CicloVia Francigena - Part 3
The meanderings of two unusual souls on their way to Rome on the back of steel donkeys
Alert: due to dry sarcasm and ample use of the poetic license, this post is meant to be taken with a pinch of salt. Any reference to real characters and facts may have been highly exaggerated...
Part 3 - A peculiar travel companion
As the most loyal of my readers may know, my awkward co-adventurer has already proven multiple times to be a source of endless entertainment.
Well, this trip was no exception.
Most of the memorable moments reported in this pages can be linked two major flaws of his character: a questionable moral stature and a proverbial clumsiness.
As to the first feature, examples are endless. Fearfulness, wickedness, fickleness, addiction to smartphones…he’s got them all! You propose getting up at 7,30…Be sure he’ll say 8! If you say black (be it chocolate or bread) he says white, only for the sake of constant quarrelling. This went as far as having separate food shopping lists. Even then, every acquired right (be it for an apple or for a sip of water) could be questioned at any time. May God save you from making the mistake of having one of your bananas lying in his bag! And beware when he offers you something: it is surely dead load, most probably rotting food…
One day I was being accused of stealing one of his yogurts from the fridge, only to find out later on that the so-called thief was another pilgrim to which he actually had offered it the night before! Another day I was called again a thief for swapping an abandoned mattress in an hostel cupboard with mine. Or for slowly taking a square of his chocolate right in front of his careless eyes. And so on…
And- what’s most troublesome- the man knows when to play the victim, so if you genuinely try to help, you inevitably make things worse. I had just skillfully avoided a boring dinner with the monks, rightly explaining that my friend’s Italian is the worst I’ve ever heard. Instead of patting me in the back, he stabs me. “You should have said we wanna only have a salad (…and this and that…the version changes all the time), you don’t have the balls to take a decision, you offload them on others” ..etc… At least we must recognize it takes creativity in twisting reality to the level he masters!
Enough said of moral flaws, let’s move on to what is to me his most striking characteristic: the absolute lack of physical dexterity.
To put it bluntly: I am astonished that the man is still alive.
His pedaling is unstructured with bursts of full power followed by moments of free wheeling. The bike he was riding had brakes which were barely working. He adjusted the saddle to a height good for an infant. The high visibility vest he was wearing was in tatters after having been chewed by his wheel. There were moments in which the bike would escape from his control and start shaking like a mad horse, during which he would pale out with fear and extend his feet on the floor in the vain attempt to stop. Once I tried to swap bikes with him –to quench his claim of having being assigned a steel donkey instead of a horse. Time to turn around and I see him engaged in a sort of rodeo and then falling sideways into an irrigation ditch. Fortunately unscathed. As a scientist, I tried later to emulate the vibrations to understand how he could enter in such a state of “resonant frequency” but I just could not do it.
Needless to say, his riding style being very energy draining, he would demand a full hour compulsory nap every afternoon. One day, he suddenly felt asleep while I was explaining him the thrilling topic of the “laws of stupidity”. At least his loud snoring saved me from talking for hours to the wind…
To complete the picture about his riding style: it was funny how he would find excuses for being constantly trudging behind. Being a Brit, if he led the way he risked to take the wrong direction at roundabouts and traffic lights…he would state. To which I reply: how many roundabouts and traffic lights do you see along those forgotten hills?
Due to his snatch movements he was even attacked by a pitbull at the exit of a supermarket, and was saved only by the prompt intervention of the owner.
Interesting to add how his driving style was particularly prone to punctures. Any careful observer may have noticed that nails thrown on a road tend to lay down horizontally. Well, he seemed to have the ability to get them to lift vertically before they hit his tyres exactly at a right angle, in a way I had never seen before.
After one of those punctures, I see him venturing again on a steep downhill at an unusual speed for such a fearful driver. It turns out he had forgot to re-attach his brake after replacing the inner tube and was now clutching into thin air, before being able to miraculously get the bike to a halt by means of the sole of his feet. I penned this down as another “near-miss”....
