We Could be Heroes

Fancy taking part in a vintage cycling race through the hills of Chianti, covering 205km, where your bike must have been made before 1987? L'Eroica (“The Heroic”) is Italy's most gruelling annual amateur bike race, and our writer should know because he's survived to tell his tale!

Covering 205km through the hills of Tuscany, L’Eroica is the most gruelling amateur cycling race in Italy. Oh, and your bike has to be more than 20 years old too! Sam Polcer gives it a go. Photography by Peter DiAntoni

Of the many people who shared the view that I was in trouble, the German with the stovepipe legs I’d met at a pizzeria the night before the start of the race sticks out the most. “You’re going to die,” he said, in the same matter-of-fact way he might have told me my shirt was on backwards. “Have you seen those hills?”

The non-competitive, one-day bicycle race known as L’Eroica (“The Heroic”) is held every October in Italy’s Chianti wine region. It’s a celebration of the history of long-distance cycling, of an era of woollen jersey-clad warriors powering up and down hilly, gravelly roads on skinny tyres. Anyone can join in – so long as they ride bikes made before 1987.

Participants tackling 38km, 75km, 135km or 205km versions of the route fuel up on “vintage refreshments”, such as bread, prosciutto and Chianti, at rest stops staffed by men and women in period dress. It’s less of a race and more of an opportunity for personal achievement, doubling as historical re-enactment, and has been going itself since 1997. Chianti, in Tuscany, is also a place of legendary beauty. How many more excuses do you need?

Yet, like any true racer, when I arrived at Gaiole in Chianti, the town that hosts the race, I had a list of excuses at the ready. Despite some good efforts and better intentions, I didn’t end up training very hard. A cold sidelined me for two weeks in the month before the race, and the bike I’d be riding turned out to be, well, kind of a dud.

I found a qualifying rental 40 minutes to the west of Gaiole in Chianti, two days before the start of the race. While vintage bike aficionados had been piecing together sparkling, like-new machines from restored parts in anticipation of the event, two of the back gears on my maroon Moser weren’t working properly. The shop owner told me that the bike – a looker, I’ll admit – was a L’Eroica veteran. I half-convinced myself that because she was a survivor, despite those flaws, she’d take me to the finish. I held off on naming her.

Truth be told, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. The longest I had ever ridden was 40 miles (64km). I had never been in a bike race. Nor was I handy – I didn’t know my chainsets from my chainrings. If anything happened to my bike – aside from a punctured tyre, which itself would take a long time to patch or replace – my only option would be to flag down a fellow rider. It occurred to me that this might be the kind of foolish thing travel writers do to prove their ability to adapt, at the cost of great suffering and embarrassment. Here’s what I can remember.

5.20AM / 0KM: After downing a shot of espresso at a café on Gaiole in Chianti’s main square, I roll up to the starting line, where an official examines the Moser, gives me the thumbs up, and I’m off. I’m in a peloton of roughly 40 riders, coasting slowly in the dark towards Siena. I’ve never ridden in a pack this size, so I hold my line carefully.

It’s a jovial atmosphere, and no one seems concerned that we’ll be doing this for the next 12 hours. About 12km in, we hit our first stretch of gravel. The hills get steeper and it’s hard to see the waffled ridges in the increasingly treacherous road. My fingers, gripping the brakes, are numb, and I try to warm my hands by tucking them under my shirt. I’m also scared of getting a flat this early in the race, so I ride gingerly, focusing my helmet lamp on the ground in front of me.

Before the start of a tree-lined climb, most of the group stops to wait for friends. It feels good to get my blood flowing, so I cavalierly push myself to the top of the hill. Dawn is approaching. This may not be so bad after all.

7.55AM / 48KM: Every climb during the last few kilometres revealed a spectacular panorama of rolling hills covered in vineyards and olive trees, dotted with centuries-old farmhouses and castles. Aside from some stretches of gravel, it has been an easy, pleasant ride – and now it’s time for breakfast.

The temperature is perfect. I peel off my arm warmers, stash my helmet lights and get my race card stamped. I join the ranks of dozens of riders hovering over a spread of breads, jellies, Nutella, bananas, prosciutto, juice, tea and coffee. Ah, Italy! It’s delicious. I decide to save the PowerBars for later.

I turn the race card over to examine the elevation guide, paying particular attention to the daunting ascent to Montalcino – the longest climb of the ride – which starts in 30km. It’s also where I will get to see one of the strenuous 15% ascents for which L’Eroica is known. I fill up my water bottle and prepare for a long stretch of bumps and dust.

8.15AM / 53KM: Disaster. After 5km of gravel-induced vibration, a shift cable snaps, rendering my bike unable to switch between its two front gears. While I examine the damage, two English speakers pull up and ask if I have a chain tool. One tells me that he is used to dirt roads back in the US, but the bike he’s riding isn’t. The other, a giant with a moustache – like many participants, he saw the event as a chance to experiment with old-timer facial hair, and it suits him – notices me fumbling with my loose cable and suggests I remove it altogether using the multi-tool I’ve just handed to his friend. I laugh, embarrassed. I’m that guy with the fancy equipment and no skills – I hate that guy!

“You’re a life saver,” his friend says as he hands me the tool. While I’m pleased with the camaraderie, the realisation has just set in that my 10-speed, having already been reduced to a six-speed, is now effectively a three-speed. Any hopes at making up time spent hoofing it on the steep hills by hurtling through the downhill and flat sections are gone. I now have to choose which front gear to use for the rest of the day and, in light of L’Eroica’s notoriously unrelenting hills, opt for the smaller one.

I’ll lose a tonne of time, but it’s not insurmountable. I start off carefully. The gravel gets looser, the rocks sharper, the potholes deeper. Only 150km to go! Battle-scarred now, with a thin coating of dust, I pass many riders fixing flats, praying it won’t happen to me.

9.45AM / 75KM: “Forget it,” I mutter to myself as I hop off. The climb up Montalcino has begun, and I decide that if I tackled this ridiculous incline on the bike I’d be done by the halfway mark. Right when I begin to reassure myself that, although I’m going slow, no one’s passed me for a while, four creep past – grinding their pedals, gritting their teeth and wobbling up the hill. I continue walking and they disappear around a switchback. I know I’ll never catch up. Some of those guys were more than twice my age!

5.55PM / 146KM: With three quarters of the race completed, two things have kept me going: the refreshments and the scenery. But those carrots, like the PowerBars I’ve also been consuming diligently, have become less effective. Any sort of incline induces more muttering, and my bike has answered with a constant rattle and dust-induced squeaks.

I struggle to the top of Monte S. Marie, where the view reignites me. I plead with my body and bike not to fall apart now.

6.45PM / 159KM: I’ve arrived at the second-to-last checkpoint and the last chance for food. From the slim pickings on the trays, it looks like I’m near the back of the pack. Two Germans I recognise from dinner tell me they had to wait for an hour with their sick friend and that’s why they’re “so far behind”.

“Another big hill coming up,” I say, in the hope that they share my dread – holding out my grease-marked elevation guide. The tall one shrugs. “I haven’t been planning. Just taking them as they come.”

The Germans wait for me to take a few more gulps of water and catch my breath. One kilometre further, a hill begins and they fade from view. I have almost nothing left.

7.30PM / 205KM: Fourteen hours, three near-collapses and more than 3,800m of climbing from the start, I cross the finish line in Gaiole in Chianti and dismount for good. Covered in dust and nearly numb, I remember what the American had said after helping me repair my shift cable. “Finish with three speeds? That’d be real heroic, man.”

I rest my bike against a wall. I am exhausted, slightly delirious. And, at that moment, a hero.

L’EROICA TAKES PLACE ON 3 OCTOBER. FOR MORE DETAILS, VISIT WWW.EROICA-CICLISMO.IT