{"id":5170,"date":"2023-10-30T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/?p=5170"},"modified":"2023-10-30T14:24:40","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T19:24:40","slug":"biking-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/biking-in-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Biking in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I got to ride bikes twice in Italy. The first time I almost died. But I chose to ride again because it was still wonderful in a chaotic way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

E-Bikes – a game changer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I rented a bike in Rome and also in Florence. Both were electric pedal assist. Riding them is so incredibly easy – you could blast<\/em> around without ever breaking a sweat. E-bikes are a \u201cno excuses\u201d type of transportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The annoying thing? Every city or municipality has partners with a different bike share company. In Rome I downloaded the app for Lime<\/a>, signed up for an account, added my credit card, and found a nearby bike. Then in Florence I had to do the same thing on Ridemovi<\/a>. A first world problem for sure, but still annoying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I almost died \u2620\ufe0f<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I set out from my hotel in Rome for the gluten free grocery store: Celiachiamo Lab<\/a>. I fired up google maps with bicycling directions<\/a> and set off. But there was trouble at one very complex intersection:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was on the one-way road, on the right side (opposite the green arrow above) getting ready to turn right. What I didn\u2019t realize is that when the light turned green the signal with the red arrow also turned green to merge together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give you an idea, I turned where the small black car is in the next photo. Not realizing more traffic was also going to be going to be merging – where the box truck is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Luckily the front of traffic was a swarm of motor-scooters starting from a stop. They were able to quickly stop, honk at me, and let me clear the area \ud83d\ude30<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In retrospect, the proper right turn probably should have followed this bikeway on the right:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

See that sign with the bike and the arrow? \u2b06\ufe0f\ud83d\udeb2 Well that means bikes ahead only. I missed that. (Barely) Live and Learn!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I cleared that intersection I was on a separated bikeway that was divine \ud83e\udd29 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Run whatchu Brung<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I also observed what the local riders did\u2026 \ud83d\udd75\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I left the US, I had a picture in my mind of Italians riding bikes. It\u2019s the home of the the Giro d\u2019Italia<\/a>. Surely everyone would be riding Bianchi, Pinorello, or Colnago bikes – all with Campagnolo components. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some folks were riding Bianchis and Pinorello bikes, but they were people that looked like they were serious<\/em> about riding – going on bike-packing tours, or putting out some serious watts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bike I spotted that most closely resembled the picture in my mind was owned by a college-aged kid at the train station. He had a 1970s Motobecane. Sure, it\u2019s French, not Italian, but it was vintage and it was cherry \ud83d\ude0d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone else just seemed to ride whatever they had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nothing really stood out amongst the regular bikes, but a couple brands seemed to be popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B\u2019Twin<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

B\u2019Twin<\/a> is a store-brand of a sporting goods retailer called Decathlon. As the largest sporting goods retailer in Europe, I imagine it\u2019s a bit like Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods. Decathlon<\/a> also has a Rockrider brand of mountain bikes and I also saw several of those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imperial<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Imperial was the other brand that showed up a lot. You can see another in the background of the B\u2019Twin photo. This one I really liked the color scheme on – especially the matching basket, grips, seat, and spoke-guard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strangely I couldn\u2019t find any information about this brand on the internet. <Insert Jackie Chan \u201cWhat?!?\u201d Meme Here>. Seriously, internet dead-end. It\u2019s not this Imperial Bicycles<\/a> – they make components and exactly one model. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these bikes were everywhere, both vintage and clearly brand new as the above photo would suggest. Maybe it\u2019s a model or a style and not a brand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dangerous but Delightful<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Riding in Italy was a bit harrowing at times. Their roads are very narrow, the intersections complex. Then you\u2019ll find yourself on a delightful bikeway. It\u2019s all part of the charm. Just own it. If you\u2019re on an e-bike, riding near traffic doesn\u2019t matter anyway because you\u2019re going to be zooming upwards of 30km\/h in seconds \ud83d\udeb2\ud83d\udca8<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have any leads on the mystery \u201cImperial\u201d bike, let me know in the comments!<\/p>\n

Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got to ride bikes twice in Italy. The first time I almost died. But I chose to ride again because it was still wonderful in a chaotic way. E-Bikes – a game changer I rented a bike in Rome and also in Florence. Both were electric pedal assist. Riding them is so incredibly easy… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[206,205],"class_list":["post-5170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-casual","tag-italy","tag-travel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5170"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5192,"href":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170\/revisions\/5192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}