Back to Rome... it's all over

Tuesday October 22 - one final push into Rome today, pack the bikes, final dinner with the group, and tomorrow back to home. Always a day of mixed feelings having had a steady diet of great cycling and a wonderful group of fellow cyclists and support staff, then tonight it's over, and tomorrow morning we all scatter... while the memories will be great, it just isn't the same as the real experience.

Last day... mandatory group photo, everybody attired in their nice new 'Viva Italia' jerseys...

...then onward on mostly backroads with one more day's worth of stunning landscapes...

It wouldn't be a TDA day without hills to climb and even a short bit that was at least mid-teens climb gradient...

...more hillside towns...

...one lovely 15-km descent, mostly on a rail trail, segregated from traffic and mostly but not always a good surface... 

...with views down into  valley towns, orchards, and vineyards...

With just under 30 km to go, we get our first view of the south-eastern outskirts of Rome...

About 22 km from destination, we enter the via Appia Antica (the Appian Way), an almost-dead-straight road into Rome, built by the Romans around 300 BCE to move troops during the second Samnite War in the south of the country, and also to facilitate commerce.

It is completely cobblestone, mostly more recently done, but some sections still being the old original paving stones that show the wear of the carriage tracks from all those years ago. 

We were on this for 13 km, a real bone-jarrer at its best, really tricky on the old stones where gaps between them can almost swallow the bike. The dirt tracks along the sides are tempting but they have their own hazards - roots, creeks, boulders, curb stones, and you can never see any of those before you get to them and there aren't any escape routes as on the main cobblestone (even if those escape routes are rough).

The Appian Way took us right into the middle of Rome near the Colosseum where we'd been for the start photos less than six weeks ago. A bit of navigating Rome late afternoon downtown traffic and we were back at the hotel from where we'd started.

By this time tomorrow, we'll already be passing Ireland on our flight home. So sip some Prosecco, box up the bikes, clean ourselves up, farewell dinner, and it's all done till the next time.

Footnote - we got home pretty much on time the next day - good flights on WestJet direct from Rome to Calgary, then connecting to Vancouver. We got back mostly but not completely unscathed. Rae's bike box looks terrible here - it was worse before it got a bunch of tape on it just so as we could get it out of the airport and into the car. But it appears that the contents are intact.

But Rae himself came home a bit worse for wear. Just 25 km from finishing he had a bit of a mishap and a very sore leg as a result. Less than 24 hours to the flight home and only 25 km to go was NOT the time to be getting everything all checked out, so he got back on the bike and rode the cobblestones and traffic, went to dinner, and travelled (hobbled?) like a normal passenger to get home the next day. Only then did he get it looked at and x-rays indicate a minor crack or fracture somewhere on the femur that does not affect his hip replacements. No surgery needed, he's weight bearing while the body fixes itself, but suffice it to say that reassembling the bike isn't top priority.

If that's the worst that happens on these adventures, then we have no complaints, only another set of great memories. 

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