Day Eight
Disaster Strikes
Bad luck returns with a vengeance. On the freeway to Ormea, the fan belt in Arne’s car self-distructed. We were in the mountains on a freeway far between any exits, yet only an hour from our destination.
Arne’s road service insurance was purchased in France, and the assistance calls had to be routed through several agencies in both countries. After about an hour a tow truck
arrived and took us back to a garage in Lazarro, Italy. It being Saturday, a new fan belt was not available. My plane departed on the followling Tuesday morning from Nice, France. Arne’s insurance company gave us two options. A ride to Ormea (where we would be stuck without a car for an unknown time) or a ride home to France. We chose the latter, and our railbiking adventure ended two days prematurely. Arne was promised repairs would be made on Monday, but as it turned out it was not until the following Friday, a full week later, that he was able to return to Italy and pick up his car.
Conclusion
The concept of a larger organized railbike tour seems to be a stretch of the imagination. As much as we would like to get the group together for a tour similar to Sweden-Norway of 2012, the realities of the logistics make it exceedingly difficult. The biggest problem is the undergrowth and how fast it can block a rail line in a short time. To be certain a railroad would be open to ride would require checking it a few months prior to a tour. A few of the lines we rode this year may well be impassable in another. Perhaps new lines will become available, but these would need to be investigated shortly before a pending tour. There is also the necessity of long drives, making preliminary investigation expensive and time consuming. Many of the lines were in the far south of Italy while others were in the Maritime Alps in the north. For a tour group vehicles would have to be rented and costs are much higher than in the USA. A tank of gas set us back approximately $90 U.S.
On the other side of the coin, we made some good contacts in Italy. Arne will be following up with Albano and Andrea. Andrea is interested in building a railbike and thus we would have a local connection with knowledge of Italian railroads. The Ormea-Ceva line we missed at the end of our tour is only 3 hours from Arne’s home in France. He will be going back there to ride it and we have hopes it will remain clear. It’s possible a sufficient number of railroads might be found in France and Italy within a tighter geographic circle.
The Patagonia story is scheduled to appear in the Italian cycling magazine (www.cyclemagazine.it) in the December issue. Albano requested 30 photographs and indicated it would be a major article. This will be the third magazine to publish a recap of that expedition, (Adventure Cycling in the USA and Boneshaker Magazine in England being the other two). It is an indication of the universal appeal of our unique undertakings.
Most disappointing of all, we missed meeting Albano, who had helped us with the planning of much of our journey, and Andrea, both who had arranged to travel to Ormea. Hopefully, Arne will be able to get together with them at a later date. And we missed riding on the beautiful Ormea-Cerva line.
