Day 234: Torino to Susa

Foothills of the Alps

We finally managed to get the rebuilt wheel with a new rim back from the shop and back, where it belongs, on the back of the Blue Strawberry. Thanks to TurinBike for sorting this out.

At last, a new back wheel for the Strawb’

Then we were off - riding out of Turin towards the hills. It seems everyone in Turin has gone on holiday at the moment as the streets seemed incredibly empty. The European Masters Games were taking place, but we didn’t see many people from that either. The whole place was weirdly quiet. But that suited us fine as we headed out of town.

Biggest crisis of the day – Sarina and I now have non-matching socks. The catastrophe was averted by the end of the day when we found a nice bike shop call Nosolobici. Not only bikes, they also sold socks (and spoke French, which was handy).

We tried some weird cycle paths, but they always seemed to end in trouble, so we just rode along on the main roads in the end, and there was so little traffic.

We were soon out in the countryside, and a nice tail wind came to join us too - sometimes everything goes your way.

Hills are starting to loom over us

The houses are looking ever more alpine

That’s the hills we’ll be tackling tomorrow

Found another Binachi like mine, a ‘74 Rekord. We also found the original rider, who must have been around 74 himself, still running a bike shop. He didn’t have any socks though.

It seems incredible that we’ve covered 13,000km now - with only just over a thousand to go. Plus, in 31 days, at the end of August, this journey will be over and we’ll be back to life in jolly old England. That just seems extraordinary at the moment.

It’s been an amazing journey and I’m so lucky to have had some much time to spend with Sarina and Tiger over the last eight months, in so many amazing places. I’ve learned a lot, both from them and from the places.