Published May 2009

Tour Canavese
As every year, the Italian Monopattino season opened with a not competitive and friendly 50 kms tour around Canavese, our home place. With not so nice weather and a little too cold temperature, about twenty of us, with a bike-guest also, started as usual from Ivrea Avis place, going on a flat road to Albiano, then to Caravino, then on a slight uphill to Cossano, the highest spot of the day, reaching soon Borgo d'Ale, the apple's capital of our region. An easy uphill drove us to the nice Viverone lake, where we had a picnic-style lunch. The weather luckily kept at home a lot of people that usually crowd that place, so we could have a very relaxing time there. In the afternoon it was time to kick back to Ivrea, going through the vineyards of Palazzo and Piverone, on our dear perfectly straight hill Serra, then again in the flatland from Bollengo to Ivrea, where we had a snack all together. As everytime it's been a nice way to see again friends, mates, and new footbikes also before the race season's beginning.





Tour Isola d'Elba
Between 1st and 3rd May, thirteen of us with their families and friends went to one of the most beautiful Italian islands, the Elba, to have a ride around. After a quite long car-trip we jumped into a ferry for a brief navigation on the Tuscanic Sea and then... here we are in Portoferraio, the largest town of the Elba. Wives, children and supporters by car, scooterists by scooter of course, we had our first taste of the hilly and tricky roads of the Elba, coming after 20 kms to our apartments in Porto Azzurro, a wonderful place with a stunning scenery in front of it, swimming pool, palms etc. But we were there to kick, not to sleep on a deckchair with a green cocktail in the hand... The day after is the D-day: we had to kick about 90 kms around the mid-west section of the Elba.



We began in our headquarters place, with a great blue sky on us, kicking soon on a steep uphill followed by a funny downhill to Lacona, a small village on the sea. As usual, people always looked at us as if we were coming from Mars, with those strange bike-without-pedals, but we are used to that, then we just smiled and go. After a long but gentle up-and-down road section on the seaside, not very demanding but spectacular, crossing the villages of Marina di Campo, Campo nell'Elba, Fetovaia, and about 30 kms from the beginning, the hardest and longest uphill of the day, the road to Marciana, had to be done, no excuses. We slowly reached the top, someone took just half an hour, someone the double, someone more and more, someone got there by car, but I'll never tell you their names, it's a secret... A super-tortuous and fast downhill then drove us to Marciana Marina, half a way and our lunch place.
Then, in the afternoon, another dozen of kms of enjoyable and curvy road on the seaside, with slight slopes and nice views on the sea below was waiting for us and, after that, the last uphill to Procchio, not so steep but long. On the other side of the hill the road went quickly down to Portoferraio neighbourhoods, our starting place of the day before, so we had to kick (veeery slowly this time) again to Porto Azzurro.

In the evening a big dinner was ready for us, but someone was not ready for that and really no more wide awake... and was close to sleep right on the pizza dish... Even if it's Saturday night, most of us were at bed at ten o'clock or so.

The 3rd May was our last Elba day, luckily we could sleep some longer and we had to kick for just 20 kms, going with a very relaxing tempo, having a lot of picture-stops, snack-stops and every-other-thing-stops on the way. Time to take the ferry then, and go home, across a nightmare traffic jam on the motorway (the worst part of our journey for sure), already imagining the next year "somewhere kicktour".

Paolo