It Gets Bigger Each Year

For the past several years, the neighboring town of Buonconvento has hosted an classic bike race, known as L'Eroica Primavera.

People from all over Europe...in fact, from all over the world...come to ride antique bikes over 150 km of steep back roads...many of them gravel...of the Tuscan countryside.  Carol and Roger met both Brits and Americans who had come to Buonconvento to participate.

Antique bike rallies have become so popular among collectors and fans that L'Eroica now sponsors events world-wide...from Britain to South Africa and the United States.

At lunch in Buonconvento, we met Giancarlo Brocci, the man who conceived of L'Eroica in 1997 and spread it world-wide, and Wesley Hatakeyama, chairman of the US event, held each April in Paso Robles, California.

The town of Buonconvento decks itself out each Spring for a three-day festival celebrating antique bicycles.  Most shops place old bikes or bike clothing in their display windows.

This year, the barber shop offered haircuts, beard and mustache trims in a style to match the vintage of your bicycle.

The big change both Carol and Roger noticed was the increased number of women participating.

The day before the actual ride, there's a large open-air market, with nearly 30 vendors selling antique parts...

                   ...clothing...

...and expert advice on getting just the right replacement part to keep your bike an authentic classic.

For anybody with the last-minute impulse to join in, a new vendor joined the fray this year, offering to rent a classic bike that meets the strict standards required by the event.

Each year, the route of the ride itself comes through Pienza.


Last year, it came into town up a gravel road with an 18% grade.  Participants groused it was too difficult for even them to manage.



So this year, the organizers altered the route...

...and it came up the long, winding hill...

...passed right under the walls of the Duomo  (Cathedral)...

...and into town where riders got their cards stamped.

Getting your card stamped at several stops along the way is necessary to prove you rode the whole route and didn't take any unauthorized short-cuts.

It had rained heavily the night before the ride, so the gravel roads were muddy and slow.

This man was the first to make it into Pienza, and he was more than an hour later than expected.

Please note, this event is authentic down to the food they serve at the rest stops.  No energy bars here; just bread, wine, and cheese.

The route is so brutally hard that stamina and pacing are more important than speed.  Coming in early to Pienza is no guarantee you'll even finish the event.



The man at the right rode into Pienza more than an hour behind the leader.  He ended up finishing second over-all, or so his sponsor...a local winery-owner...told us.

After leaving Pienza, the event wends its way along back roads almost 50 km back to Buonconvento, where...led by a pace car...the leaders sprint five times around town before crossing the finish line.

Roger, who was no match for even the weakest of the L'Eroica riders, rode a small portion of the course (carefully avoiding the big hills and gravel roads), and got his hand stamped...just for bragging rights.