Biking Italy: Florence to Siena (or at least that was the plan)

So today a friend and I decided to do a one day bike trip here in Italy. A lot of our friends from SAIS have biked from Florence to Siena or Siena to Florence and raved about it! As the ride is all through Tuscany it is absolutely gorgeous with rolling hills covered in vineyards and wine towns! In addition the route goes through the Chianti region of Tuscany which needs no introduction for its world famous wine.


So early this morning at 6:45 am my friend and I caught the regional train from Bologna to Florence (the early trains are way cheaper!). The early morning was not all the encouraging as it was raining quite a bit on the way to the train station and the weather did not improve much at first while we were on the train. Yet by the time we got to Florence it was only partly cloudy and getting quite sunny and warm out! So we hopped on our bikes and slowly made our way through the tourist packed streets of Florence and past the world famous Duomo before finally getting out of the town and into the country side of Tuscany.

Tuscan Countryside

It really was just like all our friends had told us as it is an absolutely beautiful ride! The entire ride is around 70 km (43.5 miles), and most people did it in two days, but we decided this was easily do able in one day. Considering my past biking adventures, trips, and tours this distance did not worry me at all. Early on it was going wonderfully as we quickly completed around 35 km and made it into the town of Greve in Chianti. There we stopped to spend some time exploring the city, getting some lunch, and of course tasting the regions famous wine!

Greve

Unfortunately while we were eating exquisite pastas and drinking our fabulous wine the bad weather caught up with us and the rain started. We waited for a while hoping it would not last long, but eventually decided to get on with our bike ride as we still had a decent ways to go. So we trudged on into the poor weather, not enjoying our ride quite the same as we had before lunch. After about a 5 km climb up another huge hill out of Greve the rain had finally stopped and we were looking forward to a big easy downhill portion of the ride, but only just after we had started the down hill our trip came to a grinding halt. As I was going down I heard a loud BANG, and my heart sunk and I knew that my back tire had just blown out. Investigating the damage it was clear that the tire was completely shot and there was no chance of riding on it. Being in Italy and not back home with my normal biking equipment I did not have a spare tube and tools to change a flat on the fly. So my friend and I walked back up the hill we had just started to go down to where there was a small town. We hopped to find a bike shop where we might be able to fix the tire and continue. These hopes were soon dashed as there was no such shop. Luckily there is a bus service along the road we were biking and we were able to catch a bus about 40 mins later back to Florence, from where we caught take the train back to Bologna.

So after about 40 km of biking in Tuscany I must admit that we were defeated and forced to turn around. Still overall I would encourage others to go to Tuscany as it is a really popular place to bike and absolutely gorgeous! I am disappointed that I did not make it to Siena as it is a town that I would of liked to see and I am not sure I see myself making it back in that direction before my time is up here in Italy (just over a month left!).

The final lesson I guess I learned is even when you are a cheap student living abroad and biking a second rate bike, it is still worth investing some money in the basics of spare tubs, tire levers, and other basic bike tools! Still my experience for today did make for another fun adventure!