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America, Countries, Sport, Sustainable Tourism

Mais oui, the biggest bike museum is where?

15th July 202415th July 2024 funtime65

Mais oui, the biggest bike museum is where? Well, Steeltown, Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

Not that you’d want to parler that around France where the biggest cycling competition, Le Tour, is currently raging.

But the sports-mad blue-collar East Coast American city might just have stolen a wheel on you here.

Morrow belongs to me: Craig in his museum

Especially Craig Morrow, who opened Bicycle Heaven in 2011, and has filled it with more than 3,000 bikes.

All of which I ferreted out from a nugget of knowledge from the Visit Pittsburgh team.

And who visited and sponsored the American Soiree travel symposium in Dublin last week.

And showcased their route from Pittsburgh to Washington DC, the Great Allegheny Passage.

Tour de Pittsburgh

Off on a tandem: The Monkees contraption

The 333.3-mile week-long track that adjoins C&O Canal Towpath… or maybe 45- to 60-mile bicycling days.

All of which requires the back-up of a Tour de France support team… or in the absence of that then Craig Morrow.

The thing is that you probably know about Cycling Heaven without realising it.

From Russell Crowe movies (A Beautiful Mind) or Viola Davies (Fences) to The Monkees and The Beatles.

To tread through Cycling Heaven is a ride through cycling history.

From the early wooden bikes, with the oldest in the shop, built in 1863, termed the ‘boneshaker’.

To the carbon-based frames of today.

With the novelty contraptions such as the ‘Hercules’ where you bounce on the seat to get going.

And I reckon I’d be a natural having pedalled my own Margaritas in San Antonio in Texas.

Now if you’ve got a spare $18,000 to $50,000 then you could leave with a 1940s fibreglass Bowden Spacelander.

That it’s Pittsburgh that boasts the biggest cycling museum in the world shouldn’t really surprise us.

Because the Penn city combines its industrial heritage and the eclectic vision of its favourite son Andy Warhol to draw the world.

How to get there

Fun and Games: With a Paralympian champ Mark Rohan in Quinta do Lago

And Aer Lingus will fly you there through Ireland with pre-clearance and JetBlue get you back.

So that if, as is my case, that means starting in Edinburgh, until my Scary One relents and allows us to return full time to Wicklow.

For now though I’ve dug out my own return flight Edinburgh to Pittsburgh knowing your departure point may be different.

From under a grand £957 round trip for the sample month of September.

Countries, Europe, Sport

Le Tour di Firenze Grand Depart

29th June 202429th June 2024 funtime65

It’s the most poplar (bear with us here) cycling event in the world and this year all eyes are on Le Grand Tour di Firenze Grand Depart.

Firenze is as synonymous for its poplar trees as it is its Duomo and Boy David.

And they are at their full height as the Tour de France cyclists ride through the streets and up the peaks of Tuscany.

It seems something of an oversight that this Renaissance City, and Il Bel Paese, have been overlooked over the 110 years of Le Tour for Le Depart.

Before squillions of Euro won them the prestigious opening stage of Le Tour.

Gino, Il Giro and Le Tour

Italy, of course, has its own famous Tour, Il Giro, and pedallers too.

It is ten years though since an Italian, Vincenzo Nibali, reached L’Arc de Triomphe in jeune or giallo.

Following in the tread marks of the likes of Ottavio Bottechia, Fausto Coppi, Gino Bartali and Marco Pantani.

You can learn for yourself all about these Renaissance riders for yourself at the Gino Bartali Cycling Museum in Firenze.

But as a taster our amici at Britain’s Channel 4, who have been bringing us extensive coverage for 40 years, have filled us in.

War hero

Gino, or ‘Ginetaccio’ as he is known in these parts won three Giri and two Tours in the 30s and 40s.

But as well as his exploits on two wheels he had crossbar crossover too for what he did in the War.

Gino, as most elite cyclists are, was very much his own uomo.

And that meant him taking a brave stance in 1938 when not dedicating his Tour de France victory to Il Duce.

He was to show even greater courage in 1943 when he defied the German occupiers in northern Italy.

Bartali took the Cardinal of Firenze, Archbishop Elia Dalla Costa, up on his invitation to join a secret network offering protection and safe passage to Jews and other vulnerable people.

As a courier with the famous cyclist, carrying photographs and counterfeit identity documents to and from a secret printing press.

All hidden in the frame and handlebars of his bike.

Bartali also hid his Jewish friend Giacomo Goldenberg, and Goldenberg’s family.

On the road again

Like all true heroes, Bartali played down his feats of derring-do and in later life, saying “I’m just a cyclist.”

Thankfully Bartali’s successors on Le Tour di Firenze Grand Depart only have to worry now about getting to Rimini in Emilia-Romagna.

And beyond to Cesenatico, Bologna, Piacenza and Torino en route to Paris in three weeks.

We will be following them from the safe distance of home… and seeing if an eighth Italian can win Le Tour.

But if you are lucky enough to be in the vicinity of a Tour leg and can get there early to see the cycling fans set up picnic tables at designated spots, it’s quite a sight.

Countries, Europe, Sport

Basque in Tour de France

30th June 202330th June 2023 funtime65

Someone will get their hands on the famous yellow jersey tomorrow but, in truth, we can all basque in Tour de France glory.

Le Grand Depart of the most famous cycle race in the world sets off this year around Bilbao for 182km and cycling fans will be relishing the choice.

Bilbao and the Basque Region are, of course famous as a culinary centre and a pescatarian’s dream.

With a lunch hour involving families picking away at platters of grilled prawns (other fish is available) and washing it down with txakoli wine.

While Bilbao also boasts Europe’s largest indoor market.

At over 110,000 sqft where you can browse the produce and take in the jazz.

Peck at your pintxos

And, of course, you can’t visit Bilbao without going native and heading for the pintxos bars.

Where you can gorge yourself on the small pieces of bread topped with classic ingredients from meat and vegetables to seafood, all held together with a cocktail stick.

Probably not the best prep for today’s cyclists although tales abound.

Of their predecessors’ joie de vivre and love of cuisine and canoodles.

The riders will assemble on a hilltop above the city and loop around Bilbao.

Funiciular fun

For the rest of us we can ascend by funicular, and we love a funicular.

The old mountain railway has been running since the 19th century.

And shuttles visitors up and down Artxanda Mountain where you’ll get the best vistas of the city.

And we’ll be expecting running commentary on the city’s many attractions.

Bilbao wow

Flower of Basque Region: Koons’ Puppy at the Guggenheim

With, of course, the Guggenheim, 25 years old last year, garnering most attention.

With the world’s largest flower sculpture, Jeff Koons’ Puppy (or what I title Bilbao Wow) it’s frontpiece.

The Guggenheim, one of three in Europe and seven in the world is a showpiece for Basque art and loves Cubism and the experimental.

And again for the Koons, and tulips fans, among us Jeff has a signature construction of our fave flower inside.

The churches right across Spain, and yes we know the Basque Region sees itself as separate, vies with any museum or gallery for art.

So visit Bilbao Cathedral dedicated to our favourite apostle, James or Santiago.

Built in the 15th century in both Gothic and neo-Gothic style.

Its cloisters, alters and towers, as well as the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art is the answer to many a prayer.

Show your Basque

As is the fact that the riders and the spectators have Le Tour for the next couple of stages.

With a 209km hilly second stage from Vitoria Gasteiz-San Sebastian.

And a a downhiller and some sprinting too in the third stage.

It’s a 187.4kmer from Amorebieta across the border to Bayonne.

Which again the Basque people will tell you, as we know from our wanderings from Biarritz, is part of their region.

Still, all such conversations are for a different time, the Tour de France has its own borders.

It’s just enough in the first few days to Basque in Tour de France glory before others take over.

Countries

The French Alps embrace Le Tour

7th April 20228th April 2022 funtime65

Emmanuel will be packing up his skis this month and getting out his bike as the French Alps embrace Le Tour.

A ski tour driver over the winter in Val D’Isere, so he can ski, the Belgian doppelganger for Kevin De Bruyne, keeps the legs rotating in the summer on his bike.

Well, he is Belgian.

And he is not the only one as mountain men and women do the same in France.

Ride on

That’ll be me: Where’s my yellow jersey?

If you don’t know it, Morzine is a car-free village, and home to 34 hotels, 52 bars and restaurants.

And 16 mapped routes totalling 1200kms around Morzine.

This year Morzine will play host to the 109th Tour de France with riders rolling into Chatel on July 10.

They will enjoy a day’s rest in Morzine the next day before departing on July 12 to compete the 10th stage, a 148km run towards Megeve.

More on everything two-wheeled and the resort has been awarded the Accueil velo label and the Hebergement Cyclo label.

And that guarantees quality and expertise for cyclists, and sports shops offering specialist bike services.

The centrally located Hotel La Clef des Champs also offers guests six electric bikes and charging points. From €29pp.

Electric dreams

It used to be the case, of course, that bikes came in only one shape.

Unless you’re talking about bicycles made for two, unicycles or Penny Farthings.

Now we’ve done the oul dual bike, or should that be duel, as The Scary One pulled one way and I the other in Majorca.

While left to my own devices I passed over the alternative attraction of electric bikes in Saint Tropez for a Fiat 500 drive around the mountains.

I was, of course, due to drive myself only for the tour coordinator to slam the brakes on that and take the wheel himself.

I had stalled on the. old gearstick on the dashboard.

The mountains are calling

There was too a gentle ride through the lakelands of Quinto da Lago in the Algarve.

Before my competitiveness got the better of me and I skidded off the path and scared the spoonbill birds on the water.

Better, of course, to just pose then with the bike than try to be Eddie Merckx, or Emmanuel.

So it was the obligatory picture next to the Pyrenees cyclist statue on a trip up to Le Pic du Midi.

Isn’t it better to let the experts, the superhuman cyclists, do the heavy lifting?

And sit back in your picnic spot, break out the wine and cheese and baguettes and take it all in as the French Alps embrace Le Tour.