We're in San Severo tonight,  a town that can be considered proper south Italy. Things are very different here,  people are on average older and fatter and speak with a harder to understand accent. They also use another greeting instead of the 'ciao' to which we've been accustomed. No doubt we must look strange to them - we've received many curious stares as we walked around town,  and it doesn't help that the entrance to accommodation is right in front of some city wide snooker tournament. This evening,  before and (particularly) after,  we noticed many families just sitting in the street outside the entrance to their homes, just talking. Given the high temperature of 38°, it's not unimaginable that it was probably too warm indoors.  It is striking however that this pastime was pervasive over the entire city.

Today's ride was a 95.50 mile long and hot ride over several rolling hills Very,  taking 5.57.41 hours (an average of 16.0mph).  It was mainly down the SS16 again and aside from a particularly terrifying incident (where a barking dog managed to leap free of his enclosure and actually chased us down the road) was pretty uneventful. The scenery in the hills south of Pescara was as pretty as Wikitravel suggested and the road became much quieter,  at least until we hit Vasto. After Vasto,  it picked up considerably - perhaps explaining the prevalence of scantily clad prostitutes lining that part of the highway.

I thought I'd share some of my strategies for getting through days like today. Often long days on the bike can be fun,  when through scenic landscapes or over technically interesting terrain. However,  others can be mentally harder,  particularly when you're not feeling up to it or there is little to keep you interested in the ride. Today was one of those days.  It was essentially nearly a hundred miles down a busy highway in the scorching heat.  This is the third riding day in a row so our legs are starting to feel it too.

1) When the going gets tough,  don't stop going.
Stopping while you are heading up a hill or into a headwind is a terrible idea.  Don't do it. It's not actually that much harder to get started but the psychological toll of trying to push forwards from a standing start is enough to actually make the ride seem much harder than it actually is.

2) Take lunch at 50% effort,  not 50% distance.
Each mile is harder than the last. As you reach the end of the day it takes more effort to keep going. Taking lunch at the halfway point by distance means that you'll actually have a longer second half of the day,  particularly when you're starting to feel sleepy as your body digests your food and the temperature heats up. If you go halfway by effort (anywhere between 50% of the distance to 80%, depending on the terrain),  then the second half will be much less arduous.

3) Stop as little as possible.
This is similar to 1). The more breaks you take,  the more mentally significant each period of riding becomes.  If you're feeling rough then this can add to your general perception of riding 'slowly' and cause you to actually ride slower than you could. Plus,  stopping allows lactic acid to make its way into your legs... (or so I've been told) and getting going again is harder each time.

4) Give yourself continual and realistic goals.
Everyone needs something to aim for and trying to do the whole day in one go is admirable but difficult. I normally like knocking down the distance in 5 or 10 kilometre or mile increments,  depending on how fast I'm going.  If you're feeling mathematical,  you can knock down percentages at a time too. This gives me something to aim for and a small dopamine boost everything we knock down a milestone.

5) Continually assess your progress.
This goes hand in hand with 4). Perhaps it's a little obsessive but my analytical mind loves to keep track of where we are,  what's coming next and how much effort will be required for the rest of the day. It means you'll hopefully have no surprises later on and you'll know how to pace yourself.
6) Think positive,  or rather - don't think negative.
Everyone has bad days.  It's important to reasonably ignore these feelings (with an ear to any 'warnings' from your body, of course).  Bad vibes can be infectious and affect your psyche for the day and possibly even the next.  I normally try never to consider anything as bad. It's part of the survivor mentality - if you treat any hardship as part of the adventure,  it makes it easier to react rationally to it and it will therefore pass more easily.  I also often ignore or live with niggling issues in the spirit of getting on with the journey (e.g. Insect bites,  weary legs,  the odd bicycle creak). Obviously deal with these when you can but trying not to let them wear you down mentally helps keep you going.

7) Distract yourself.
I always thought that a long cycle ride like the TDA would have been the ideal place to come up with a killer business idea but sadly I was so concerned with the ride itself that it wasn't really possible. Concentrating on not getting flattened by east African lorries is a full time job in itself! It can be useful however to have music to help time pass quicker and today I made full use of the music stored on my phone to distract me from the constant sweaty grind toward the south.

Today's ride has been a bit of a slog down the SS-16 (super strada - literally super street), the coastal road that we are mostly following for the last part of this tour.  It's been baking hot,  pushing 34°C,  and the only breeze was a slight headwind. 

Being a Sunday,  we encountered very many locals who headed to the beaches - parking to the west of the SS-16 and crossing to the beach on the other side. Additionally,  the local roadies were out in force in the morning,  giving us plenty of cheers as they came past in the opposite direction. What was surprisingly was how easily we caught up to several riders. The first rider,  a mustachioed Italian man who looked very much like Mario (of Nintendo's Super Mario Brothers),  overtook us with a couple of other riders who quickly turned off to the right.  As soon as he lost their draft,  he slowed down significantly and we rapidly decided to overtake him.  Phil,  being the polite English cyclist that he is,  took it slowly to allow him to draft us,  but we lost him soon after I took over. 

After this, a tall Italian rider cut in front of us,  and tried to accelerate away into the headwind.  Sadly for him,  I was happy to try and keep up and despite a couple of sprints,  he was unable to shake us.  Eventually he turned off to the right to leave us to fend for ourselves.

Soon after this,  we caught up with a pair of middle aged riders who were riding alongside one another. They weren't very quick and their riding etiquette made the normally erratic car drivers look good in comparison! We overtook then once but they came flying past as we stopped at a traffic light and they decided that they were too good for that inconvenience. Never fear though,  we soon overtook them again,  never to see them again.

The afternoon got warmer still and we suffered in heat. Stopping at a supermarket,  we picked up snacks - Phil buying many litres of water and fresh cut coconut.  I bought some outwardly plain looking fresh chocolate cookies and a litre of milk,  wondering if I had paid too much for the free cookies over the cheaper factory made cookies. I was in heaven later though when I discovered the insides of the cookies were filled with a Nutella-like chocolatey substance. After drinking most of the litre of milk,  we headed on,  albeit a little slower.

The only deviation from the SS-16 today was a small climb that took us parallel for some time,  past a rather scenic view of the coastline and a less scenic flytipping site.

We stopped at a small restaurant at a beach hotel for lunch where the waitor spoke excellent English and warned me that the penne arrabbiata would be spicy.  I laughed down this fact and,  after verifying that there was no meat in the sauce,  ordered the pasta. This was excellent,  and having eaten relatively spiceless European food for the last two weeks,  it was great to have something a little bit chilli...

We pushed on,  slowly at first as the sheer volume of pasta digested and then quicker. However,  the headwind prevented us from pushing much above 18 mph,  often travelling at a speed closer to 16 mph. As we got closer to Pescara,  the road was cordoned off and several police officers stood guard.  Despite this,  pedestrians and cyclists were freely moving through the area so we took their lead and cycled through. We almost made it through the second inflatable arch on the road before realising it was the finishing line of a local road race - Trofeo Matteoti, a race in its 67th year.  Given we had seen many team vans and cars on the road earlier,  it made sense when we learned that it was an international race frequented by semi professional riders. Total distance for the day was 84.05 miles, at an average of 15.4 mph over 5.26.07.

Pescara itself is a large city and we're staying in a rather nice Best Western hotel called the Duca D'Aosti. Nearly everything around the hotel is shut but in our quest for gelato,  we found an excellent 'modern' coffee shop where I had an iced chocolate called a 'Make-Mou'. Walking further, a board directed us to a bar where Phil had some sort of excellent bitter (beer) and I had a sangria rosso. The very amusing bar owner (who had lived in Bermondsey and spoke excellent English) directed us to the gelato shop - just two shopfronts down the road. My highlight of the conversation was when he asked Phil what football team he supported. Phil replied 'Liverpool, to please my girlfriend' and our barkeep mentioned that he ha other ways to please his girlfriend. Hah.

This gelateria was amazing and, like the coffee shops we'd seen so far, quite unconventional. They served many flavours of machine dispensed frozen yoghurt as well as several gelatos which were all made without milk. We elected for the latter and, true to the owner's claim, it was the best dark chocolate ice cream I've had. To top it off, he gave us free t-shirts, which we will covet after two weeks of wearing our increasingly odorous home brought shirts.

We spent our second planned / third overall rest day in (or rather near) San Marino, an amazing citadel built upon a pretty damn tall and steep hill.

Our hostel was a little way out from town but our effusive hostel owner assured us we could walk there in 20 minutes.  She told us to take the quieter road behind the hostel instead of the more direct dual carriageway since it was more pleasant.

It was a good thing that Phil and I stopped for water,  kefir and wafer biscuits at the nearby supermarket because 20 minutes was only enough to take us about a fifth of the way to our eventual destination. No doubt we'd not taken the optimal route and,  in some state of confusion as to what the actual town was and where,  we pushed on in its approximate direction. After almost an hour,  we reached the start of what looked like a very long stone staircase down which other tourists were coming.  We started up it.  The temperature was (I'm not sure of the exact value) hot - at least 33 degrees and probably higher.

We made it to an empty part of the city,  passing a sign asking us to respect the silence and whispered to each other that it was abnormally bereft of tourists. Each street we passed was equally empty and while all the buildings had official plaques listing their importance and purposes they all looked unoccupied. Very odd.

We were extremely hungry at this point,  after the 80 something miles we'd cycled in from Bologna,  and also fairly dehydrated after the 75 minutes of walk up to the town.  Thinking that the actual town was just down below this ghostly perfected preserved relic of a city, we elected to continue round to what looked like a staircase down to a car park.


However,  we pushed on a little further in order to get pictures of the sky blue flags. It was there that we spotted an actual street full of real,  moving people and filled with open shops.  Sadly,  the shops are a fixture of much of San Marino. As a republic, governed separately to Italy itself,  it has no taxes on much of the consumer junk that people aspire to buy: perfumes,  handbags,  lighters, Swiss army knives,  giant waving owls and other touristy wares. I'm used to seeing maybe a parade or two of these shops in the big cities I've passed through so far but San Marino must have had several hundred of these,  throughout the entire city.

What was quite cool though was the medieval market that is being held just this week,  there were many swords and crossbows being sold.  I can't quite think of many situations where these might be useful (although several altercations during my morning Jubilee line commute did come to mknd).

In between the many shops there were several banks,  small hotels and restaurants. Essentially an entire city,  distributed over dozens of tiny steep streets,  on top of a massive hill.

Of course,  I haven't yet described what the beauty of San Marino is although it is fairly obvious.  Being so very old and on top of a hill,  it has the most picturesque views over the surrounding landscape.  Looking out in one direction you can see the sea.  In another,  rolling fields that meet a blue-grey summer haze. The others show the rest of the country of San Marino - many red topped houses and all the busy,  windy roads up to the hill (and further still to parts of actual Italy). The stone built city itself is in pristine condition, and although all the touristy shops somewhat marr photos of the city structures,  generally it is quite pretty.

We took our dinner at the highest altitude restaurant with a good view that we could find called Nido del Falco. The food was average,  the service lacking and the fellow diners noisy but the view more than made up for it.

On our way out,  we stopped for a quick glance at a show that was being put on by a local professional ballet group (amongst other acts). Surprisingly this was possibly only the second ballet performance I had seen,  the first being The Nutcracker about 15 years ago. I quite enjoyed it,  particularly for the excellent choice of music - although a live orchestra would have helped tremendously!

We also discovered a cable car that would take us down to at least the beginning of the steps.  Without hesitation we paid the €2.80 fare. A shortcut back to the hotel helped us get back in about 20 minutes - albeit not using the 'more pleasant' road.

The next day we woke up just in time for breakfast. I thought we'd missed the good stuff because,  besides some basic cornflakes and some melba toast,  there was a tray with crumbs on it that looked like it once contained pastries. (It turns out this was just white bread this morning,  so I don't feel like I lost out much...)

After a marathon morning of blogging,  we headed back to the city via the New York Bakery,  an Italian American style bakery.  I needed something to take with my medication and they had some giant brownies on display so I asked for two to takeaway (Phil also wanted one). The lady pointed to a large poster on the wall showing an icecream scoop on top of a brownie covered in chocolate sauce and said "if you eat them here we serve them like that".  That was good enough to get us to stay for a short while!

Taking the cable car up into the city,  we toured one of the towers,  a couple of museums,  had a piadina (a famous local sandwich) and went looking for San Marino minted Euros. The piadina is,  as far as I can work out,  just a wrap but sliced and folded half-ways instead of rolled up. Still,  it was simple and delicious,  with soft cheese and rocket.  We had fries too,  which was a mistake but helped bump up our carb intake.

We visited two museums,  one which was paid for - the Museo de San Francesco,  and the free Museo di Stati. The Museo de San Francesco was fairly uninteresting,  containing mainly biblical paintings of the saint. I normally get quite bored in overly religious museums. The Museo di Stati was better - containing many artifacts and other 'old things'. I found their collection of pots and vases quite amusing - will bored teenagers be trudging around museums looking at perfectly preserved Tupperware in a few hundred years?

I was also convinced that there was a way to get a rare San Marino minted Euro coin without paying the outrageous prices that the souvenir shops asked.  After all,  an officially minted coin should exchange at 1 to 1, especially if minted this year! I first attempted to ask a local bank and after some fun going through an elaborate circular security scanner,  they told me that they didn't have any but to try an office nearby. Sure enough,  the office nearby was the official dispenser of San Marino stamps and coins and two very bored looking employees glanced up at me when I entered. After trying and failing to work out what my options were from the display,  I asked them and they said for €11 I could get an entire set of the 2013 coins.  Still not content,  I asked if it was possible to get just one coin and she nodded,  pulling out a bag full of San Marino 1 and 2 Euro coins. I broke an ordinary €5 note and went on my way.

A brief gelato later (this was surprisingly difficult to find - most ice cream sold in San Marino appears to be of the more pedestrian factory made variety),  we headed back down in the cable car to avoid the incoming thunderstorm. (My cycling shoes are just about ok to walk in but I can imagine a slippery demise lay ahead of any attempt to walk down wet San Marino avenues.)

I managed to redo my bar tape quickly before rushing upstairs to take a call with the CPCC group at Berkeley who I'm doing my Master's capstone project with. Sadly the wifi was down and the staff member there refused to accept it was broken because her computer (connected by a cable) was still working. She told us to ask the bar staff in ten minutes after her shift ended...useless. Phil and I waited for her to leave and then snuck into reception to power cycle the router,  which thankfully fixed the connection.

Dinner was at a bizarrely formal hotel restaurant across the dual carriageway from our hostel. We sat down on the white silk covered chairs and we're surrounded by couples and groups of couples. Somewhat out of place in our sweaty off-the-bike wear,  we placated ourselves by considering the alternatives - a kebab shop that operated out of the bar underneath our hostel or a McDonald's.

After ordering,  they gave us a glass of sparkling wine each and some sort of strange fish and cheese pre-starter dish which I sadly had to decline.  We didn't get charged for these.  I elected for a gnocchi and vegetable dish which was both tasty and amazingly filling (although not enough to stop me finishing a pack of Ringo biscuits back at the hostel later).

This morning we managed to get to breakfast early enough to get some toast.  The descent out of San Marino was a little slow - plenty of traffic lights and other vehicles trying to overtake meant it was too dangerous to take it at the same pace as the Alps. Pretty soon though we hit the coastal road which was very potholed and full of cars pulling out,  turning in and trying to overtake. Soon though it got quieter as we passed a lengthy stretch of road alongside the beach where maybe a thousand cars were parked.

The coastal road was fairly quick and we made it to Falconara Marottima for lunch in good time. Besides picking up new brake shoes for Phil's rear brake to replace the wood screw currently holding in,  overtaking a little Piaggio motor rickshaw and having a close call with an idiot Toyota Yaris driver, the ride was uneventful.

Lunch was a phenomenal amount of spaghetti with tomato sauce followed by a small gelato. This was probably not optimal riding food because I had the taste of both along with some sour bile at the back of my mouth as we started the climb out of Ancona and over the hills to Numana where we are staying with night.

The climb revealing some worrying noises coming from my bike when under heavy pedalling load. A consistent creak with each pedal stroke suggest either the bottom bracket,  pedals or cranks are worn. I need to investigate this further.

Still, we arrived quickly to Numana, after 82.60 miles at an average of 16.1 mph over 5.06.30 hours.

With plenty of time in Numana,  we've been enjoying the beach along with the other thousand Italians who are here. I suspect most are here just for the weekend - certainly this is the single most expensive hotel we are staying in. Tomorrow we cycle to Pescara for more beach and sun!

This is a bit of a bumper update.  The last four days have been extremely busy! We're now in Hostel San Marino,  a rather good hostel which is close to but not in San Marino.  This is probably the cheapest accommodation we've booked this trip -  for 25 euros each,  we have our own room (with four beds,  hah),  bathroom and air conditioning! They even include breakfast,  although this was meagre - cornflakes and melba toast.  Phil is out searching for an actual coffee as I write this.

We left Susa late on Monday.  Italians famously operate on a later schedule to much of Europe and breakfast only opened at 8am. (The smell of fresh bread at 7:15 suggested that we could probably have gone down earlier.) After some faff,  we hit the road at just before 9 for our first full day in Italy.

The condition of Italian roads vary from smooth as butter to worse than most African roads. I thought the A5 was bad but these could be so much worse. With the heavy traffic (both in terms of volume and in physical size - many many lorries),  there is often no room to manoeuvre around the potholes that seem to line the bicycle line of the lane.  These bumps are uncomfortable sure, but the main problem is that they cause my Garmin to turn off sporadically. Only particular bumps seem to cause it to turn off and I can't work out why. This is a little hairy when we're riding into a roundabout and the GPS turns off - I have to switch it back on with one band,  brake with the other and then indicate before pressing another button to change the display to the one we use for navigation. Thankfully Phil's unit seems a little more robust (and has a proper basemap) so we're covered if mine stops working altogether.

Italian drivers also drive in a very similar fashion to how I drive normally - that is,  heavy on both the accelerator and the brake pedals.  This is nerve wracking as a cyclist.  Drivers approach T junctions at full speed and brake to a halt only at the last minute,  all whilst looking straight ahead and giving no indication that they have seen us approaching on the main road they are joining.  There's nothing we can really do except stay as visible as possible and prepare to take evasive action if they do actually come out.

That morning,  we cycled in Turin.  Phil appeared to be against this detour but I hadn't realised this until we were navigating the busy dual carriageways feeding the city - by which point it was too late to turn around.  After reaching the nominal city centre and Phil decrying it as the Italian equivalent of Birmingham,  we eventually caught sight of the famous tower,  the Mole Antonelliana, a structure which I recognised from the Civilisation video game and from a liquor called the 'Chocolate Turin' which comes in a bottle shaped like the building.  We cycled towards it as best we could and eventually ended up in the historic centre of Turin,  which was beautiful - full of impressive buildings,  statues and huge piazzas.

Eventually we came to the Mole Antonelliana and Phil's wheel decide to puncture as we approached it. After taking our photos of the building,  we retired to a cafe nearby to fix the puncture and drink ice cream and coffee/hot chocolate.

As we passed a market on our way out of Turin, a lady shouted out what is the equivalent of 'nice thighs'.  This was reassuring because the marginally shorter route out that I picked (to avoid yet more dual carriageway cycling) took us over a couple of pretty serious climbs.

That afternoon,  we kept going towards Alessandria,  intending to have lunch in Asti,  a town some distance away. Phil's wheel punctured again when we were about five miles away and then again less than a mile down the road.  At this point it had just hit 2pm and the day was as hot as it would get. Phil was suffering in the heat,  and I was pretty dehydrated myself. We retired under a tree to fix the first puncture and then just another tree outside the large garden of a local home for the subsequent punctures.  His patches were failing to stick in the heat and we ended up replacing the tubes. By the time we got to Asti it was 4:30pm and I was starving (it's unclear whether Phil gets hungry,  normally coffee alone sustains him for lengthy periods of time!). Another amazing pizza later,  Phil's tyre went flat again and we asked the cafe operators if they could point us to a bike shop. We were in luck - there was one just a short walk away.

Sadly,  Italy being Italy,  the shop was shut in Mondays. Phil pulled into a driveway to fix his puncture and I patronised the gelato shop that was conveniently right next door. After getting many curious looks from bystanders as he sat cross legged in the middle of the driveway repairing his tubes (and attracting brief police attention), we were ready to go again.
We had further punctures about 10 miles out of Alessandria,  and pulled into a lay by next to an industrial estate to repair them. A nice man in a white van saw us and turned around to offer assistance! We were shocked but gratefully turned his offer down - intent on riding all the way.

We reached Alessandria just before 8pm, to the nicest (on paper) hotel we would be staying in - with a proudly advertised 4* rating. It didn't however have a restaurant,  which prompted us to look up how ratings are assigned.  It turns out that each country does this differently and Italian ratings are presumably more generous.

We went for dinner to a great little pizzeria where I had a quatro formaggio and panna cotta for dessert. Yum. Upon returning to the hotel,  I tried figuring out why someone had built a nice hotel in this seemingly uninteresting destinations.  The receptionist suggested the Cathedral might be nice to see. I was unconvinced.

The hotel was amusing.  It had lovely furnishings,  soft fluffy towels and a huge bathroom.  This was topped off with a grey 14" CRT television.

Despite the fast wifi,  I was so exhausted after the hours of delay that I went straight to bed. Although our riding time was just 5.56.18, we'd been on the hot road for 11 hours.  We cycled 91.78 miles,  with a 15.4 mph average speed.

On Tuesday we cycled from Alessandria to Fiorenzuola D'arda,  a town not far from Parma (the famous ham and cheese place).

The day was very hot.  Despite leaving earlier (our 4 star hotel offered breakfast from 6:30am), the heat had carried over from the previous day and it was near 30 degrees from the mid morning.  Our adventurous routing took us over some fairly steep hills which were the foothills of the Apenine mountain range. Sadly the same routing also assumed we could ride on footpaths and so the actual mileage ended up being more as we routed around it. Thankfully,  we had stopped at a supermarket that was the Italian equivalent of Waitrose,  and I had picked up half a kilogram of some amazing chocolate oat biscuits. By the end of the day I had less than half of these left...

We stopped for lunch in a wonderfully air conditioned cafe just after the climbing was mostly over where they made me a panini with many, many vegetables in.

At just before 3pm, we stopped for a gelato in a little town called Niviano. The shop was advertised to open at 3pm but predictably opened late.  While we were waiting,  Phil's tube punctured again in the heat. We were fresh out of inner tubes at this point and our repairs failed. Phil managed to ascertain that there was a bicycle shop 3 or 4 kilometres away and while he tried to repair his tube again,  I cycled off in search of the shop. (It's worth noting that we did eventually get our ice cream.)

I cycled off in the direction of the bicycle shop and spotted a road cyclist wearing red lycra who I was certain would know the location of the shop. He was going considerably quicker than me though,  so it took some effort to catch him with my pannier.  When I came along side,  Itried asking him for help and motioning towards my wheel.  He refused to even try and understand,  instead shouting 'no parlano Anglaisi,  no parlano' and accelerating away from me.  So much for cyclist on cyclist support.  I wish many punctures upon his wheels.

After asking a very helpful gentleman at a supermarket who gave me excellent directions,  sadly all in Italian,  I pulled into a car garage and asked for inner tubes. They laughed and said they only stocked tyres for cars but got on the phone and soon wrote down the address of what they assured me was a bicycle shop.

I finally reached the bicycle shop,  a curious place which was a mess of spare parts and oily used parts and appeared to service anything with two wheels. The bike shop owner was out when I arrived but he soon pulled up in a large jeep. After explaining our predicament,  he pulled out two inner tubes and some rim tape,  I took a celebratory photo with him and pedalled back to Phil.

Our puncture problems behind us for the day we continued on to Fiorenzuola.  Our route took us over some lovely gravelly 'roads'. Phil's confidence on these roads had been slowly increasing (at the beginning of the trip her was flatly against unpaved surfaces) and he was amused when the road took us over a river. Thankfully this had dried up,  but my shoes still were soaked as we walked over the riverbed.

I was pretty exhausted coming into the town,  having cycled 98.67 miles,  the route for the day plus the additional running around looking for the bike shop. This was 6.52.22 hours of cycling with a respectable 14.3 mph average.  My skin was covered with salt,  something I had never really noticed before (having always assumed it was road grit). Overall this was an 11.5 hour day on the bike.

As we walked around the town looking for food,  we disappointed the proprietor of an empty bar when after some discussion,  the only vegetarian meal he could offer was a salad. Eventually we went for apertivi at a cocktail bar called Cafe Suavato where a 3.50 euro spend gained you access to a buffet of food. After this we went to a small restaurant where I had my first pasta in Italy - which was good but nowhere near as much better than home as the pizzas here are. Dessert was a semifreddo,  which was nice - a little nutty and essentially a slice of ice cream.

The next day we left later again (after a cold shower and after Phil was told off for attempting to use the espresso machine to make a cappuccino). Luckily we had a tail wind to Bologna,  and although we stopped briefly in Parma for a snack,  we made excellent progress,  reaching the outskirts of Modena at about 11:30. Our route took us past the Auto Drome Modena,  a race track where we stopped for 20 minutes to watch a party on a track day get briefed. I also snuck into the pits to admire the Formula1-esque cars they were going to be racing.

On our way into the city centre,  Phil had another flat next to a supermarket. He tried repairing this,  which failed,  and then replaced it with the other spare tube which also failed - it seemingly already had a hole in it! Eventually he managed to get it fixed up and we made it to a bike shop called Sportissimo. Alas,  it shut for lunch at 1 and we arrived at 1:15. Lunch breaks in Italy are long and they wouldn't open again until 3...

Standing outside the front entrance,  we tried to figure out what to do next.  The owner, locking up,  saw us and asked us if we were ok.  Phil explained the problem to him and he told us to come around to the side entrance.

They were happy to help and replaced the rim tape,  tube and gave us some free tubes. They even offered us water and coffee for Phil.  We spoke to the owner while one of his mechanics fixed the wheel - his shop was one of the largest in Modena,  and he'd been running it for 23 years.  He thought we were Dutch initially (possibly due to Phil's build and orange jersey) and was happy to hear we were from London. After the puncture was fixed, and the rim tape replaced (again),  he refused to let us pay. What an absolute legend!

We stopped for lunch briefly at a strange smelling cafe under a walkway where I had a salad in the hope it would expedite our lunch stop. This was a mistake though since I burned through the 200 calories the salad supplied in about 20 minutes and was hungry for the rest of the day.

The tail wind that had carried us in the morning stopped and turned around as we neared Bologna,  becoming a fierce headwind. Additionally,  dark grey clouds ahead looked as if they were about to soak us. We pulled over to waterproof our panniers and continued on down a rather unpleasant dual carriageway that was heavily trafficked and lined with prostitutes. Very odd. Although we had missed the scheduled Ducati factory tour at 3.30pm that I had hoped to catch,  we decided to visit the museum anyway and their very friendly representative managed to book us on a later tour. It was amusing touring a motorcycle factory in cycling lycra and the other tourists found the way we parked our bikes quite astonishing (in the absence of a bike rack,  we had hung them from a railing).  The museum itself was interesting but I found the factory more fascinating. They turn out between 300 and 400 bikes a day and the factory is manned 20 hours a day.

We left the factory at the same time as the shift change and battled some epic traffic into Bologna where we met Adrian for an evening of so much food. All in all,  89.20 miles,  a 16.4mph average over 5.25.36 hours.

The restaurant he took us to offer an amazing starter where the food just kept coming. They would remove half eaten plates from the table to make room for new ones.  My favourite was pecorino with jam/chutney,  although the buffalo mozzarella was also excellent. We had a bottle of local sangiovese to accompany our meal - my main course was risotto with gorgonzola and pears.  A strange but delicious combination. The meal was topped off with a delicious gelato.

The next morning Adrian treated us to a wonderful quantity of cereal and then took us to a breakfast bar where I had the most amazing layered custard pastry called a 'Diplomatica'. He accidentally ordered three coffees and so I was treated to my first ever espresso - an excellent Italian one at that.

This helped contribute to a quick ride that morning. Phil's puncture woes looked as if they were mostly over.  Aside from a quick stop for iced tea and espresso in Imola,  we stopped in Cesena for lunch from a bizarre cafe. The owner was very impressed by Phil's Italian and even more impressed by our proposed route. When he asked about what vegetarian vegetarian meals she had,  she pulled out several frozen ready meals to show us... D'oh. So much for fresh Italian food. A quick gelato later (where the lady was amused by my pronunciation of 'stracciatella'),  we hit the road.

The climb into San Marino was fierce but short and we arrived at the hostel at 3:30pm after 80.16 miles,  an average of 15.7 mph over 4.47.49. I went looking for the hostel operator to rent a towel but she was away,  so I decided to go get a cold drink from the supermarket nearby. I didn't manage to find this but did manage to find an outdoor shop where I picked up another t-shirt. (Only having 1 makes impossible to wash... Lesson learned.)

We took yesterday as an impromptu rest day after doubling up on Friday. That was nice since my parents had just driven up to the Alps for the weekend in a heroic effort by my father - they left Watford at 10am nand reached St. Jean de Maurienne at 1:15am. We spent the whole day mainly carb loading on cake and fondue and relaxing in their rented chalet in Valfrejeurs, a ski resort just a short distance (but 700m above) where we were staying in Modane.

Today we set off early after a couple of pain raisins (each), preparing for an epic climb into Italy. Our quieter alternate route to the infamous D1009 took us nearly half a kilometre higher but then took us back down again as it rejoined the D road. When we hit the D road, we turned off towards Turing and took our 'optimised' route which took us over a footpath which was sort of cycleable but definitely not with our load and bike setup. It was basically a semi-steep grass hillside which cut the loop off the highway. It almost certainly took us longer than the road route but was a fun element of variety to an otherwise entirely paved tour.

Soon after we hit the road again, we turned right onto a road over the Col de Mont Cenis, a hill (mountain even?) that sat between us and Italy. It was a long climb up on which we were beleaguered by a merciless and slowly growing entourage of midges. This climb took us by a thousand feet to 2015m, over what must have been around 10 miles. We saw very few cyclists travelling in the same direction (although we were overtaken by a couple of unladen roadies near the top) but many coming the opposite way at a surprisingly slow speed.

The other interest fact was that the traffic was primarily into France from Italy, perhaps a reflection more of the time of day than of each country's relative economic situations. Motorcyclists seemed to love this road and I've made a mental note to come back one day with a motorcycle.

We reached the top without stopping at all, possibly a little reckless but once I found my pace, I was anxious not to lose it. There were some stunning views out over the valley we had just climbed out of but the persistence of the midges, the traffic passing at speed and the sheer grind of trying to climb meant that we were primarily looking at either our front wheels or the road just in front of them.

When we reached the top (after passing a farm selling home made cheese - what a location!), we stopped for a snack - Casino value cereal bars and Intermarche budget cookies. Both of these didn't taste so great, predictably, but they were good enough to get the faint taste of sweat and blood out of my mouth. After helping a trio of motorcyclists take a photo with the sign at the top of the hill, I put some arm warmers on and we headed downhill, all the way to Italy.

Not more than a hundred metres from the summit of the hill the beautifully blue coloured water of the Lac du Mont Cenis came into view. A few kilometres further, we encountered the most magnificent traffic jam, filled with motorcyclists, caravans and many many cars. After trying to work out why there were so many people parked here, we asked an Italian runner (wearing matching running shorts and a sleeveless top) who explained that there was a big running and mountain bike race that had use finished. Despite having just run 15km, he seemed impressed that we were cycling to Brindisi. I'm not sure I could run 15km, so the feeling of respect was mutual.

This became clear as we continued on down the road to pass the finishing straight and the occasional pair of runners with numbers beyond that. At this point the descending really began and it was just amazing.

It took me a little while to warm up but I was comfortable on these roads quickly, with their smooth and dry surface, relatively light traffic and with plenty of space for both lanes of traffic. I soon got to grips with how my bike handles under heavy braking and the sorts of lines I could take through corners. With the new carbon fork, steering is a lot more aggressive and I really started to get into the corners. Traffic in our direction was light but motorcycles coming the other way were overtaking adventurously and veering out into our lane while doing so, it took some quick reactions to get out of their way in time.

After what didn't seem like very long but was actually several miles, we saw our first sign indicating that we had crossed into Italy! There was no real border as such so we took our photo opportunity there and continued on down the wonderful descent where we almost managed to get to 70kmph. Sadly a slow moving RV decided to overtake us on a corner and we were stuck behind him for some time until Phil got another mysterious puncture on the inside of his tube. Once he had replaced his tube (and we had marvelled at how warm our rims had become from all the braking), we finished the last couple of miles to arrive in Susa just after noon. It was quite a short day at just 41 75 miles over 3.21.40 (an average of 12.4) and we could probably have pushed onto Turin but it is hard to know these things when planning the route on a computer so far from the actual terrain!

As we arrived in Susa, the main throughway in town was shut and all we could hear was a drumming sound. As we filtered to the front of traffic, we noticed a procession of men, women and children wearing ornate old fashioned robes, interleaved with drummers wearing similar uniform. There were 6 different colours in all, representing what we guessed were their districts in town. Our hotel manager explained that today was a festival of sorts celebrating the history of Susa and we spent most of the afternoon in a Roman amphitheatre watching friendly games where the various factions (or Borghis) competed against each other. First up was archery, which was extremely boring for the latter 5 of the 6 rounds they decided were necessary. Next was jousting, which was quite amusing and a little worrying as the rambunctious horses looked as if they might through their riders off. Finally about 10 men from each faction competed in a tug of war competition against each other team.

After all this competition, we headed to a pizzeria where the food came quicker than the amount of time it took to initially place an order. Anish was right in saying that Italy is considerably better for vegetarians, not only did they have a vegetariano pizza but many of their other options were also without meat. I had a 'Popeye' pizza with ricotta and spinach (and without tomato sauce) which was fantastically delicious. Nom.

Tomorrow is a long day to Alessandria but there should be three positives. Firstly, our hotel includes breakfast (as most Italian hotels seem to), so I am optimistic for something a little more substantial than a pastry. Secondly, we're hoping to pass through Turin for lunch, which should be very scenic. Finally, the elevation profile for the day looks like a descending staircase - hopefully making the 92 miles less arduous.