The final climb
Passo Lanciano
From the Sea to the Pass
A summer-crowded beach is autumn-deserted. The Adriatic Sea splashes infant waves on a line of wet-dark sand. An ice-cream sign squeaks in the light breeze. On one skyline the phantom merging of sea and sky, and on the other the Mother Mountain, distant and dark, formed it is said, by a goddess. There is a pass across its eastern flank - Passo Lanciano, a grade one climb. My wheels are set to ride it.
I clip in and turn towards the mountains. Chest pulses with excitement. Pedals turn easily. Muscles warm under the skin. A draught of a breeze pushes my back. My mind drifts, latches onto nothing. Kilometres pass.
The road is railway straight and heads for the hills, still some distance away. Concrete blocks of houses and larger pale metal sheds of light industry line the road. Advertising hoardings shout their simple lines, loud and brash. To the left and right, fields of peaches, vines and olives. Hills begin to rise like proving dough and the road rises with them. The tarmac is new, the traffic light.
The chain drives over the big ring, gently gliding. The body is warm, the mind is still. Muscles undulate beneath the skin.
Olive trees prior to next week's harvest
The glare of the coast is well behind and hills turn roads into coils of rope. There is the smother of woodland trees. Leaves replace the canopy of sky, and the valley sides press against the road.
Eat. Sweet waffles provide bulk. Dried fruit, mulched into bars with near-impossible-to-open plastic packaging, is chewed. Empty bottles are re-filled from wayside fountains.
Through the villages of bone white homes clinging to the sides of rocky hills each with a florist with their pavement displays of cyclamen, a butcher, a general store and cafe. An old lady sweeps a doorstep, old men sit in cafes playing cards.
The big ring has done its work. It’s delivered the steel frame of my bike to the foot of the climb. The chain slips into climbing mode. The heart rate rises and the speed lessens.
The road stretches upwards like arms in a yawn. Steel barriers clink in the heat. Yellowing leaves pattern the tar. The air is cooling.
460 metres above the sea. Breathing is deep and even like Wenceslas’s snow. It’s chilly too, and exhaled vapours hang like gauze. The legs are warm and set to work. Muscles strain.
A roundabout with a stone wolf howling a petrified howl into the deep blue sky is the official start of the climb.
At the foot of the climb; Passo Lanciano
Kilometre 0
Riders astride their bikes set their timers to zero. The climb begins.
Trees bow down in silent abeyance. The shiny black snake upon which the wheels whisper, writhes around the bends.
Kilometre 1
The gradient is steep. 10%. Resolve is tested as the chain finds the easiest gear.
There are wolves behind a fenced enclosure. Real wolves. They are bred for wider release into the National Park. Water gushes from a nearby mountain spring set into rock.
The fountain on Passo Lanciano
Kilometre 2
The breathing is harsh, the legs struggle to spin. Thoughts ask why this is never easier.
There is a dip in the road after the closed Squirrel restaurant. Refugees, survivors from a Mediterranean crossing sit on the roadside toying with their phones. They are housed by the government in country hotels away from any employment while the paper-work grinds on.
Kilometre 3
Ease back on the heavy breathing. Legs pause. The freewheel clicks as the road pauses its ascent. Time to drink. Bottle not keen on returning to its cage. Seconds lost. Concentration drifts.
A rider, who was the at the bottom of the climb when I passed, overtakes me. He swings from side to side as he climbs. His head bobs like a rutting deer. Ungainly. Even in effort a cyclist should look good. His jersey flaps loosely and his legs are unshaven. He steals 200 metres of space. There is a nose trail of foetid sweat unfolding behind him. Worse, he is not mountain thin either and therefore should not pass me. This is my domain, I grumble to myself.
Kilometre 4
Power zones on the Garmin bike computer rise towards the unsustainable, like needles entering the red zones on a diver’s oxygen tank. I watch them rise, first with satisfaction, then with pain, finally with alarm as the gap still refuses to close.
A bird sings sharp notes. There is no wind. There are no clouds. The leaves are a child’s depiction of autumn. This man still 200 metres ahead.
Looking back down towards the sea
Kilometre 5
Two tight corners which I cut with a racing line. I stand on the pedals and push them for all I am worth.
I lose him. Neither is he around the next sweeping bend, nor on the following straight. He is free of me. Or I of him. I wonder which way round it should be. Thinking takes time. The road swings like drunken arms in a fight. The bends are tight. Juniper and pine scent the air, stars of scabious and centaurea lighten the verges. And still these twists. Corner twenty-four. I think. I lost count some corners back. I always do. Each time I ride up this pass I say I’ll count the corners. I think I’ve only ever got to six before the effort distracts me.
Kilometre 6
Only 6% gradient here. After kilometres of 10% and 7%, 6% seems easy. A second wind and numbers return to pre-humiliation levels.
A group of cyclists descend on the other side of the road, their uphill-work done. One is sitting upright tapping into his phone with both hands. One part of me admires his insouciance, the other thinks him stupid. I debate this for some metres. There’s a scattering of houses, confidently ugly and shuttered up for the season. A high barbed wire fence encircles a Jesuit summer camp.
Kilometre 7
Nearly flat. Only 2%. 700 metres of respite. Strength regathered.
I am distracted by a glimpse of the sea far away and far below. How it has retreated. Millions of years ago, this scarp slope of the mountain was once a shark-infested reef under a tropical sea. Only the dead bi-valves remain, pressed in their billions into the glaring white stone.
Kilometre 8
The rhythm of the climb infuses everything. I focus on each leg pushing and pulling, the hands straining on the bars, the breath that arrives and departs in spurts, the wind on my cheeks.
Trees. In summer, hordes of horseflies congregate here. Now the golden leaves of beech scatter on the tar, glued by yesterday’s rain. Beech mast crushed like dirty chalk upon the road. Men with harnesses and ropes are laying netting over the precipitous slopes to prevent stones from rolling into the road. The workmen stop to watch me. They hold their wires and nets like statues. I increase the power, and the rate of pedalling. I try to look cool and calm and fast. In the corner of my eye, a workman nods. Silent praise.
Passo Lanciano
Kilometre 9
There is still a lot of work to do. Riding up a 10km climb requires concentration. Mine is ebbing. Keep at it, I tell myself. Watch the power, not the flowers. Ride as if you were 40 year’s old, not 60, I command. Turn the pedals, breathe deep, keep it so. My breathing clears out the inner sanctums of the alveoli. Mucus and muck is sluiced out of my mouth onto the road. Sweat drips from my brow. Drink I say. Replace the fluids.
The slope eases. Trees fly past. The end is near. I press on the pedals. I smile with the effort. It’s glorious up here in the silence of the trees, high, high, high above it all, just me, and a bike with its wheels gliding in a hollow thrum across this hard black carpet. Everything is beautiful. Every heartbeat, pant and strain. Everything in the world closes down to this. Ski station hotels and restaurants begin to emerge from the woods. Autumn silent and shut. Damp rich smells of earth and soured stone. Trees are parted by light. Bright, white and strong. Blue sky.
Kilometre 10
I talk to myself all through the woods. Pay attention.The power has dropped. Now its too high. Attend to the pedal smoothness. Like a captain talking to his chief engineer. Noise in my head. I see the top and rise out of the saddle in a sprint for the line.
Sweat clings to me unwilling to leave the warmth of my body. My jersey hugs me in wet embrace. The light of the top. It lifts me high, holds me.
The ski run on Passo Lanciano
Kilometre 10.4
I reach the painted finish across the road and fumble my computer to record my time. It is not bad. Two minutes slower than my best, many minutes faster than worst. That man who overtook me, where is he? Long gone I suspect, down the other side of the mountain, hurling into space on two thin strips of rubber.
The sudden release from the effort makes me want to shout with joy, and embrace the world. There is no panoramic view. Just leaf-less trees waiting for tomorrow’s winter snow. It is the journey which makes me ride this road. The love of the test which enlivens me. As my heart softens its beat and the cold pimples my skin, I take a final look at all that surrounds me for I’ll not ride this pass again till spring. Zipped up and calm, I turn the bike back towards the sea.