whew.

Has it been a week already!? Shit. This summer is going to fly by!

Lets see...where did I leave off...
Last weekend...
I again rode into Faenza and was treated to the workers rally of May 1st. Which was kind of a bummer cause the junk shop was closed AGAIN! Its a big workers rights celebration day and ton of people just hit the roads for rides and drives. Enough motorcycles to make me miss mine dearly. But tons of families out on bikes, which always makes me smile.



I rode to the mountain town of Brisighella and kicked about this little whole foods, slow food, organic food faire thinggy. I think thats what it was called. Anyway I found some hot as all hell chilli peppers, the dude made me smell a jar of them and I almost died! No more stuffy nose for the week! I also met Giofranco and Walter, who make the locally famous LOM chestnut beer. They were stoked to meet a dude who worked for Anchor as they were just reading about american microbreweries and invited me to come up for a day soon and taste and tour around their brewery. Cool guys who shared alot of local history with me, must have talked to them about an hour. And they were right next to this curious stand that I'm not sure is aware of the implications for its signage in English. Kinda blurry photo but I bet you can read it...



Then I chilled at my first ever sidewalk cafe and scribbled in my little black book for a couple hours over a couple brews and watched the place fill up with people of all sorts enjoying a sunny beautiful day.



Sunday a crew of 5 of us went out for some rainy weather mountain biking, and again I had my single speed dumb bike and my ass handed to me! Not that Im not in shape cause most of the tricky stuff I was right on Igors back wheel with him saying, "How did you do dat!" at the top of the climbs. Most of us did a fair amount of pushing our bikes up a steep ravine that was towards the end of a long day, about 25K and a good 700 Meters of climbing, (that's a 17 mile ride with roughly 2300 feet of climbing for you Yanks!) A big day for sure, and in weather conditions that would have had me cringing or left me sitting on the couch anywhere else Ive ridden. It feels more hardcore to know we were out of food and go juice and wet and cold when we got back to the car.











We came back to a big BBQ and pretty much all crashed. On monday, I picked up some bikes out in Cortona and Bologna. Sounds easy but was a good 6 hours in the car rocking out to Italian radio stations. RADIO DEE JAAY and RADIO KISS KISS being two of my personal favs.

Tuscan Green

Tuesday through Friday was an onslaught of bikes bikes bikes! I think it was thursday that I prepped 9 bikes AFTER lunch! Its crazy busy and the result is three big tours went out this weekend with all the bikes, spare parts, and tools ready to rock.



Its good to see the garage empty but we are at it again this week so don't expect too much scribbling from me till after next weekend when I get to pick up a van with bikes loaded on the roof and inside...in BARCELONA!! Yup, the Andalucia tour will be wrapping up and the bikes and van need to come back on a ferry from Barcelona to Italy then driven down to the Farm home again. Should be quite the adventure and I have scheduled a whole day and a half for me to explore and dick around. Should be a gas, and I will finally be able to see the Gaudi House and Park, have a proper sangria while harassing transvestite hookers on Las Ramblas, not the least to mention I will finally be able to take the Spanish Landowner to SPAIN!!! Thats right, thought I forgot didnt you...Its MAY and that means a new facial hair construct here in Italy. You may recognise this one from the winter of 08, or summer 05, its a classic...

spanish landowner

Today I rode the shitbike quite alot...into Faenza again but nothing really going down since I slept till noon, so I headed for the twisty roads near the hills and made my way towards Forli for a sit in the park...till I started sneezing again, then crept around the square, its huge market, saw some ladies drooling in a shoe store window (somethings are universal) and headed home to get some food, have tea and stay up late painting.

market

mmm shoes



Spring is amazing and all along the roadsides are flowers in bloom.



Which reminds me, Sunday is Mother's day and if you haven't got anything for your mum, shame on you (unless you don't believe in it I suppose, talk to James, he has it figured out...) I will be dragging a trailer on my bike to the local garden center to buy a big ass rose bush and get it planted right here at the Farm for my Mom, in her honour and in her memory. Ill share that with you all for sure. I know she gets to share in this whole experience with me and now there will be a physical reminder of that. Come on over, Ill share it with you.

S.