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 “Impossibile!” was the Roman archeologist’s first response. But this kind of bike tour is actually very doable.

I mention Dottore Grello again because I’ve been thinking about him a lot. Without knowing it, he forced me to stand up for myself and my dreams. I convinced him on the spot, and this gave me that last little boost of confidence I needed to make it happen.

3 tips and 2 books for touring the Appian Way

I’m writing this post because I got two more emails this week from people who want to tour southern Italy by bicycle. If you’re ready to explore the Appian Way, all I can say is, “You can do it!” It’s not terribly hard as far as bike touring goes–you’re crossing the Apennines, not the Rockies.

Whatever your dreams are, don’t put them off. If you want to tour the Appian Way (or anyplace else), then learn a bit about the terrain, get your bike and your gear in order, and jump in.

You’ll always manage to find a place to sleep. Unexpected help (and adventure) will come to you along the way. And the lessons you’ll learn–about Italy, about Italians, and most of all about yourself–are priceless.

Two books that changed my life 

Dr. Grello gave me a chance meet the author of one of the most motivating books about the Appian Way. It didn’t work out, but the book itself was worth many times the price.

On the surface, it looks like Ivana Della Portella put together a “coffee table” sort of book. If that were all, it would be good enough just for the bragging rights. Some day your friends will open it up to an impossibly gorgeous landscape shot and you’ll tell them, “I was right there, sitting with my back against that pillar, eating olives.”

But the real value of The Appian Way comes before you even set out. I always like to start out with a constellation of points I’d like to go to on my bike. Once you’re on the road, connecting the dots is the most exciting part of the journey.

Since it’s light reading with a lot of photos, Dr. Portella sets the scene in her book–she gives you a roadmap by not giving you a roadmap.  

If you’re serious about touring via Appia, I recommend The Appian Way: A Journey by Dora Jane Hamblin and Mary Jane Grunsfeld. This is the book I referred to the most on my first bike tour in Italy, and I slowly became an expert on the Appian Way by reading through all the references they include in the back.

Most of all, it’s hearwarming to read the authors’ concerns about ancient Roman ruins that were disappearing due to vandalism and neglect when the book was written. Heartwarming, because 30 years later you get to ride your bike to these very places and see them restored and protected.

I plan to outdo these authors with my own book (which I’ll post on this blog one chapter at a time starting in January 2011) but in the meantime I think this is the most thorough, informative, and entertaining book about the Appian Way available in English.
 

3 bits of advice

I promised some advice about a bike tour through southern Italy. But what I realized as I started writing this is that the advice I would give you is the same for any bike tour, anywhere. But here goes:

1. Talk to the locals. You’re guaranteed to dispel loneliness, at the very least. But more often you’ll learn about the best places to eat, hear an interesting story, see things that aren’t in any guidebook, and maybe even get invited for dinner.
2. Keep your itinerary and schedule open. If you’re planning a 10-daybike tour, make it a route you can do in 7 or 8 days. This leaves you time for delays problems, and also for the unexpected discoveries that are more likely still
3. Just go for it.  

If you really need more information before you’re ready to down your first shot of limoncello, check out the rest of my blog. Or better yet, read these two books:

I just read a good blog post by a teacher and mom who took her kids across the globe on bikes:

http://familyonbikes.org/blog/

This got me thinking about lifestyle, adventure, freedom, bike touring, and how it all ties together.

Today is Easter, which I don’t celebrate, but it’s a holiday about rebirth and renewal. I spent most of the day staring at a computer screen, working on a new business scheme and preparing for a challenging job I’ve come to both love and hate.

It’s good to know there are still people out there who are willing to let the job coast for a while, get out the bike and ride to some far-flung destination. That this action is always rewarding is a given–what people forget is that it sometimes takes a tremendous amount of courage to stop doing all the things we’re told we have to do.

Over the past year or so, I’ve been posting a lot less, also riding my bike a lot less, and I really should know better. (You should, too, in fact! If you’re reading this, why aren’t you out doing something adventurous instead?)

I’m feeling wistful for southern Italy. I want to cycle over steep green hills, my fingers stained with the oil of black olives, and quench my thirst with spring water gushing from stone fountains.

After today I know I will.

We all make New Year’s resolutions, but I’m going to make an Easter resolution. More bike rides, more touring, more time listening to the heart instead of the brain.

One last thumbs up for whoever is reading this. If you have a blog of your own, remember that you never know who’s going to be inspired by your creativity and courage. I got a badly needed pep talk from a farsighted teacher who decided one day to take her family on a bike tour. Good stuff!

The things we’ll do to go on a bike ride.

Today the city of Los Angeles closed off several main streets to traffic, leaving it safe for bikers and pedestrians. It’s called Ciclavia. I love this day.

Of course, being in Los Angeles, everyone lives spread out far from the center. We commute into the center on buses, trains, maybe even cars, in order to ride our bikes around the city.

Ciclavia was great, but the drama came on the home trip. Imagine thousands of urban cyclists squeezing into a tiny string of subway cars.

We were ready to wait patiently for out turn, but as we worked our way through the crowd towards Union Station, we were told that the Red Line was temporarily closed.

I was outraged for a while. I thought they arbitrarily blocked us off so that instead of dealing with hordes of bikers on a Sunday afternoon, they would have to deal with hordes of bikers a few hours later on a Sunday evening. It didn’t seem logical.

It turns out the real issue was a bomb threat.

I didn’t wait for the news, though. I met a friend who had her car parked a few miles away, complete with a bike rack on the back. She handed me a spare key with the idea I would ride my bike to her car, and drive back to pick her up.

But when I got there, the car key was useless because she had “The Club” locking the wheel.

For a biking event that ended at 3, I didn’t even get home until after 5. Not a disaster, but it got me thinking.

I could have just got on my bike and taken a ride anywhere I wanted today, and avoided the hassles of a group trip. Why do we really ride our bikes?

For me, it has never been about racing or speed. I thought I was just using the bike as a fun way to get around, and save some money along the way. But it turns out I’m willing–even eager–to spend 7 hours of my time to take a 45-minute bike ride if it’s part of a big group event.

I had a lot to do this weekend, and doing Cyclavia meant giving up some sleep. But I didn’t just ride. I met a professional musician, and talked about wine with a dude from Argentina. I even got a new business idea which may someday provide the means to go on more bike tours.

Biking is a social event, something I hadn’t thought about since the last time I went on Midnite Ridazz. That’s another reason I ride a bike.

Biking is social, something that can bring strangers together.

Even if you just have a few hours free, you can jump on your bike and have an adventure. There’s a small residential road that I had never explored, but on the maps it looked like it continued on for a while.

I had a free afternoon with just about three hours until sundown, so I took a bike ride down the mystery road to see where it would go. It turns out this particular section of Olive street intersects with El Camino Real, the Royal Highway of “New Spain.”

I ended up in the historical center of San Gabriel. The road went almost in a straight line to one of the early California missions. People from the San Gabriel Mission went on to found the city of Los Angeles, so this bike ride took me to some of the roots of LA’s history.

I even got to see one of the first and oldest grape vines in southern California, and later on I tasted some California wine to celebrate.

If your a biking newbie, this just reinforces the point: It doesn’t matter how far you want to ride or how much time you have. Just get on your bike and explore. You’ll run into something interesting you’ve never seen before, or discover a new bike route to places you’ve already been.

Sometimes you have to be a ninja. Last week I was cruising down the Rio Honda bike path in the rain.

Big, bucket-sized globs of water streamed down my face and into my eyes. My waterlogged shoes sloshed and drooled out excess water at every stroke.

When I got to the exit where I wanted to leave the bike path, the gate was locked.

No problem. I just hoisted my panniers, my bike, and myself over the fence. But it got me thinking.

When you’re riding your bike as your main source of transportation, you’re basically subverting the dominant paradigm. Lots of times you have to bend the norms and rules of  society, because the cards are stacked against you.

How many times have you had to swerve out of the bike lane to avoid catching your wheel in a sewer grate? Stealth camp because there was no reasonable place to stay within riding range?

I suspect almost every serious bike traveler has a list of minor traffic violations, walls and fences climbed, illicit camping and maybe more. And I’m pretty sure most of you are proud of your opportunistic improvisations.

I’m not going to preach any kind of morality. One could argue both sides. You could say it’s important to be a law-abiding citizen to give bike tourists a good reputation. You could claim a higher right to special privileges, as someone who is using their own physical body to alleviate global warming.

These arguments are irrelevant once you’re out somewhere cold, hungry, wet, and far away from where you should be. Then it’s a matter of survival, or at least prospering.

In addition to stealth camping and climbing, it wouldn’t hurt to have several wilderness and urban survival skills. Building a fire, catching a fish, dumpster diving all come to mind. Even hopping a freight train might save you some day.

Any other skills to have in your bike traveler repertoire?

If you live anywhere in or near Los Angeles, I hope you made it to the Tour de Fat yesterday. Not just because we raised $13,000 for local bike groups, not even for the music. Not even for the beer.

I don’t usually post these things. I’m going to get woo-woo and ethereal about bikes here, so be forewarned.

When I moved to L.A. I wasn’t expecting to find such a vibrant bike culture. If we had a few thousand bikers who were trying to make it work as a viable form of transportation in a hostile car-dominated environment, that would have been enough. But Los Angeles bikers have gone far beyond this.

Never in any time or place have I seen so much creative energy, such a perfect synthesis of organized cooperation and individual expression. L.A. bikers are evolved beings, at the pinnacle of human greatness.

At the Tour de Fat you kept hearing people say, “take care of your vehicle.” And the vehicle is you. This is cosmic, no matter what you believe in.

If you believe in evolution, you’re here because a million different lives were lived and destroyed, each one building upon the others. A billion experiments of trial and error, a million things that could have gone wrong but didn’t, a thousand possible seeds and eggs that could have united, a hundred generations and the final pinnacle of all this, the only outcome that made it, was you.

If you believe instead in some sort of divine being that brought you into existence, the meaning is the same: You are a miracle. You’re here because of extraordinary circumstances, and you’re capable of accomplishing unimaginable things.

But most people live their lives in silent desperation, mediocrity, and never break out of their own self-imposed prisons. Not you. Not the bikers.

What I saw yesterday was a thousand people who chose to get around on their own power. A number of brave souls renounced their cars and dared themselves to use their bikes for transportation for a year.

Rarely do you see such a powerful group of energetic, creative, self-reliant souls all together. When you ride a bike, you’re taking back your cosmic birthright and affirming your own personal power.

Our planet is in trouble in so many ways, but people are waking up, and in the coming years I think a lot of you are going to discover your own form of greatness.

This is why I’m still optimistic. This is why I choose to take care of my vehicle. This is why I ride.

There are now so many people using their bikes as transportation in Los Angeles that we actually have a parking problem. A number of businesses (notably independent cafes and restaurants) have installed bike parking in front of their doors. I suspect this has been invaluable in helping them survive the recession.

Anyway, I’ve been wondering whether the owners put up bike racks to attract more bike commuting customers, or whether they did it because many of their customers were bikers already.

Which came first? And could anybody build up their business by showing that they’re edgy, forward-looking and ecologically aware by catering more to bike riders?

My battered old Ortlieb panniers are still holding out, after more than 5 years of almost daily use. Someone at the coffee shop this morning asked me about them, and had similar luck with his own panniers.

This is something I love about the bicycle industry. There are so many good companies that really care about what they do. A lot of gear is built to perform, and built to last.

So many other industries produce crap that wears out fast, relying on planned obsolescence to keep their profits coming. Chalk this up as another sustainability benefit of bike commuting and bike travel. More greenbelt, less landfill.

Terracina roughly translates into “little piece of land” but it’s hard to understand where they got this title from. Everything here seems big, towering, rocky to the extreme.  The craggy top of the place once housed a fortress called Anxur, and the temple to Jupiter/Zeus/Jove is called the temple of Jove in Anxur.

The top of the city is a sheer delight for an amateur history buff like me. The original Appian Way is clear and obviously marked in the main piazza of the town, running right between the venerable duomo and an excellent bar where the espresso will do wonders for an exhausted bike tourist.

The walls of the duomo are made of building materials filched from other, far older structures. So you see all kinds of tiles with latin inscriptions, chunks of marble, bits of bas-relief and artwork. These 3-dimensional collages are actually fairly common all over Italy, and they’re one of my favorite things to look at.

But when you reach the Piazza dei Paladini and the Temple of Jove in Anxur, you’re in for a sight. The fortress town of Terracina is dwarfed by the mountainous cliffs, the rolling countryside far below, and the shimmering Mediterranean rippling off into the distance.

Most of all, you see the via Appia clearly marked in both directions. The original road has been preserved as a park going out of Rome, and when this gives way to Strada Statale 7 (SS7) it still runs through the Pontine Marshes in a straight line, flanked by umbrella pines. From Jove’s lofty perch you have a dark green line showing you the way.

In fact, the umbrella pines are almost always a reliable marker. Throughout my trip, whenever I was unsure of the way, I would get somewhere high up and look for the pines. Even in the most dry and dusty sections of Puglia and Basilicata, it wasn’t that unusual to pass a lonely umbrella pine marking the remnants of Rome’s most famous road.

As you leave Terracina heading south, you’ll see the famous cut through the rock that eliminated the need to take the steep slope over the mountain and saved hasty Romans an entire day of travel.

The road leaving Terracina takes you along some of my favorite parts of the journey. As you weave up the switchbacks towards Fundi and Itri, you’ll come across some well-preserved ruins of the Appian Way.

On my last tour a farmer was selling olives from a wooden cart on the side of the road. I munched on these as I walked along the old via Appia, and wondered where I would find myself next.

I’d love to see a world where things like the current mess in the Gulf of Mexico didn’t happen. Where the oceans and mountains and forests and their inhabitants could just coexist with us crazy bike-riding, car-driving apes and all living beings could at least count on breathable air and drinkable water.

I don’t ride my bike because I feel this way. I think I feel this way because I ride my bike.

My sweetie and I just spent a few days riding through the mists of the California Coast. Lots of great scenery and wildlife and some wonderful food, hikes, and all the other good things you’d expect on a bike tour.

But we also spent a lot of time picking up trash. There are so many people, it seems, who “enjoy nature” by driving to a beautiful spot, feasting and drinking, and then getting back into their cars to go home. Nothing wrong with the first two, but the last is inexcusable. Especially where there’s a trash can just a few yards away.

In the end, Johana and I had to set limits on how much trash we could clean up. We set up a sort of triage, focusing on plastic and other dangerous litter, and leaving the worst messes that were beyond hope.

It seems like the worst perpetrators drink Budweiser Lite.

Maybe if you rode your bike to the party, really earned your way there with sweat and possibly blood, you’d appreciate the remoteness and not always trash the place.