after that, Patrick and Kate pushed ahead leaving Chris riding with me to ride into San Sepolcro. On the ridge above San Sepolcro Chris decided to try an alternative route - but I was concerned that it was going to drop one onto a busy route so I stayed on the planned route.
A good day!
The following day was a rest day to watch the festival in San Sepolcro.
Day 3 of riding: San Sepolcro to near Perugia
This was the day we lost our trip organiser to Covid and the fearless four was down to a terrific three. The day's riding was a mixture of roads combined with some lovely paths following rivers.
Stopped at 21km for coffee at Bar Cafe' l'Angolo DiVino on outskirts of Citta di Castello.
Stopped at 43.7km for lunch in Umbertide at Antico Caffe Giardino (Old Coffee Garden?) at Here in Google Maps
We finished the day on a lovely set of river side paths (Tevere River) with small amount of roads in between.
There was one "interesting/difficult" bridge crossing at about 66km:
Walk mode on ebike is handy sometimes - walk up the stairs while rolling the ebike on the ramp next to you!
After the river paths, there was about2 or 3 blocks on back roads to accommodation outside of Perugia.
Day 4 of riding: Perugia to Todi
Fairly easy day. At the little town of Papiano (or Papiano Stazione?), about 23km out, we saw chillies and herbs growing between the road and the railway line. The woman from across the road whose patch it was came over and tried to chat. She was proud of her patch, and even gave Kate some chillies. We eventually found the Friends Social Club near by. It was a good place for a rest stop: coffee and toilets, tables outside.
Todi really stands out in the distance, and what a steep climb into town. I had some battery anxiety, being the heavy user of the 3 of us. Some one way streets and dubious GPS positioning in narrow streets makes for a "bit of fun" trying to find your accommodation location in the middle of the hot day!
Todi is very lovely.
Day 5 of riding: Todi to Narni
We lost Kate due to Covid isolation, so down to Chris and I now.
Pleasant country, some through forest. More of these roads were sheltered with woods around them.
At about 31km we had a beautiful fast descent through San Gemini. San Gemini looks good if you Google. I suspect San Gemini would have been a good place to find a cafe but we just zoomed through, only 50km-ish day.
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