Eroica Chianti

It isn’t classified as a Monument — for that there’s the so-called sixth Monument, the Strade Bianche, in March — but there’s another race I can’t leave out. It was a world of its own: the Eroica, in Chianti, in October 2019. The race is a special one: you dress the part, and the bikes have to be classics, with downtube shifters. I shaved the beard down to a mustache, bought a pair of wool shorts, and for the rest of the kit I opened the drawers at the house in Évora and rode in gear from the seventies: a wool jersey in the national colors, leather gloves and leather shoes — with the metal cleat nailed into the sole. A Torpado, tubular tires and a tube of glue in case of punctures — and there were more punctures than tires I was carrying. A hundred and twenty-seven miles (205 km) of sterrato, between vineyards and wineries, with wine, farro soup, panini and parmesan at the feed stops: Tuscany at its absolute best. And, of course, my magnet for mechanical bad luck: nine miles in, the left pedal tore clean out with the thread destroyed and came away in my hand, and I carried it until I could find a fix. Many, many miles pedaling with one leg while the other one literally dangled. Got to the support point: no tool for the job. Argument. More miles. Ride part of the course backward to find the next nearest mechanic. Wait for the mechanic, an hour. Fix it with a hammer, after making it clear I had not come from Portugal to be knocked out by a mechanical. And then the cut-off five minutes away and tightening at every checkpoint: puncture, recover, puncture again, wait, despair.

Then came Henrik Sandberg, a Dane, already out of the race but carrying a spare tubular. His friends had talked him into riding a distance like that for the first time — and then, at the last minute, the friends hadn’t shown up. He was out there alone because of them, and he was the one who saved me. I told him: “Lend it to me, get going and I’ll catch you and pull you to the checkpoint. We’re going to make it!” I changed the tire, heart hammering, chased Henrik down, gave what I had, we passed the broom wagon and reached the next checkpoint a few minutes inside the time.

Night fell and I had no light, no proper clothing, no energy. I told Henrik to go on and pulled over onto the shoulder. An Italian soul — Michele D’Aleo — driving back from the shorter race, saw me standing there with no lights, pulled over, talked to me and gave me a gel. I stayed there until an American couple, finishing the shorter route, came past — and they had, believe it or not, spare lights! I rode with them almost to the end, thanked them, carried on and arrived. Well beaten up, but I arrived. I couldn’t have asked for more.

If any race rehearsed, years in advance, some of the against-the-clock moments I’d meet at RAAM — the mechanical, the stubbornness, the cut-off, arriving in spite of everything — it was this one.