A Cup of Zen

It's well known that cyclists love their coffee. Perhaps we are drawn to it as socially-approved dope. Or maybe it follows naturally from our inner nature, in love as we are with tradition, fancy gear, and pretty much anything European. In any case, I'm no exception. Traditionalist, esthete, and cyclist that I am, I also spend a fair amount of time seeking the perfect cup of rich, strong coffee. For months, as our recent trip to Italy approached, I became ever more excited by the opportunity to experience a culture famous for perfecting both of these mysterious arts. Italy did not disappoint.

Americans think they have gotten the art of coffee down pat in the last 20 years. News flash! The Italians have been working on it since the Dutch were stealing Manhattan from the Indians. Their coffee is so perfect, I nearly wept as I drank my final cup in the Rome airport, knowing that I was not to taste its like again until the next time I touched that distant shore.

In Italy, prendere un caffe, taking a coffee, is an old and gracious ritual, redolent with national character. Here are some of the principles I gleaned in my short time there:

• Do not go to Italy if you prefer brewed coffee to what Americans call espresso. Brewed coffee doesn't really exist in Italy -- and where it does, you don't want to drink it. If you belly up to the bar and ask for un caffe`, you will receive an espresso. There are many other styles of coffee available there, but, with the exception of an occasional cappuccino for breakfast, I never saw anyone order them.
• Less is more: I had something like 20 coffees while in Italy, and I never once was served more than an ounce or two. Four or five delicate sips is a serving. More would only confuse your ecstatic taste buds. That's why they use the iconic tazzinas, the tiny cups and saucers usually marked with the brand of the coffee served.
• Less is more, II: You only need four minutes to enjoy the perfect caffe` in the perfect way. But you must never rush. You are engaged in a ritual far older than you; show respect.
• Less is more, III: There's no need to order a second cup. (I never saw it happen.)  Five sips, a brief chat with the barkeep, and you're off, trailing a merry "Buon giorno!" in your wake. Taking a coffee is a pause in your day, a chance to chat with friends, or to quietly savor and reflect. There are many moments during the day ideal for pausing. Best is mid-morning, on your way somewhere. Four in the afternoon also works well, for a pick-me-up, hours before your 8:30 p.m. dinner.
• While out and about town, you're never more than 50 paces from an espresso machine. However, I saw no equivalent to our trendy neighborhood coffee houses. You can go to a bar, a caffeteria, an osteria, or any other of the omnipresent establishments that serve food. But one law seemed immutable: The better the food, the better the coffee. I learned to stay away from the bars, which, during the day, are basically just snack shops. The most consistently excellent coffee I had in Italy, to my surprise, was in the dining room of our expensive hotel in Siena. Their food was unbelievably good.
• Good coffee is inexpensive. Although food prices were dizzying, a caffe` universally costs one euro -- about $1.44 when we were there. It would be unseemly to overcharge a fellow citizen for what is, essentially, a civil right: Good coffee and good company.
• If, like many Americans (especially the young), you like your coffee to leave you a bit breathless with adrenaline, stay in the States. Coffee in Italy picks you up, but that's less than half of its purpose. It never left me overcharged. (And I usually drink half-caf, which I found non-existent there.)
• When an Italian has a coffee, there is nothing else being done. There is no working, there is no walking between shops, and there most certainly is no driving. From what I've read and witnessed, there is simply no such thing in Italy as a "to-go cup." It's not that it's forbidden; there's no consciousness that such a thing could exist.
• Finally, taste. This is clearly a more subjective topic, but my observation showed that the inky-black, super-bitter stuff young American "experts" have turned espresso into, you'll only find at the cheap, inattentive joints on the street in Italy. The best eateries -- the places where they make food the way we would kiss our own children goodnight -- served a three-dimensional, aromatic cup, easy on the tongue, yet strong. It was never burnt or overpacked with "flavor."

In short, the experience of having a coffee in Italy is the fullest expression of one of their unique concepts: sprezzatura. Roughly translated, this means, "effortless beauty." It's probably the last thing left on Earth that's not for sale at Starbucks.

A Taste of the Two-Wheeled Life in Italy

Elegant cyclists abound. Note shoes!

Mrs. V. and I just returned last night from Italy, the Valhalla of cycling, the Aasgard of Coppi and Bartali (which would make them the Thor and Loki of the Earth plane...?) cradle of Cippolini, etc., etc. 12 hours of sleep and a couple espressos have taken the edge off the jet lag, but it's not nearly gone yet, so I'm just checking in to record just a few impressions. I hope to immortalize a lot of pictures and thoughts in a more detailed post later.

1. Yes, there are cyclists everywhere. Everywhere. I was hoping for this and was not disappointed. Even the day we arrived, as we made our way from the Florence airport over the mythic Highway 222 (the skyline drive of Chianti country,  a sub-region of Tuscany) toward Siena, we saw fully-kitted ciclisti in ones, twos and even sixes wending their way over very serious hills with broad, green-and-brown vistas that spark the imagination of stage-race tifosi. I feared that would be the end of my exposure, but indeed, everywhere in Toscana, on weekdays, too, I witnessed the same. On a side-note, the old-school devotees in Italy do not wear helmets.
2. The cyclists, of course, are not all in full kit. Most of them there, as here, are casual, everyday riders, running errands, going to see a friend. In the tiny seaside village of Levanto, our final destination, quite a lot of people used bikes instead of cars to navigate the winding, needle-thin roads, always busy with the famously headlong Italian drivers. They rode to the beach, to the bars, to dinner; everywhere. Italians on bikes, whether outfitted for a stage race or a coffee run, look startlingly elegant to American eyes. Like they were born to it -- surprise, surprise. Young ladies in glamorous outfits sailed elegantly through the streets of Florence, full purses dangling, cell phone pressed to one ear, cigarette gracefully floating in their handlebar hand. Old men, white-haired and bent, pedaled glacially down the footpaths of old Siena, on their implacable way to the next part of their day, presumably by the same means and on the same streets they've used all their years.
3. In the States, the folks in full kit are usually competitive in spirit, and often fit in body. In Italy, the more sporty guys (I saw no women on bikes in cycling kits, for what it's worth) were going 12 mph with a striking cadence of about 100 rpm. This was true whether they rode alone or in groups. Not having had the chance to ride with them, I can only guess at the psychology behind this rule, which was universally applicable. As closely as I could surmise in eight days, the Tao of Life in Italy can be summed up in one phrase: Piano, piano. Slow and easy. Why push? The same task can be done with effort or with grace. Grace is infinitely more beautiful, and beauty, when all is said and done, is the spiritual life-blood of the Italian world-view. (Which, in turn, clarifies the lack of helmets.) It is far more important to enjoy oneself -- and to look stylish while doing so -- than to get there quickly. Regular readers can imagine how much this aspect of the country and its cycling community appealed to the Velosopher in me.

Allora, eccole! So, there you go! A taste of the two-wheeled life in the mother country. More to come.

View from the castle in Tuscan town of Vinci, birthplace of Leonardo and cycling heaven.

To the Ancestral Home of the Sport!

Mrs. V and I are off tomorrow to the land of Coppi and Bartali (and Bianchi and Moser and Giordana and Castelli and...) for a week, so Velophoria will be on hiatus. Send up a prayer to the ancient Tuscan gods that I can get a little two-wheeled time in on those famous strade -- perhaps even the bianche ones, where my dream cycling event takes place every year (WHY can't there be school vacation in October??? Or an Eroica in April???).

Day after we return, I stop by the LBS to pick up the Vaya! One great way to soften the return from an amazing vacation.


Ciao, amici!

Strade Bianche: The Hell of the South?

Strade Bianche (White Roads) is Italy's newest answer to the cobblestoned spring classics of the north. Yesterday, in the third edition of this young race, riders covered 190 km, much of them comprised of steep white gravel paths made from the indigenous marble of the gorgeous Tuscany region in which the race is set.

Why would I would want to travel to Tuscany in March? After all, it's the chilly off-season, not much warmer than New England right now. Well, clearly the beautiful countryside, so popular in books and movies of the last few years, is one reason, not to mention those infamous gravel roads.

But I'd point you to the last 5:30 of the video below to show you what really attracts me: Locals crowding the boulevards, side streets and arches of ancient Siena, jostling and gossiping in the cool spring air, waiting to see the multicolored peloton whizz through the canyons. See that "cafeteria" right by the finish line? You'd find me right around there, warming myself by wrapping my hands around a demitasse of perfect espresso, grinning and cheering.

If you prefer to do your cultural appreciation from the saddle, complete with vintage kits, goggles, 70-year-old bikes, and metal water bottles rigged to your handlebars, go ride the gran fondo version of Strade Bianche, called L'Eroica (The Heroic -- don't miss this fun Outside article on it, with great pix). It covers many of the same roads, and takes place every fall. (In fact, L'Eroica predates Strade Bianchi by a number of years, and was the inspiration for the pro race). The tourist version was meant to raise awareness of the need to protect Italy's storied white roads, as it was those perilous byways on which the giants of old rode their heavy steel bikes day and night in races that would have the hard men of today forming picket lines and sending whimpering protest tweets.

Just another Euro-lust post, brought to you by Velophoria, the nostalgia-fueled blog you love to love.

I Think I Just Started a Bucket List

Vintage bikes and kits. A trip to Italy. A chance to play on the roads where cycling history was made. Is anyone surprised that this is the first item to go on my new bucket list?

It also happens to be a very well-written story, so don't miss it.

And don't forget to vote in the new, earth-shaking, world-changing poll -- upper right corner of the page.

Ciao, Regazzi!

I awoke this past Monday to the wrenching awareness that I wasn’t going to be watching a stage of the Giro d’Italia on television.

I had subscribed for the month to RAI, the international Italian-language cable station. I only let the fact that I don’t speak Italian daunt me for a moment.

See, this was my first bicycling grand tour; I wanted to do it right. I'm proud to say that, for the last three weeks in May, I went through a tiny version of the ups and downs I imagine the riders go through while racing the Giro. (Okay – a very tiny version).

I watched the first handful of stages with great excitement, then got a little burned out after many days of flat stages, watching the poor guys slog through the chilly rain.

It only took about three stages before I started picking up a handful of serviceable Italian phrases, like testa della corsa (“lead group”) and ultimo chilometro (“Final kilometer – run to the TV for the sprint finish”).

I also began to get a better feel for the zesty European heritage of this unique sport. I got a primer, for example, on the deep importance of style to the Italian riders – like the critical issue of the angle of the sunglasses on their team caps during the jersey ceremonies, or the sweet little ritual just before they win a race: Zip up the jersey (to show the sponsor on TV), hand the sunglasses to the team car (to look pretty for the finish line photos), kiss the wedding ring, cross yourself at least once, throw your fists in the air as you cross the line, and then – burst into tears. It all seemed so perfectly Italian.

Then I got excited again – more than ever – when the peloton entered the Dolomites. Boy, some of those weekend mountain stages – particularly Sunday’s Mortirolo climb – were high drama. I loved it.

Finally, there was Sunday, the last stage. I knew that, after all the boys and I had been through together, I had to watch, even though there was little chance Riccó (or anyone) could pip Contador. The time trial ended up being as boring as I had feared. I had to force myself to stay in front of the TV instead of getting on my own bike and heading out on that very fine day. They do say that the final day of many grand tours are ceremonial, at best. I rolled out of my garage that afternoon feeling a little funky (perhaps contributing to the off-key ride I reported on here).

It seems only natural after all those highs and lows that I should wake up feeling blue the day after. It was like waking up the day after returning from a long trip abroad. You certainly don’t love every minute of that kind of travel – but once you’re back home, you’d give good money to re-live any random minute of it.