Photo: One way of delivering oil.

It’s been a while. I’ve not posted since February. Not much to report during lockdown in Italy. Solo rides, all without incident. Audaxes cancelled, the latest victim was the 999km in May which I was really looking forward to. I hope the 1001miglia in August still goes ahead. Who knows?

As Italy’s vaccination programme is so far behind the UK we decided on a quick dash to London to get vaccinated. Once out of quarantine, Jyde kindly lent me his gravel bike. A very nice bike it is too.

My first ride was to deliver bottles of olive oil to say thank you to some of the people who supported the Giro di Muscoli last year. It was only 22km but at least the rucksack got 1.2kg lighter with every delivery.

Three delivery rides and a 100km out to Blackmore Tea Rooms for a bacon sandwich with David. It would have been more rides but 200m from home on the 100km I heard a loud pop, a short fizz, then carried on. This was the first time I’d used tubeless. It worked but I’m not sure I fancy cleaning this mess up every time. I decided not to join ICC club rides over the weekend in case the sealant ran out and I’d be stuck.

My final ride was this morning. I joined Yvan collecting veggies for the Ringcross Community Centre food bank. A small contribution before driving for 22 hours back to Italy tomorrow.