Day 4 – Cassano D’Adda

Went to bed at 1am last night and woke up to 12 phone alarms at 5am ranging from noises of chickens to ambulances and even a cow (whole bunch of uni students riding through Italy) and supported touring of course not like me – i’m doing it the REAL way

I had a few final chores to stack my panniers wth some important things like Maps, gas canister, lube (both kinds!!!) and gloves (lost mine somewhere) and a few other things. It took much longer than expected – all i wanted was a map of Italy and not at grand scale – i need about 1:250000 not 1:1000000000000000000 – I went to two book shops and the tourist office and NOTHING – so i’m stuck with a crappy iphone GPS but it’s better than nothing – sending me in every which way due to the slowness of it all. I also needed some things for my bike – I thought Italy was the home of bikes but obviously Milan isn’t – everyone has rickety commuters – not that there’s anything wrong with that but CMON PEOPLE….So here’s me walking into a bicycle shop expecting all the latest gear but NOOOoooo – professional accurate research (google) told me that this was one of best bicycle shops in Milan – As I walked in, I see this big man with cake all over his face and a cash register that was from circa 1200. There were two new bikes and some servicing stuff in there. I needed lube, gloves and saddle cream – I knew I was pushing it – All he could provide me for lube was WD40 and anyone who runs a shop knows that that is NOT a good lube for chains. DISGRACED MARIO DISGRACED

I ended up with some what I thought was good gloves but after looking in the mirror after a few hours riding my face was all black from them ha ha. The only luck I had was a camping shop where I purchased gas – all this was supposed to be a 30 minute job ended in 2 hours and 40km later DANG IT.  I ended up doing about 85 today which is more than I liked and i ended up no where near where i’d like – dang Italian roads…lucky their coffee is da bomb (had another one today which was a 9/10. They just keep providing the goods they do. Machattios (sp?) which are un caffe here are about $1.20aud and cappuccinos are about $1.60 (SWEEEEET) – Just like Tonnie said – running on coffee (and plenty of water of course) my pee isn’t yellow and that’s hard to do riding in summer and hunting water down – just thought you’d all like to know that

Its pretty cool to be on my netbook and skyping people (even optus to activate my roaming which I thought I did) just under ten minutes cost me 50c – I love you skype. I am writing this pretty buggered from ridining in the heat all day and getting lost so often but loving every minute of it (well most of it)

Most of my day was spent navigating like crazy and turning around plus a few lovely canal sections and corn fields with small towns in the middle – pretty nice

PS – the supermarkets and the like close for lunch from 1230 to 1530 – how can you run a business like that – that is just an outrage – especially when you rock up to a lovely little town called Gorgonzola (no joke) and want to get some cheese and roast beef.

I can’t find a campsite so i’m waiting for the sun to down a little and will have to look for a wild camping spot – wish me luck peeps. Hopefully I don’t wake up sore with one less kidney J

Thank you everyone for your awesome messages on the comments section – I read them all and they help crank that pedal over more than you know

Redman OUT

Milano Stadium

CHEESE ANYONE?