Rome to Nice - Day 1 : It's like riding a bike

DAY 1 was finally here. Months and months of planning, talking, mapping, realizing that the original trip was too aggressive, changing locations, remapping, replanning, more talking, training, travelling, getting the bikes, packing the bikes and now we are at the precipice of pedaling our first pedal to kick off on our 3rd trip together. It has been 5 years since our last trip together and 3 years since I last went on a cycling trip. I'm sure the multiple breakfast macchiatos, pastries and Italian meats contributed to the cycling energy flowing through me this morning and the anticipation to start riding was palpable! 

Now before we get into the details of day 1, lets quickly do a recap of the day's specifics, and a reminder of the larger trip's planned itinerary. The actual 7 days of riding after we were done actually worked out a bit shorter in miles and elevation than we had planned for. This is always a good thing. The difference in planned versus actual distances/elevations are most likely due to:

1. Variations in how routing tools calculate. As an example - after we would plot out a day in either komoot.com plotaroute.com or even google, we would compare the same exact route's measurements in all 3 systems. There would always be a substantial difference in the values in at least one of the 3 systems. plotaroutes elevations just couldn't be trusted as an example. 
2. Us trying to "flatten the curve" whenever we could - translates into us making decisions along the way to see if we could shave off some miles and elevations. Doing this always makes the trip a bit more enjoyable and more time to explore.  

The below is the itinerary of the full trip. Day 1 sees us exiting Rome, cycling through Vatican City, which is the world's smallest country, I did know that tidbit before I planned the trip, what I did not know was that Monaco was the world's second smallest country which we would hit on our last day after finishing up in Nice, France. 

Planned Trip Itinerary

So now that we have the recap done, let's get to day 1.
 

First... the daily stats!

Ride Statistics
Date ....................... Saturday April 22rd 2023

Departure City/Town ........ Rome, Italy
Departure Time ............. 8:00AM Central European Time[CET]
Departure Temperature ...... 68f
Time in  Motion ............ 7:57:39
Arrival City/Town .......... Lido di Tarquinia, Italy
Arrival Time ............... 4:56PM CET
Arrival Temperature ........ 70f

Total Miles Cycled ......... 66 mi
Total Elevation ............ 1683 ft

Tour Statistics
Total Miles Cycled ......... 66 mi 
Total Elevation ............ 1683 ft

Elevations looking pretty good

The start of the ride was to head out of Rome, hitting most of our elevations before we exit the city and then cruising to the coast and heading north.

meat, cheese, pastry ... repeat

Now there were always 3 constants each day before we even started pedaling our first pedal. #1 - we all met for breakfast. Like I said in a previous post, every hotel offered a complimentary breakfast. This was all apart of the planning. HIGHLY recommended.

#2 - we had to pack our bikes for the day ahead. This entailed usually restrapping the bags to the bike every day. Especially if the bikes were in a garage/basement etc. A few days we got lucky and had the bikes with us in our rooms/terraces and could leave the bags strapped on and just remove what we needed.

As you can imagine, it did get tiring to restrap every day. Besides clothing, some tools, and paraphernalia, food and snacks were essential. A lot of times some packaged breakfast items would make it into the bags for the ride ahead.

Locked and loaded for the day ahead

and #3 - we always took a team picture before we started out. We also tried to finish every day with a team picture as well. Sometimes because we were tired and just ready to get off the bikes, and check into the hotel, we would forget to snap a picture.

team pic with flag of Italy.... check
rookie mistake to not hold down the corner!

Now that the day's constants were completed we headed out of the city. It was a bit surreal cycling through the streets wanting to hit the coast, but then realizing we are passing monuments that have been standing here for over 1900 years. Really humbling and amazing - and added to the excitement. 

So we make it to Vatican City pretty quickly -  had to be the first 30 minutes into the trip and we snapped a few pics with the flag. With all the cycling trips i have so many flags! If anyone has a suggestion on what to do with them all - please drop a comment.

columns of Vatican City

So we are cycling out of the city, make it over the main climb for the day and coast to the coast. We were on the SS1 for a good part of the day - which we normally don't like to do when we plan our trips. We usually route ourselves over small parallel roads, cycle lanes, a lot of times farm roads. You just get a better experience, less cars, better views.

The Strada Statale 1 Via Aurelia (SS 1) is a historic trade route running along the Italian coastline from central Italy to southern France. It just so happens that this is an old Roman road which we would criss cross throughout the trip. For the most part, the views were nice - especially the further from Rome we travelled.

good example of a smaller road - and two lunatics. My dad looks like he saw a ghost.

At one point we were passing a giant fort - we didn't stop, but I did have the thought that this must be "something cool" from the looks of it. So i told Shruti to keep cycling and I'm going to take a quick detour, photograph it and catch you guys. It turns out it was built in the 1500s by Michaelangelo! And the Italian armed forces still use it today! Grabbed the below from the web. 

Fort Michelangelo - Just amazing.

Fort Michelangelo was built in the 16th century to defend the port of Civitavecchia from the constant incursions from pirates, something that the city had been subjected to since the 15th century and which had resulted in it being subjected to looting, fires and massacres. 

Built under the direction of Michelangelo Buonarroti - who the fortress was namedgoog_1191016351 after – it was commissioned by Giulio II della Rovere who becaII in 1502 and who laid the first stone on 14th December 1508.

So the remainder of the day is great. Nice roads and we roll into the hotel before 5pm. One mistake I think we made was not taking one more coffee stop sometime in the afternoon. We kinda powered on from lunch to the end - we were feeling a bit tired towards 3/4pm and a coffee would have made the last bit fly by and we definitely had 30mins in the schedule. We learned our lesson and started putting an afternoon break into the schedule.

COFFEE CHECK!!

I'm embarrassed to say - I didnt know
one Cannoli was a Cannolo The guy behind
the counter corrected me twice before
i understood what the hell
he was saying :) #italianshame

So you may be thinking what madness is this? Well on each trip we usually keep track of some weird statistic. In India we kept track of the different animals we saw, maybe even the sodas per day - I forget, but it is a fun little thing we do. So being in Italy, what better thing to keep track of than the number of coffees we had per day.

Running coffee count. 

	4/22	4/23	4/24	4/25	4/26	4/27	4/28	4/29	Total
Matteo	3								3
Shrutini	2								2
Stefano	5								5
il Drafto	5								5
Total	15								15

That's it for day1, passed through the world's tiniest country, had some nice roads, ate way too much food, no one got hurt, no flats and finished in the sun.

Andiamo day 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The first gear casualty of the trip. RIP handlebar snack bag you served us well

Day 1's and the trip's first coffee stop #bearpawbegins

views from the road were great

We were on the SS1 for a good part of the ride on Day 1

Alternating green and white - Shruts had to have a mouth full of potato pizza #indianchipmunk

I can't unsee the alternating green and white - end of Day 1 pic!

My first aperol spritz - pretty good - lounging by the pool. Matty needs shorter shorts.
I order a drink and get 75 types of chips... keep em comin Giovanni!!

My mouth has to be full of risotto & dad proudly/strangely showing his bowl of food. #americanchipmunk #foodshowandtell