a broken spoke at 5300 feet will get you a four hour lunch with an Italian family.

Have I got a story for you!
Long story short, I did 5300 feet of climbing and spend four hours eating lunch with the Baldani Sisters and their families, a family I had never met before in my life.

Now for the details:
Brian and I left Ascoli at about ten thirty after a quick bottom bracket lube and tighten.
We rolled out of his shop and headed for Mt. Vettore, by way of the Vecchia Salaria, Aqua Santa Ferme and Arquata del Tronto. The real climbing started when we hit the outskirts of Arquata. It was steep enough and there were plenty of switchback to keep life interesting, but always looming over our heads was Mt. Vettore, which has snow on it as of the last couple of days.
We worked our way up, the air got colder and thinner, trees became less deciduous and more evergreen in quantity. I was feeling really good from the two dinners I had eaten the previous night (pasta and sausage at 6:30 and a tuna sandwich at 10:30), so I was doing hill-attacks; going from about 9-10 mph with Brian (he hadn’t ridden in two weeks and was fighting a cold that his daughters gave him) to attacking at 14-16mph, maxing out my heart rate at about 196bpm. I did a couple of these, then waited for Brian and we continued to climb the mountain. {It’s strange saying mountain but this was an honest to goodness MOUNTAIN!}
As we neared the intersection that can take you to either Comunanza (where Brian was going after the max ascent) or Castelluccio (a town in geographic bowl), Brian was suffering like a dog in august and my head was started to pound a little.
The road had less switchbacks at this point and more straight sections as we approached the timberline. Some sections were exposed to the windward side, which was hell b/c the wind was a-blowing hard up there! Then you’d round a corner and tuck back into the leeward sections of road. At one point I rounded a switchback that went from a miserable fight then to care-free spin as the wind changed in my favor.
I took some pictures; the one of Brian rounding the switch and the one of me, looking like I’m dying.
Then, it got hard.
As if 7mph from the preceding 40 minutes, with my heart rate not dropping below 186 bpm, wasn’t bad enough…
Now we, I should say “I” b/c I had dropped Brian long ago, were completely above timberline, exposed to the wind and climbing straight sections of road. I dropped my speed to 5 mph and raised my heart rate to 190 bpm. I was ready to shift into my spokes, and couldn’t seem to find any sort of cadence or rhythm, sitting or standing. It didn’t seem like my pace was getting me anywhere and the road just didn’t want to end; couple that with the fact that I didn’t know how much longer this misery would last, I was seriously considering bailing out of this god-forsaken epic pain festival.
During my suffering, cars and motorcycles kept passing me. There was one sport bike that I heard two minutes before he passed me at warp 3. It had to have been a 600cc bike b/c I have never heard a 1000cc bike rev that high. I heard him screaming from down below me. Then he got closer. As he ripped past me, I would have sworn out loud, if there was any spare oxygen with in 60 feet of me. Sadly, there was none b/c of my spectacular rate of consumption and general fatigue.
At this point the road splits a rock outcropping; bare naked mountain to the left with a Madonna shrine carved into the mountain, and outcropping to the right, with touches of snow tucked in to the shadows. Before I passed through this, I stopped to take a couple more photos.
I snapped away; the road splitting the mountain, cough, the view of the Adriatic Sea, cough cough, the unreachable-by-bike, snow-covered summit of Mt Vettore, cough cough cough, then finally threw up what was left of my breakfast. Then, lest I forget my suffering, I took a picture of my vomit.
As I clipped back in, Brian caught up to me.
“Look. You can see the ocean from the moon,” I said to him, in reference to our insane altitude. “And I threw up. I took a picture.”
“SWEET! This is now truly and epic climb!” Brian, no matter ho miserable, no matter how black things are around him b/c of the suffering he is subjecting himself to on the bike, is intensely upbeat; as long as the suffering is born from the bike.
One hundred meters farther and we arrived at the parking area that signifies the Forcigliela pass. We took a cursory look around, ducked behind a car in order ourselves from the screaming, maybe 30-40 mph winds and broke out our wind layers and arm warmers in order to prepare for the descent. I snapped a few pictures of the misery in Brian’s eyes, a hiker coming down from the summit of Vettore. In the, maybe, three minutes it took to complete all of those tasks, my shivers turned in to what looked more like seizures.
We rolled out, into the wind and toward the descent. I shifted all the way up to my biggest gear, 53 in the front and 12 in the back, not that I was planning on powering down this killer mountain, but just b/c anything lower would have made me spin wildly, possibly throwing my the balance of my bike.
Brian jetted past me, as he always does.
I looked down and my speed was approaching 32 mph when my bike started to shimmy a little at first. Then progressed in to fairly wild, left to right, harmonic shaking.
I started breaking, with as much pressure as I felt was safe. I called out for Brian to slow down, but he couldn’t hear me with the wind in his ears. The only thing I could think was the video clip Valentino Rossi getting pitched off his motoGP machine as result of violent tank-slapper. Somehow I was able get my speed down and unclip in order to inspect my rig. I checked my spokes by gently squeezing them together and they all seemed to be in order.
I rolled back out, with the mindset of slow and easy, not to upset anything again and cheat death. I got one pedal stroke in to round two of the descent of doom, and PING, there goes a front spoke!
Now, with a front wheel dramatically out of alignment and 5300 feet up a mountain, the only thing I can think to do is flag down a car and ask if they can give me ride to the base of mountain so I can limp this bad boy back to Ascoli.
Enter Gloria and Franco Baldani.
I asked the first car, which had Gloria’s sister in it, in the caravan of two, if they could help me out. I quickly noticed that the car was full. They told me that the car behind them was the second car in their caravan, and that, yes, they could help me, but I should ask Gloria b/c they only had two people and a dog in their car. After asking, in halting Italian, if they could get me to the bottom of the mountain, they said, “Yes, but we have lunch plans but you can come with us.”
“Sei sicuro?” I asked. “Are you sure?”
“Si, si,” Gloria told me.
Shortly before Brian rolled back up and we quickly discussed the situation.
“It’s ride-able. I’ve seen worse,” he said intrepidly.
I preety much said, well you can ride it then, but I am going to get a ride to the bottom with these people.
It was now that I heard Gloria mention pranzo, or lunch.
“Uhh… mio vestiti e una problema?”
No, no my cycling clothes, or as some people like to refer to it, my lingere, would not be a problem.
Then, came the four hour, six course lunch, during which we discussed: where I was from, how much I ride, the excellent quality of Adriatic fish, how fast I ride, how long I am here in italy, why I am here in italy, how many kids Gloria has, how long she has been painting, what she does for work, how often she travels to Rome, why her dog is named Bullma after the wife of Vegeta from Dragonball Z, the local specialty liquors of Ascoli and Ancona and why Varnelli (Ancona’s specialty) can’t be copied even though it’s tried, the type of terrain that is in New Hampshire and how it is different in italy, where Gloria's sister told her hairdresser to stick the 140euro hair cut bill, how cross-country skiers use synthetic seal skin to help them ascend mountains in the winter; ALL IN ITALIAN!
At about 5 o’clock, we got up to leave and they refused to left me pay my share of the bill. We got a group picture and some candids as we walked to the car. Franco told me about the ancient legend/poem of why the mountains in Parco Sibilini are different from the mountains in Parco Monta della Laga; Sibilini had a salt water lake and della Laga had a sweet water lake in it which was responsible for the difference in rock formations, according to a 1400’s poet.
We returned to Ascoli and they dropped me right off in front of my door. We exchanged emails so that I can email them our group photo and, of course, plan when I am to go to Ancona so that Gloria can cook me a good fish dinner and so that Franco can take me for a swim in the Adriatic.

You know how it goes; just another day on the bike in Italy!