Today, I had planned to take a day off the bike to do some tourist activities. I had hoped to catch the bus down to Bellagio, walk around town, maybe take the boat back and forth to another town, eat a big lunch and catch the last bus "home". I searched around online to find the bus schedule and it looked as though there were buses all day. When I got to the bus stop in front of the "bike church" I noticed that there were only two buses per day in each direction that went all the way to Bellagio. So I bailed on that idea and decided perhaps Saturday would be a better day for that, even though it might rain a bit. Since I was in front of the bicycle museum, and it was on my to-do list for this trip, I decided that was what I was going to do today. Luckily I had brought my camera.
I started by stepping in the church again. There is something really incredible about that place. I picked up some literature and one of those little Catholic prayer cards, with a prayer in Italian designated for cyclists. There were cyclists coming up the climb every few minutes today, and when I stepped out the church up pulled Ivan Santaromita in his Italian National Champion's jersey with an Italian Astana rider, who upon riding past the church to get water from the natural spring fountain along side it, made the sign of the cross in homage to Madonna del Ghisallo, patron saint of all cyclists.
I then made my way over to the museum. The museum itself is an abstract yet beautiful modern building that is mostly cut into the cliffside, with just the top sticking above the road, all encased in glass. In contrast to the vast preserved antiquity that surrounds you in Italy, it's certainly unique but doesn't stick out like a sore thumb in a bad way.
I paid the six Euro to get in and I was off into four hours of bicycle heaven. The museum is large but not huge. Most people wouldn't spend four hours in there, but I was captivated, plus I had nothing else to do today, no way to get anywhere else beside riding my bike down the mountain, so I looked at everything in great detail, read anything that was in English and a bit that was in Italian, and took several hundred photos.
The bikes in this place are unbelievable. They have two of Eddy Merckx's orange Merckx Colnagos, Gino Bartali's bike that he rode to win the 1938 Tour de France, along with several dozen other professional's race bikes ranging from the 1930's to the 1980's. The also have a collection of military and civilian bikes dating all the way back to very early 1900's, some modern bikes, some bikes made entirely out of wood (art), some bikes made out of wood meant for riding, and many more. The collection of bikes must be in the hundreds. They also have the largest collection of Giro d'Italia maglia rosa in the entire world. Many are signed, but many others are so old, worn with the blood, sweat and tears of the winner racing in them, combined with the appetite of moths for wool, they lack signatures simply because the winners have long since passed before their jerseys became museum pieces. These are not podium jerseys. Most are the actual jerseys worn by the winner while leading the race. They also had countless Italian National Champions jerseys from what seems like the beginning of cycling time, many World Champions jerseys, a collection of vintage bike building tools, and so many more incredibly fascinating pieces of cycling memorabilia. This is not merely a bicycle museum, this is a cycling museum, a racing museum. It's a beautiful place. To be able to get within inches of the bikes that these great champions rode to victory, left the same way they were the last time they rode them, is mesmerizing.
I have tons of photos from today. I am trying to get them all up to a photo hosting site, but that is taking a lot longer than planned. When I get back home I will load these photos onto my computer and get them online somewhere. Watch this space for more about that after October 15th.
And that's all I did today. I walked around for a while, and went for a little evening stroll, but it's getting so cold here that even with a long sleeve shirt, a sweater and my leather jacket, I'm still cold after a couple of minutes. There is no way it broke 55 degrees up here on the mountain today. 55 doesn't sound that bad, but when it's this humid and misty, and no sight of the sun, 55 can feel very cold.
Tomorrow I hope to get out for one final ride here in the Alps, before the rain comes this weekend. I seems that it will rain again for another bike race, but luckily, this one comes literally right by my hotel. I can open the window and stick my head out as they go by then watch the rest on TV. I do hope the weather is decent enough that I can at least walk a kilometer down the road to watch them come up the steep switchbacks. We'll see.
Until I get to posting all the photos from today, here are a few more to hold you over.
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