From Oristano to Cape Caccia
a two day ride to get rid of the blues

by Luca Guala gualal@unica.it

1. Departure

It was a Friday evening in springtime, and I was quite in a bad mood, in spite of the beautiful weather. I thought of how sometimes physical effort can help you forget the blues better than any other thing; and sometimes the bicycle down in the garage attracts attention on it more than usual, and looks more than just a sport tool; of how sometimes one needs an excuse to do something special. So I decided: the ordinary weekend ride would not have been enough, I needed something stronger: on Saturday I would have pedaled the greatest distance that my forces, or the hours of daylight would have allowed me, and on Sunday I would have returned home. Phisical extertion has a greater liberatory effect on the mind than a booze, maybe it's a little more tiring, but the day after you don't wake up with an headache, you'll have sore muscles if anything, and your liver will thank you silently of the choice made.

I choose to go with the racing bike, reducing its setting to a minimum: I fitted a rack, three packs and a 13-28 freewheel, leaving on its original 52-41 chainrings. In the bags I loaded a few supplies, two spare bottles, the sleeping bag, clothing to stand a moderate cold and the event of rain, a pair of slippers, bathing togs, a towel (small), a map of Sardinia, a camera, a notebook, some tools, money, spare eyeglasses, a hat, a bandanna. I wear padded shorts, a T shirt, cycling shoes and a safety helmet. No walkman, no mat, no unnecessary comforts.Weather forecasts promise sunny days, my phisical shape is good, determination is great. I'm ready. I wake up that it's still dark, but perhaps I slept too little and I am a bit dizzy: I realised this when I forgot to put water in the coffee machine and the rubber seal burned. The coffee I make after having washed everything and changed the seal is really bad and tastes of rubber. It's a pity as the quality of the breakfast affects the whole day and it's not nice to start a journey with a taste of burned rubber in the mouth.

It's a beautiful morning, fresh, clear and without wind: this last fact particularly gives me a great confidence. The sun is still low, but the sky already looks warm and bright. I feel really in shape: the leg muscles are tonic and the body is full of energy. I start northward. The flat roads around Oristano pose very few surprises for me, since I ride on them about every day of clear weather so, without too much effort nor distractions I reach the first inclines on the State Highway 292 to Santa Caterina and Cuglieri. Crossing the small villages along the road I think how strange I must look to the people at this hour when most of them have just come out of home and many others are still asleep, but no one seems to pay much attention to me: they certainly take me for the odd eccentric foreign tourist. The many crows that stretch their wings on the roadside, instead, greet me croaking and fly away. Past Riola (13 km from Oristano) and the junction to Putzu Idu (the "Hidden Well"), a series of ups and downs begin, they are not long but challenging. The road runs fast under the wheels and pedaling costs me less effort than I thought. Even if I tried to reduce weight to the bone, I still carry 10 kg of luggage but, in spite of this I haven't yet felt the need for a lighter gear than a 41/21. The panorama of the coast in the morning light and of the pine woods of Is Arenas ("The Sands"), seen from the top of the hills is wonderful, and invites me to continue and enjoy the day. the legs are strong and respond well, the wind of Maestrale that has arisen in the meanwhile is a pleasant cool breeze, the temperature asks to keep the leotards on. I climb on singing happily.

2. Towards Bosa

The seaside resorts of Turr'e su Puttu (the "Tower of the Well"), S'Archittu (the "Little Arch") and Santa Caterina look uninhabited, a bit because it's still too early for summer holidays, abit for the morning hour: even in the heart of summer very few vacationers would be around at eight in the morning! Past Santa Caterina (26 km from Oristano) the road leads inland with a straight and constant incline. On my left are the basalt and limestone cliffs, which can't be seen from the road, on the right the mountains in backlight. When it rains for a few days in a row, the creeks running down the mountains swell and fall directly into the sea from the top of the cliffs: it's an extrordinary view. On the top of the incline I turn around: the view is great, and all the North coast of the Province of Oristano can be clearly seen: Cape Mannu, the shine of the lagoon of Sal'e Porcus ("Pig's Salt"), the island of Mal di Ventre ("Belly Ache") in the distance. Springtime is certainly the best season to ride a bike in Sardinia: the choking heat of summer hasn't begun yet and it's not necessary any more to carry the weight of winter clothing, the country is green and full of flowers and, compared to Autumn there's one more advantage: the sheep's droppings that litter all backroads don't contain thorns! During the dry season, in fact, there is no grass and sheeps eat also thistles, and the thorns remain intact in their droppings, randomly oriented. Passing on a sheep dropping in autumn is a good way to get a puncture.

After a bend the road continues, but it's not a coast road any more, even though the sea is not far. I am definitely in the mountanious inner part of the Island, and cork oaks and holm oaks grow along the road. I can still go on without ever using the 28 teeth cog, but it's comfortable to know it's there. At nine I reach Cuglieri (40 km, 500m above sea level). I throw away the tap water I'm carrying, I fill up the bottles with cool mountain water and I start again. The down slope starts just past Cuglieri, I let the bike free to run and... I puncture! As soon as I catch up speed, I step on a small angular rock and, heavy as I am, I pinch the front clincher on the rim sides. On the inner tube I find the typical "snakebite": two little slits side by side, slightly angled, testifying this kind of mishap.

Just a few days ago I changed my racing bike's palmers with clinchers, thinking of how difficult palmers would be to fix on the road. If you puncture a palmer you have to: unglue it from the rim; find the puncture; unglue the protection tape on the back of the palmer; cut the palmer's sewing near the puncture; pull out the inner tube (which usually is very thin!); fix the puncture; sprinkle the patch with talcum powder, otherwise it will stick to the palmer; put everything back inside as if it were a snake's bowels; sew the palmer again; re-glue the protection tape; re-glue the palmer on the rim. But perhaps on an event like this I wouldn't have punctured: the rim on which palmers lie is not as sharp as the clincher's and it's more difficult to pinch the tube, as it's protected by the palmer also on the rear side. I fix the puncture with a patch and I take the chance to rest a while. while I'm resting under the trees a group of cyclotourists looking Northern European pass by in the opposite direction: one of them has a Swiss flag on the handlebars bag. They wave at me but they don't stop: they are pedaling uphill!

In the meanwhile a persistent north westerly breeze of Maestrale arose, blowing against me but for the time being it's not annoying: I'm pedaling downhill! I reach the coast at Bosa Marina (60 km) after a descent all curves that I ride at high speed, pretending I am on a motocycle to the point of mimicking the noise of the engine with my mouth. I reach Bosa at 10:30, the people are all active and my passage doesn't arise such looks as it did in the villages I crossed before: after all this is a touristic place, thanks to its historical centre, with the Castle of Malaspina, depicted on the mail stamps, the colourful buildings of the ancient tannery along the Temo river (Bosa is the only town in Sardinia crossed by a river), the beaches (not very beautiful, though), the celebration of Nostra Signora di Sos Regnos Altos. I'm hungry and I stop on the bank of the Temo to eat. Hunger comes this way when one travels by bike: sudden and irresistible. I'ts the signal that fuel is about to finish and if it really ends up, big trouble may happen. I make a sandwich with cheese, tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise that I eat rapidly. The river Temo stinks: does it always stink like this, or maybe today it stinks more than usual? I wonder if all rivers stink, and if each one has its peculiar smell, as people do: sometimes imperceptible, other times unbearable.

3. The climb to Montresta

Bosa marks the beginning of the panoramic road of Cape Marargiu, which follows the uneven and steep coast for 45 km up to Alghero. The road was opened to traffic not many years ago, after one of the many endless works in progress that dot Italy. It crosses a wildlife reserve where the Griffon Vultures live. They can be seen early in the morning and late in the evening gliding stately. This road follows one of the most inaccessible and less touristic coasts of Sardinia, in fact, the top secret organisation "Gladio" had a training centre here. The map shows two alternatives to Alghero: one is the panoramic road, that I already know, the other passes through the mountains, leading to the town of Montresta, and on the map it's marked with many "double chevron" signs, meaning steep inclines; in 10 km, in fact, it climbs up 520 m. It looks difficult, and it's also longer than the other one. Making my itinerary I had planned to take the panoramic road but it was still early and I was feeling in good shape, so I decide to take the mountain road, which before the opening of the panoramic road was the only link between Bosa and Alghero. I must ask for informations in town, as the road signs are not very clear, and a person tells me that on a bike I would have never made it on those climbs. It was the proof that I had chosen well!

Still inside Bosa, in fact, the road climbs up on a hard slope which foretells what is awaiting me: I stop almost immediately to change clothes and wear the shorts and the T shirt: it's hot and I'm sweating. As I climb the view pays off the effort: among the mountains I can see the sea, far below me, and the more I climb the more striking the view becomes. A cool and pleasant breeze comes up from the gorges between the mountains, perfumed with the smells of the maquis. the wind, that I have had against ever since, is masked by the mountains now, and gives little relief against the heat. A cyclotourist's saying goes that you always travel uphill or against the wind. It may not be completely true, but certainly going uphill you never have the wind agaisnt you (and just as well!), and downhill it's never in favour. On this climb I have to use for the first time the 41/28 gear, and I ride many kilometers standing. If I was looking for strong sensations, I had found them! I climb on without singing any more but counting pedal strokes and milestones.

After almost two hours of climb I see a group of large antennas behind a corner; with big dishes on steel lattice towers, they are a little higher up than I am and appear and hide behind every bend. They mark unmistakably the top of the hill. Their view gives me confidence: I know there's little left to the end of the climb and I proceed with greater vigour. In fact, before I reach the antennas the incline becomes gradually less steep and on the tarmac I see a sign in white paint that reads: "G.P.M. 1 KM": it's another unmistakable sign of the end of a climb, and this one also gives a quantitative information, marking the distance at which lies the finishing line of a Grand Prix of the Mountain that was raced on this road who knows how long ago. I cross the white line with the "G.P.M." letters while I pass alongside the dishes, on top of a treeless hill, deserted, wind strewn and inhabited only by crows, and I feel a bit like the climber on a lone sprint during a Giro stage: all on my own and with the sweat dripping from my forehead and temples to the tip of my nose, on the bike frame and the bottle. There's nobody here to cheer me, though, and only the crows watch me, caw and fly away.

Short after the dishes a steep descent begins. I have just started enjoying the free speed and the cool wind on my sweat covered face, that I feel a double hit under the wheels and I find myself running at great speed on the rims: an angular rock - another one! - punctured both tyres! Before I manage to stop I ride many dozens of metres on the flat tyres, and the inner tubes get strewn with holes. To fix them I have to use on one tube all the patches I have, and to change the other one with the spare tube. If I puncture now I'm in trouble: I have no spares left. As if this wasn't enough, it starts to rain: I hadn't realised that the sun had disappeared in the meanwhile. I wear the rain jacket and find refuge behind some rocks to mumble about my misfortune.

I don't think that even the palmers would have resisted this time, and if I had punctured two palmers, I would be really in trouble now. Maybe the clinchers that I fitted are too thin, and I should have chosen wider ones, without thinking too much about smoothness and low friction. Too often I ride in company of racing cyclists, and their advices are not always right for this way of riding: alone, loaded and without a support car. It is told that Fausto Coppi always rode on 32 mm palmers, to be sure not to puncture, not caring much about the friction of the tyres on the road (at his times though, most races were held also on gravel roads). I have two 21 mm clinchers and, looking at them now, under a bike loaded with luggage and wide with panniers, they look really skimpy. I suddenly realise that I haven't met anybody since I left Bosa: not a car, nor a sheperd on the roadside, and even now that I stopped no one passes by. There are no sheep around, nor other domestic animals: only the crows and some little bird that darts over me. It stops raining and, as I'm at only 2 km from Montresta (400 m a.s.l.; 16 km from Bosa and 78 from Oristano), I decide to try and get there before closing time to buy some patches.

There's no use in looking for patches in Montresta. Nobody sells bikes or spares in this town. A tyre repairer offers me some pieces of a van's inner tube, but they are thicker than my tyres and I just can't use them. I thank him and go ahead. At one o'clock I reach the only Bar that can be seen on the main road, and probably the only one in town, where I hope to sip a cool beer, but the barman pulls down the rolling shutter on my face while I lean the bike on the wall (O. K., it's closing time, but what about a bit of respect for a tourist!), then he agrees to sell me a bottle of orange drink, without letting me in, though. They don't have water, he says, and in town there's no drinking fountain. I don't like to stop here, the people watch me with suspicion and I don't find anything that I need. This lack of hospitality is very uncommon in Sardinia, and I'm very annoyed by it, so I proceed Northward for 12 more kilometers, until I stop to have lunch at the pass of Santu Miali at 533 m a.s.l.. It's drizzling and there's a strong wind of Maestrale from North West; it's colder here at two in the afternoon than in Oristano this morning at seven.

4. Towards Alghero and Porto Ferro

I reach Villanova Monteleone (570 m a.s.l., 22 km from Montresta, 100 km from Oristano) and here too I don't find bycicle tyre patches.I ask some people I see with bikes, and they tell me I will find bike shops in Alghero. I stop at the fountain to rest and enjoy the flowing cool water and some fruits. Villanova Monteleone is an isolated village, born from the abandonment of Monteleone Rocca Doria, a diminutive village perched on top of a hill, about 13 km from here to the East. If Villanova Monteleone doesn't seem of particular interest, Monteleone Rocca Doria is a peculiar place, at the end of a twisty road where two cars don't pass side by side, and where people leave the keys on the doors of their homes.

I start again Westwards, in the direction of Alghero; the view changes dramatically as the sea comes in sight. The road goes down slightly, then abruptly with tight hairpin bends after the abandoned roadman's house of Scala Piccada (15 km from Villanova); Alghero is already in view from the house, although still 10 km away and much lower down, so is the sea, the bay of Porto Conte and the cliffs of Cape Caccia. The afternoon light is veiled by clouds but the view is striking. I ride down the Scala Piccada with care, although the tarmac is perfect (a car race is held here every year): if I puncture again I will have to walk! In Alghero I find a motorcycle shop, open although it's saturday afternoon, and I buy a box of motorcycle tyre patches, a bit thick for my thin racing tyres, but better than nothing. I don't want to stop in Alghero although this Catalan town offers many attractions: it's late and soon it will be dark; I can't camp in town and I don't intend to sleep in an inn.

So I proceed towards Cape Caccia; there's much less light now, and on the coast road to Cape Caccia the traffic is scarce but fast, so I turn on the red battery light on the saddle tube. I pass along the beaches of Alghero: Le Bombarde, Il Lazzaretto, I pass the junction to Porto Conte and, at the junction to Cape Caccia (15 km from Alghero) I choose to turn Nortward, to Porto Ferro: around Cape Caccia the coast is very steep and densely inhabited, and it isn't easy to camp there; at Porto Ferro there's a Camping and a large pine wood by the sea. I arrive there that it's already dark, the camping is shut and I camp among the ruins of a little house by the beach. It's half past seven in the evening and I rode 131 km since I started from Oristano. After a simple dinner I slip into my sleeping bag and... there come the mosquitoes! Clouds, millions of hungry mosquitoes that attack every patch of skin not properly protected: I realize now that I forgot to bring the insect repellent lotion! I try to sleep wearing all the clothes I have and covering my face with the bandanna and the head with the hat. The buzzing is unbearable.

I wake up at dawn, tired and pounded; it's rather cold and I slept little and badly. I can't see my face but I know it is swollen from the mosquito bites. Maybe I should have spent the night at an inn in Alghero after all. I have breakfast with biscuits and condensed milk and I start toward Cape Caccia to enjoy the first sun from the cliffs above the Foradada island. Unfortunately today, like everyday, the sun rose from the East and the cliffs face West, so they are in the shade. It's nice to see Alghero and the Bay of Porto Conte in the low light, anyway. The entrance to the Nettuno grottos is still closed, and there are none of the tourist buses that usually crowd the Cape.

I start again toward Alghero, stopping to visit the Palmavera Nuraghe, a bronze age village that has been discovered recently and is still being dug, then I stop at the Bombarde beach that, incredibly, is deserted. But it's only half past eight in the morning of a Sunday of May: in two months and a few hours from now this place is going to be jam-packed with sunbathers. Driven by curiosity I watch my face on a car's rearview mirror: I'm so bitten that I look as if I have smallpox! I bathe at the Bombarde: the water is cold but the sun warms me up, there's no wind and the only people are some elderly that stroll on the sand. I start again and I stop in Piazza Sulis in Alghero, near the Tower of the Spur, where I allow myself a lavish breakfast of cappuccino and cornetto.

5. The Alghero - Bosa coastal road and the return

Satisfied, I reach the coast road to Bosa, the one I didn't take on the way out. It's an incredibly panoramic road, but also very difficult to ride on a loaded bycicle. It's compressed between mountains and sea and it's all a sequence of bends, climbs and descents, some very steep. I realise now that if on the first day the 41/24 gear was enough to cope with any incline, today I'm making an effort to go on with the 41/28, and I suppose that if I stayed around one more day I would need even lighter gears. The racing bike is almost perfect also for cyclo touring, but it must be fitted with wider tyres, at least 28 mm even if one travels on good roads, and with very, very light gears. I have used the 52 teeth chainring for at most 10% of the time and I would have liked very much to have a MTB triple chainwheel with 48-38-28 teeth rings, coupled with the 14-28 freewheel. Maybe I would have never used the 28/28 gearing, but it would have been of great comfort to know I had one more gear to cope with any incline and tiredness. I travelled often with the MTB in the past, but I always found it heavy and clumsy, so I always favoured the road racer for my tourism, except when I planned to ride on very rough surfaces. Today, obviously, MTB's are far better than the ones I could choose from in the past. Maybe a modern suspended MTB is more apt for cyclotouring than any other bike.

At Cape Marargiu I see the vultures at last: it's late and they glide very high above the mountains, but I can identify them by their stately flight and by the fact that, no matter how long you watch them, you never see them beat a wing. Along the road I see many tracks that lead to the sea and promise beautiful hidden coves. The day is inviting, but the tracks are rough and very steep and, with the road racer it's not safe to tackle those descents, even with the comfort given by carrying motorcycle tyre patches. I stop for lunch short before entering in Bosa, where the coast becomes flatter, and I lay under the sun on one of the many deserted beaches that can be seen from the road.

I stop once again on the Temo riverside in Bosa to make some calculations: I rode 45 km from Alghero, and 84 since I woke up this morning; there are still 62 km to go before I am home, and by then I will have ridden 238 km in two days. The racers who run the Giro d'Italia ride such distances in less than six hours! From Bosa onwards I go back on the same roads I rode on the way out, but this time in the evening light: the climb to Cuglieri, among the oaks, the descent to Santa Caterina, with the great view of the coast and the sea in front of me, the ups and downs to Riola and the boring flat roads approaching Oristano. I don't stop any more, but I'm tired and I go along much slower than on the way out. I also have an aching bum and every pothole is a pain. They are repairing the roads in Nurachi, and the asphalt has been stripped away: I can't remember if the road was already like this yesterday morning and I didn't realise it. Crossing the village is a hard suffering: the legs are too tired to stand up all the way and the bum too aching to sit down.

I arrive in Oristano at six in the evening and at last, sitting on the porch of home facing the sunset, I enjoy the cool beer that I was denied in Montresta. I'm tired but satisfied. The bad mood of the last few days has completely vanished away.

Luca Guala gualal@unica.it