I been busy Bitches!! With bike builds, and bike shuffling, and parties, and concerts, and late nights visiting with friends from last year, bike rides, changes for the 2011 season, even some data entry in there, and entertaining visiting potential tour guides...Its been a good couple weeks, a busy couple weeks, and a very important couple of weeks.
First Off - Rob is a cool mutherfucker.
(note we BOTH have busted knuckles already!)
A Colorado mountain biker at heart, who is struggling getting back into it after some hip surgery Rob is excited to be here, hopeful for a future with the company, excited to learn new shit and brings with him not only the kind of midwest sensibilities that I grew to love of so many of my Homies in Fort Collins, but a hard drive full of Megadeath for Metal Mondays as well! Picked him up from the airport and we happened on a bottle of LaChouffe at a local piadina stand on the way in - a good start for reals. He's a right proper mechanic, trained at Barnett's in Colorado Springs who, maybe due to a combination of jet lag, excitement, and drinking several moka's a day - has been up early and tearing into the work ahead. He brought a rad custom bike and I'm looking forward to riding with him on his road to recovery from his surgery in the mountains of Italy.
Second - the new bikes are in
...and aside from having to re-write some of the training manuals for tour leaders, these bad boys will be virtually maintenance free this summer thanks to some new technology! Alfine 11 is going to change the way customers get to ride the hills of Tuscany, and really shorten the amount of work we need to do to the bike fleet. We got new paniers from Arkel, new bikes from Musing, and more titanium bikes from Van Nicholas (in pieces again James!!) and the fleet is looking very makey-outty tonight!
Third - Coming back for another year means returning to the friends I made last year, who have welcomed me and Rob with open arms, beers, and the constant concert connection of DJ Livia from Casa Del Disco. Rob and I just last night got our minds blown (with friends Livia, Alesandro, and Lisa - new tour leader and birthday girl) at the Gentlemen and Assassins show at the ClanDestino (watch the clip. AMAZING!!!!!) But as awesome as the show was, and as great as its been to sneak up on the friends who knew I was coming it was a bike ride in the countryside that really made me glad to be back...
I decided, with a house full of new potential tour leaders at a hiring fair of sorts, that I would go for a longer ride saturday and show Loni the Italian countryside. I left the Farm early and headed out the usual longer route to Brisighella, castle peaked mountain town about 40km away. Along the way I made a couple wrong turns and stopped to adjust the bike and make some photos...all of which conspired to have me pass, right before my next turn, a familiar face on the road. I breezed by an tall Italian man on a fancy bike and we exchanged "salve!" its the Italian version of "whats up!" only to moments later come to a screeching halt to the shouts of SKKKAAAAAUUUUUUTTTA!!!! I turned around to see the guy I passed was actually none other than Emilia Romagna's own son of hill climbing Santo Claudio!
Claudio was a tour leader here long ago but now spends his time riding his ass off and absolutely killing hills to the point that young aspiring bike racers come and train with the 50+ year old hill climber. He comes back around to meet me, DROPS his 5000 dollar bike in the dirt and embraces me like a long missed friend - almost too long for my American readership who can picture the absurdly loving image of a chubby American in cut off dickies, tee shirt, arm warmers, and trucker hat, being joyfully held in the arms of a 6 foot 4 inch tall, thin, tanned, Italian man in his 50s on the side of the road. So good to see him, to hear of his adventures past and future, and to feel overwhelmed with a feeling of being home.
I know Ive written about the feeling of being home in SD, of feeling like I know where it was I was raised, of knowing I'm a Californian at heart and will never let that get too far away - I mean this winter the crisis of self I experienced feeling so overwhelming a part of three very different places has consumed my thoughts and occupied the pages of more than one little black book - but this week, with the comforts of my own space, the familiar roads of the Italian countryside by bike, showing and introducing Rob around to peeps who genuinely missed me, and settling in to a routine that will carry me the next 9 months - I have really felt... HOME. On the plane going back to the states last November I realized that if I came back here, that Italy and this tiny hamlet of Faenza will be the single place I have lived the longest since April of 2009. What a strange thought when I think of all I had planned for myself in April of 2009; to date for reals, to save for a house and pay off debt, to commit to a big corporate brewery and be a good son and brother...what of that even remains? Nothing. But in the time since I have gained a sense of adventure, a courage to move about freely in a world of language and cultural barriers, to embrace the friends I have that have remained, to make new ones who are genuine and real, and to do all that on two wheels.
Here's to the upcoming summer! Raise a glass and toast, then get on your bike and go explore some place you have never been before. More stories to come - this year from the amazing people I am meeting who share this passion for two wheeled exploration, and of course the antics of being a Wayward Bike Dude in Italy.
CHEERS!
Scotty
