The Gravel Diaries: L’Eroica.

It didn’t take long, in my journey of re-discovery of cycling, to gravitate towards gravel. With the benefit of hindsight, it was inevitable.

You see, there’s too much, about road cycling, that doesn’t rhyme with me. The kit’s too expensive, the focus on performance is too relentless, and – at least in London – there’s a certain whiff of snobbery. No one waves back when you’re out on a ride.

Gravel isn’t just another surface; it’s another world. Turn away from tarmac and you’ll find a world to ride on, ranging from the Nirvana that is hard-packed soil to shingle, from farm tracks to paths. And, with that, comes a different vibe.

The spasmodic quest for performance takes a backseat when you’re being shaken like a Martini on a washboard. You need thicker tires, wider clearance, perhaps some suspension – though the jury is still very much out on that one. The kit is less dialled up, and the riders themselves are more easygoing. Most professional gravel races, at least those not run by the UCI evil empire – are open to all punters. You don’t get that at the Tour de France.

Gravel is everywhere; gravel, it can be argued, is a state of mind. But there are some places, some routes whose names are whispered with reverence. Itineraries carved in history, mapped through decades of dust, sweat, lost bottles and flat tires.

Tuscany’s L’Eroica was one such route.

I don’t think there’s a need to translate the word; its Greek origin has made it ubiquitous and, after all, it’s become a trademark in itself, an event with offshoots germinating in locations as far away as Japan or South Africa. But it is here, in Italy’s ancient heart, that l’Eroica has its home. Here is where perfect white gravel roads – the equally famous strade bianche – run up and down hills, past vineyards, connecting hamlets and farmsteads.

L'Eroica was born as a non-competitive ride in which participants cycle on narrow-tire, vintage rigs while wearing the sort of kit that was ‘retro’ back in the day when we still had to learn how to write ‘Czechoslovakia’. With time, it grew wider and wider, with varying options in terms of starting point and duration. One Saturday morning in March, just outside Siena, I lined up to start the second longest of them all.

The actual event was almost one month away, so my rather modern bike and attire wouldn’t have looked out of place; yet, as I closed the last loose bolt and fastened the odd pocket, I couldn’t avoid feeling the pangs of imposter syndrome. Ahead of me, as helpfully reminded by my Komoot tracker, were 140-odd kilometres of mostly gravel, and just a smudge short of 3,000 metres of elevation gain. I’d never ridden that far, or climbed that high. Far from being heroic, my self-chosen endeavour felt rather foolish.

The views put me at ease. I pedalled out of Siena in the early hours of the morning, through quiet streets peppered with the sort of turn-of-the-century villas I wished I could live in. Mist hugged the lower grounds and, before I turned on to the gravel, I caught a glimpse of the medieval city, sitting above a sea of fog.

We have an absurd tendency to humanise inanimate objects, but I could swear that, as soon as I switched from asphalt to the hard-packed limestone powder of the strada, my Specialized bike felt happier. I’d been coasting along, easing into the long ride ahead, but the moment my front tire turned white the bike surged forward. There was a nip in the air, the sun was slowly melting the fog away, and the scenery was getting more and more unreal.

Kilometres flew by in a perfect alternance of quick climbs and fast descents. The road seemed painted across the landscape, flowing along ridgelines and past hills fragrant with adolescent wheat. Cherry trees were in blossom, and the sweet scent of hawthorn wafted in the air.

Everywhere, in the landscape, was the hand of man. Millennia of toil went into shaping the hills, planting the vineyards, raking the soil around the olive trees, stacking stone walls; yet, with the exception of two workers toiling on a golf course, no one was around.

The old adage according to which the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time applies to climbs too. And so, as the inclination profile on my tracker turned red, and a road sign indicated a 15% gradient, I opted to tackle one switchback at the time.

The route no longer mattered. I shifted down to my lowest gear and focussed only on keeping a slow, steady rhythm. Elderly ladies on mobility scooters could, had they been there, overtake me with ease, but I didn’t mind. The route gained 400 metres in handful of kilometres, and then it went even further. There was no point in brute-force it, for I knew it would outlast me with ease. I sank in a bubble in which the whole Eroica, the next village, even the next bend, all existed in a parallel universe. What mattered were the crinkling of the shingle under my wheels, my breath, my legs and lower back. And when the going really got tough I started swerving left and right ever so slightly, trying to smooth out the gradient.

Montalcino lay on the other side of the wooded hill that had taken me so much effort to climb. The village was happily going about its business, and I managed to quench my thirst for carbohydrates at one of the untold thousands of cafes that dot the Peninsula. In keeping with tradition, this one was replete with the mandatory gaggle of pensioners capable of lamenting the misfortunes of Italy’s centre-left parties and mock one of their midst, who’d apparently did his mandatory service in an artillery regiment, within the same sentence.

The Eroica circuit I’d chosen described a figure of eight across the Siena countryside, and I’d by then completed the first half. After a precipitous descent from Montalcino I started, slowly but steadily, pointing north. Around me, the scenery kept on changing: the land had grown flatter, no longer hemmed in by woods. A little later, a few abandoned farms heralded the arrival of deep calanques, grey wounds in the flank of the hills. The Tuscan land of plenty felt harsher, more inhospitable. Or perhaps I was getting fatigued.

Every now and then the white road led me in proximity to a grey one. In those intersections between the world of pedals and the one of internal combustion I’d hear the rumble of wheels and the wheeze of a diesel and I’d recoil in horror. The world of noise, speed and roadkill felt alien. In one of those events a pheasant crossed the gravel path, looked at me, and disappeared.

A relay of sorts had been developing between me and the only other cyclist I’d seen on the road. He carried the pannier bags of the bikepacker, and pedalled at a slower pace than mine; but, somehow, managed to overtake me a few times as I stopped for a break or followed a side quest. Eventually, our paths synchronised some 10 kms outside Asciano.

Erik was, predictably, Dutch. Only them, and their Flemish cousins, have elevated the idea of travelling by bike to the point of state religion. Later, with his helmet off and a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses on, he’d look the part of The Hague erudite that he was off-bike; but, there and then, he was a fellow cyclist who’d ran out of water.

We shared my last bottle and rode at an easy pace towards Asciano and the promise of a shop. “This is my first solo trip in 15 years”, confided Erik. “I used to do it a lot, then I got married, got three daughters and…” he waved a hand in the air. I nodded.

“Still, it’s been worth the wait”, he said as we returned on tarmac.

Asciano looked asleep, but the brotherhood of cycling came to the rescue with a recommendation from three mountain bikers. The place they indicated sat at the intersection between general store, café and wine bar. Crates of water were stacked high next to tins of anchovies and tomatoes, prosciutti and salami hung from the ceiling and the crucial Gaggia coffee maker took pride of place above a posse of every kind of cheese you could want, as long as it was pecorino.

Erik and I parted ways soon after, fortified by two strong espresso, water and sandwiches. He headed north, towards a spa, and I started the last 30 kilometres of my personal odyssey. The sun was inching towards the horizon, the country got a lovely golden tinge and I felt rejuvenated. Turns out that ham and pecorino is a greater balsam for tired legs than any Clif bar or high-carb chewable. It also tasted better.

Suddenly, there were less than 10 kilometres to go. I was by then dreaming of gorging myself on focaccia, cheese and Menabrea beer from the Coop supermarket; I just had one last climb to do.

There were some bad omens, I must admit. The row of cypresses, which at my latitudes are normally found in cemeteries. The cyclist, coming the other way, who shouted encouragements. The bikers who honked and waved their fists in incitement. They all knew something I didn’t, and that something turned out to be a 14% gradient.

This time, there were no tactics. I climbed on the pedals and pushed hard with the force of a man who’d been dreaming of the comforts of beer and oily bread for too long. I felt the muscles of my thighs strain but pressed on, until – eventually – the road evened out and a sign appeared. “Monte Sante Marie”, it read. This was one of the biggest climbs of the UCI Gran Fondo, a veritable bête noire, and here it lay in wait at the end of the course. Eroica indeed.

When I eventually got back to the hotel, it’d taken almost nine hours, excluding breaks, to cover the 140km of road. On the face of it, this was an Everest of futility: there was no crowd to wow, no prize to be won, no record to be broken. I’d even returned exactly where I’d started.

But if I thought back at the views I’d seen, the feelings I’d experienced and at the encounters I had, well, it all made perfect sense.