[EVENT] L'EROICA 2011 x ROCKNROLLIN [FULL REPORT]

Posted by RocknRollin Cycling Team on 10/19/2011 · 12 Comments 

After our last year experience, we’ve decided to come back to Tuscany for L’EROICA 2011 edition (1rst-3rd october).

As last year, we did the Paris-Firenze via the crazy night train (Friday 30th sept.), and rode our bikes to Gaiole in Chianti from Firenze, riding on saturday morning after an insane night.

The train travel was a total mess: we knew we had to bring drinks, food and ammunitions to survive the 10+ hours of travel this time, but we didn’t expect the situation would go this crazy: 6 guys + friends stucked in a closed environment with packs of 6, portable containers of wines, various delicious food brought by Fabien (ham, cheeses, saucissons) + a Cucumber (don’t ask why)…

After 1 hour the whole wagon was transformed into a battle field of food, water and various objects (including water guns we had in our bags), it seemed to disturb everybody but the controller who  prefered to share some glasses of wine with us…

The episode with the customs at 5 in the morning was a simple formality…

As a result we were welcomed in Firenze by a big hangover and exhaustion :

Thanks to Fred aka “Le Farçeur” who decided not to sleep during all the travel and harrassed the train all night long.

At this moment all we needed was food and sun to recover  (and to be ready for a harsh day of riding in the steepy landscapes of Tuscany to reach our final destination!)

We had a crazy weather condition : huge sun and full blue sky all the week-end.

Finally we rode faster than last year to reach Gaiole (last year we got lost because of a GPS matter and rode about 80 climby kms instead of 58…).

Excepted the traditional mecanical problems (chain sucks, half broken derailleurs, rear wheel adjustments) this day was one of the best we had so we could afford time  to buy fruits on the road, take pictures, stop in a superb trattoria and eat some Italian ice creams.(We won’t speak about the italian food, it’s always paradise!)

We will talk about that later in details but the arrival in Gaiole was also a pretext to chill in the flea market, and have some Malteni beers with the friends who travelled for the event from Paris and all Europe…

The race on October 2nd was really cool as we knew it, and the lunch (!!!!) is definitely a blast !

It was great to have a lot of frenchies (the Velorama team, the Bicycle store crew, Marc from Steel Mag, the infamous photographers Tito and Caro…) and to share the Strade Bianchi with them.

After 2 nights camping (imagine the same mess as in the train + rockets and fireworks Fred had in his backpack…he missed to burn the whole area), we ended to celebrate this week end with 30 other riders during a fat dinner (Velorama,Nounours, Alain Delon Etienne, a bunch of guys from Toulon and Pharmacycle..)

We left Gaiole on the 3rd to Pisa (via sienna) and spent some hours in Pisa…before leaving by plane to Paris

No night train to go back to Paris this year, forget it !

Our Photograph/Video Team Yann and Joulz was taking part in our ride this year following us with their huge BMW motorbike : It was really great to have you with us guys ! Memorable moments !;)

Check our picture sets:

RocknRollin Flickr

Yann Ros’s pictures

Fabien’s Deserres pictures

Caro’s pictures

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Thanks to:

Yann Ros for his beautiful pictures (as usual) and for having managed all the motorcycle ride from Annecy (Fra).

Julien Rideau for this really cool video souvenir (Sorry guys it is longer than last year! Ah ! Ah !).

Caro for you pictures too

Lorenzo for the help once again.

The Savarino Bros. : Wheelin’ Stefano and Enzo (Velorama) for you cool attitude as always!

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RnR Team WorldWide.

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