Averging 22.4kmph, max 52.6kmph
Odometer 5337km
Alice's phone alarm crashes through to greet us to the morning. Unlike Alice's selection of show classics I have the pleasure of her alarm's shrill tones echoing in my ears for breakfast. Our hotel boasts five floors, nearly one hundred rooms and a large breakfast rrom- which we are the only diners for the start of service. A typical italian affair sets us off onto the streets of Ancona. Or anaconda as I deliberatley misrefer to it as. After the perils of our dual carriage way ascent yesterday we opt for the local roads over the headland to rejoin the ss16 at the coast line. Not in possesion of a topographical map we aren't mentally prepared for the steep rising streets that continu ever up. It's hot, there's much huffing and puffing and complaining of speed bumps. Alice also leads us on a circuit route in pursuit of the road out of town (which allows us to repeat our uphill climb) before finally we leave town. The reason the ss16 choses to deviate around the headland is abundantly clear as we swing up hill then down. Our twenty km up and down cycle has us in duel with a middle aged lady on an electiric bike out for a morning cycle. We catch her on the flat and downhills, but when she hits an uphill strech, she stops jumps off to turn the ignition on her motor and then whizzes away up the hill. She has her ipod in and remains stony faced whenever overtaking or being overtaken. But whilst she regards us as insignificant we are serenaded to many whoops and whistles from the plethora of lycra pelotons that pass us on the other side.
It's early in the morning but the sun is bright and hot. The uphill climbs leave me dripping with sweat, so in hope that this is the end of the hills I don my wind proof for the descent after being frozen for the last one. This was of course an awful mistake. Whilst I do enjoy a temperature controlled downhill I'm immediately launched into an uphill slog up a steep hill. In my black polyester jacket I now feel like a boil in the bag kipper. The jacket is immediately removed when back at the top only for my to suffer an even more perishing down hill as the wind whips my sodden singlet on to my clammy skin. Thankfully we are now at the bottom.
Coffee beach side where a small girl is mesmorised by us and our strange gleaming two wheeled tanks.
Back on the ss16 we zoom along the flat making excellant pace, occasionally cars will pull out and nearly collide, but as Phillipa points out it must be difficult for them. At a glance we must look like we are pushing a heavily stacked cart of reflective plastic bags which is unlikely to be traveling at 30kmph so it's not to be unexpected that cars underestimate our speed.
The day's progressing very well and we are at one stage caught up in a peloton of lycra clad men. There's about 15 of them (all on very shiny bikes, with matching team lycra and overshoes). They chat away to Phillipa, we ride three abrest, when we go around a roundabout all cars await for the procession to pass and it's much fun. But they soon turn off and we continue to Pescara.
It's very hot and at our road side picinic stop I suggest that perhaps the target of Pescara 110miles might be too much in this heat (feeling a litte dehydrated). But the girls are keen to keep pressing on so it's back on the bikes along the hard shoulder of the ss16.Phillipa ploughes into the back of me, I hear "oh sorry" and then a crashing noise. Turning around I find Phillipa prone on the concrete and Alice in a concrete ditch to the side. Following Phillipa hitting me she fell off to the side, with Alice's front wheel heading straight for her head, so in avasive action Alice took off to the side managing to ride up a steep curb down into the concrete ditch and dismounting in the air. Remarkably all the bikes are fine, Alice is unmarked and Phillipa has only grazes (but no doubt her peachy skin will be very bruised). Shaken and tired we decide Pescara is too far and luckily find that the campsite 100m down the road is open.
So camp made we then head to a deserted beach for a swim, then play some frisbee. We are the only campsite residents until a behemoth camper van containing a german couple pulls up. THey spent an inordinate length of time parking (complete with loud reversing beeps). The two yellow plastic wheel stopppers are out to stop the van rolling (alice informs us). I then start to muse that campervans should have some fancy chasis suspension system to accomodate the terrain on which they park. We decide this would be quite expensive, and that campervanners just have to cope with sloped beds. But Lo! it woudl appear the german's are attempting to acocmodate for the ground level descrepancy with stones and bricks, using a bottle of beer as a spirt level. When finally happy, they drink their beer before a train rushes past on the neighbouring traibnline. She shouts over to us "does that happen all night?", but she shouts in German (of course we a cycle tourists in a campsite what other nationality would we be), we smile and um She asks in english and we call over we don't know, but she's stopped listening and the yellow ramps are put in and off they go to another corner of the site to park up again.
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