Today is the day of the hardest stage, many climbs and in particular the Passo del Bracco. I wake up at 5:10 am and immediately understand that it is useless for me to try to go back to sleep, when I wake up, if I am away from home, I can no longer sleep again. Therefore I get up and decide to go and see the sunrise. I arrive on the beach in time with the expected times of dawn, but Rapallo to the east has a hill and the sun is not seen to rise. So I decide to take a walk, since I will not have to struggle today (ironic), and walking and photographing, I do more than 2 km reaching San Michele di Pagana , where I ate yesterday. It is truly a very characteristic village, small and apparently less luxurious than others. I return Back in time for breakfast, in the Astoria hotel, where I have been beautifully, they divide the breakfasts into three shifts, in order to have spacing between the tables. 9:30 am departure, trying to find a greengrocer’s shop, but to no avail, I will have to climb today’s ramps without the help of bananas.
12 km to get to Chiavari with two climbs, the first leads 100 meters above sea level to descend to Zoagli and then again up, at more than 180 meters above sea level, the second to reach Chiavari. Both very demanding with gradients of 7 percent. You pass through Chiavari, then Lavagna and finally Sestri Levante. This turns out to be the only flat section of the day. It must be admitted that Sestri Levante is truly beautiful and the color of the sea enchants.
After a part of the cycle path, I arrive at the foot of the 16 km climb of the Bracco pass. Considered easy, but I know that my legs, and my lungs, are not very powerful. But I try, if I’m not there, I push. The start is terrible, 4 km at 7 and maybe even 8 percent, I start to sweat, I have to slow down. I have to find my pace and above all, stop to catch my breath and not be afraid to make a bad impression. And in fact I’m not afraid, and I stop more than a few times, drink water and go up. At 4 km a first brow and continue for a couple of kilometers on a slight slope. Then it starts climbing again on 5% and towards the tenth kilometer the road rears up again. I begin to tinker with the gearbox, but there are no other gears. I’ve always used the lightest gear and I can move that lever as long as I want, it will always stay there. I arrive at the village of Bracco and there, luckily there is a restaurant. I go down and feel that I have to eat, I have burned everything, even the two trays of reserve honey. You do not realize how much you burn with the bicycle and especially uphill, despite the abundant breakfast in the morning, I had reached far beyond the reserve. I order trofie with pesto and then a bowl of the fabulous cantucci, obviously not accompanied by alcoholic beverages, they are already in crisis, I would really like to see later. After more than an hour of rest, I resume, I am definitely more into me and I can begin the final part of the climb. I get on the saddle and I realize that the brakes I had registered in the morning do not make the wheels slide well, on the contrary they hold them. I am already struggling, plus I don’t even have the smoothness of the wheels, that’s right. Between eating and being clearly weighed down, and having to tackle 3km of the really tough ones, I stop twice to catch my breath on 3km. My Garmin almost constantly scores 9%.
While the last 3 km are a pleasure, you don’t go up so much, a succession of curves and counter curves that cut the coast of the mountain in a breathtaking landscape with a bloom that makes the cliffs full of color and finally I too find an orchid cephalantera rubra, beautiful and, at the moment, the only orchid found. I arrive at a curve with a fort and after a few meters, starting the descent, I understand that that was the pass, but not marked or at least I have not seen the sign and I lose the possibility of doing a stupid thing with the sign. (Bracco in Italian is a dog, I want to howl), I know I’m a stupid man! I begins to descend. After one kilometer, I turn right onto state road 332 which leads to Levanto and the Cinque Terre. Here the traffic decreases immediately, the road is not very wide, but you travel very well. I am overtaken by a company of cyclists that goes faster than me, but after a hundred meters they are all still because one of them has fallen. I stop too, the injured person is lying on the ground, lucid and confesses to having done a bullshit. On a downhill stretch with little incline, he went down with no hands on the handlebars, the bicycle for some reason touched the curb and did a somersault, falling on his side. I reassure myself, I ask if they needed anything by me, but obviously there are many and I could only get confusion. They thank me and I continue on my way.
I go down the last 12 km extremely cautiously also because I want to enjoy the view. The vegetation compared to the climb is completely different, and even the scents of the Mediterranean scrub spread in the air. Here and there, some signs of fire with completely blackened skeletons of maritime pines. The view of the sea and the Cinque Terre villages is exciting. I arrive in Levanto and I take accommodation at the Nazionale hotel where they put my bicycle in a place all to myself. The Garmin scores 56 kilometers and 980 meters of elevation gain. Fish dinner with sunset that fills the sky with fire.
The video clip of stage 8
