Beautiful People, Unbearable Wind

I’ve parked myself in Barletta. It’s a beautiful, bustling, smallish seaside city in southern Italy – perfect for a two-day layover, even more perfect because it’s Easter weekend and the city is abuzz with local families spending the holiday weekend together, lingering in the piazzas during the day, attending mass, strolling the narrow streets by night, and pausing to enjoy big, creamy gelatos. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here, even though, as it turns out, Barletta was not on my original itinerary. More to come on that…

When I last wrote I was getting ready to leave Mesagne and head to Alberobello for Day 3 of riding, into Puglia’s interior. I’d already had one blustery, damp day and I was preparing for another. What I hadn’t anticipated, or hadn’t been aware of, was the poor quality of the route that would await me for the first 15-20 miles of my day. My route put me on a very busy highway, with a very narrow shoulder and lots of car traffic. And with winds gusting at 40 miles per hour at times, mostly from my left, I was terrified that one of the gusts would push me completely off the road. Not the kind of joyous cycle trip through Italy I’d hoped for. I white-knuckled it for more than 90 minutes until I finally found an inviting bar for a stop, a cappuccino, a croissant, an orange juice, some good wifi, and some time for my heart rate and blood pressure to return to a semi-normal state. With the good internet I was able to call Sammie, and it helped to hear her familiar, reassuring voice.

That day improved dramatically after the bar. (Good thing, because if it hadn’t I might have thrown in the towel. Seriously, while sipping my cappuccino, I was already considering off-ramps for this whole adventure.) I still had to contend with the wind and some rain, but the scenery became amazing and the road conditions improved considerably. I pedaled the rest of the way on good, secondary, traffic-free roads. I also found a beautiful winery to use as another stop. I was the only customer in the place, so the young woman, Lucrezia, whose job it is to provide wine tastings came to my table with two glasses and asked if she could sit and have a glass of wine with me. It was wonderful – the wine and the conversation. Eventually, I met her boss, Marco, who asked where I was from. When I told him, “Minnesota,” and he said he knew it, I asked him how. It’s not typical for people from Europe to know Minnesota. He blew me away when he said he was a big Timberwolves fan and had visited Minneapolis to attend a game a few years ago. Crazy. Mad props to Marco. Little did I know the Wolves had fans in Puglia, Italy.

The afternoon continued to surprise, the cycling good and my spirits much improved from earlier in the day. I finally landed in Alberobello, pedaling through the town square at the exact time a big parade of youngsters and teenagers were walking through, blowing on whistles and carrying on with some type of ceremony. I have no idea what it was, but I made the assumption that it had something to do with Easter. A panini shop in the town square beckoned, so I popped in, asked the welcoming young man behind the counter to make me two panini, one to eat now and one to take away. He asked what I wanted on the sandwiches and I told him to please just give me two that he recommends. I was not disappointed, as the hot panino I ate at an outside table, along with a cold Puglian beer, was dripping with melted cheese and, at the moment, tasted like the best sandwich I’d ever eaten. After a short conversation with a happy, curious young Greek man, also on a bike loaded up with gear, I biked the last remaining few miles to my hotel in the countryside. It wasn’t an easy day, or a short one, but it ended very well and I was more than content to grab one more beer at the hotel bar, take a hot shower, and head to bed.

The next three days of cycling were made up of joyous moments, fun encounters, great cycling, beautiful scenery and terrible roads, awful wind, trying times, and utter exhaustion. I’d planned my route from the comfort of my apartment in Minneapolis, shifting things several times over the weeks leading up to my ride. Truth be told, my mental health ahead of my ride hadn’t been great. I was feeling extremely anxious about the ride, nervous about my mental health, my physical health, and cycling in a country I was very unfamiliar with. I was also feeling quite depressed for much of the first few months of 2025. I wrote about this prior to leaving for Italy. Anyway, this wonderful cocktail of depression mixed with anxiety never puts me in a good place for hard mental work, sound thinking, or agile decision-making. I just didn’t have the bandwidth, or capacity to concentrate, to really dig into the planning. Instead of days of time and energy consuming planning, I had become aware of this network of cycling routes in Europe called the EuroVelo which are featured prominently on the routing app I use called Komoot. So instead of doing months and months of research, taking a look at all the twists and turns of my route and reading up on the cycling culture of southern Italy, I put my faith in the EuroVelo.

With my route and itinerary fixed in my brain, I forged ahead. I was determined to stick to my schedule. The two biggest factors, the two things that have led most directly to my exhaustion this first week, have been the conditions of many of the roads and the wind. The wind has been unbearable at times. I mentioned earlier it has gusted at me from the side, but by Days 4 through 6, it began blowing directly into my face, at speeds consistently around 15-20 miles per hour. At the end of Day 5, I biked into an unrelenting headwind for the last two hours of my ride, basically crawling to the finish line only to be met by a pack of barking dogs when I finally reached my rural bed and breakfast. The roads, too, have been a challenge. Not wanting to repeat the experience I’d had earlier on that dangerous, busy highway, I’ve most often been on secondary roads. Some of them have been fantastic, with very few cars and a good surface. But, here in southern Italy, I’ve discovered that the same road that’s fantastic for 5-10 miles can suddenly become nearly impassable. In the blink of an eye it can turn to rocks and potholes with, at times, giant puddles of water or lengthy patches of mud. I’ve also encountered road closures, roads under construction, and closed gates, all of which have required extensive detours or u-turns back to an open, bikeable road. Miles and miles, and sometimes hours, of extra cycling I hadn’t anticipated.

Fun? Yes. Pushing my body and brain to the limit? Also, yes. Before setting off from Palazzo San Gervasio on Day 6, I met Luigi and Emily. He from Bologna, Italy. She from Toronto but now living in Copenhagen. They were also cycling in Puglia and staying at the same hotel as me. We chatted a bit over coffee at a bar down the street from the hotel. Luigi informed me that the cycling culture in this part of Italy is nothing like it is further to the north, closer to his home. There, he said, many people cycle and the roads and paths are much better. Also, he said, the cars there are more respectful of cyclists they see on the road than they are here. I thought a little about what he was saying and quickly reflected on the small number of cyclists I had been seeing so far on my trip, and that those l had been seeing were not Italian. Most have been from other countries in Europe. Again, having targeted this official “EuroVelo” route when planning my trip, I had anticipated seeing far more cyclists than I had been seeing. Luigi’s observations rang true for my experience thus far.

But, all that being said, am I still having fun? Yes! Am I sure? Well, yes! Not every mile, not for every part of every day, but the experience has been incredibly memorable so far. I’ve had great food and great wine, which I suppose is a cliche in Italy but has definitely been the case for me. I love the “vino della casa” concept with waiters filling half-liter carafes with rich, deep red wine directly from small barrels.

I love the pizza. Wow! Not a shocker, though, right?

I’ve met the most incredibly kind and welcoming local people, each one more generous than the next. A highlight was sitting at a bar in the tiny village of Palazzo San Gervasio and being swarmed by a group of four to five young waitstaff and bartenders, all who wanted to test their English by helping me figure out what to order. I don’t think dudes on bikes from America are a common site in their town.

The scenery has been spectacular. Someone had informed me that spring is a good time to visit Italy because by summer the landscape is mostly brown, but in the spring everything is green. That’s exactly the case, and not only are the hillsides green or a vibrant yellow, but there are miles and miles and miles of wildflowers on either side of the road spurring me forward.

Then there’s the Easter holiday. Outside of Candela, at the B&B with the barking dogs, Rosaria arranged for her friend Pasquale to pick me up in the evening and take me up to the town, perched atop a rugged hill. With the wind and my exhaustion, I just didn’t see myself successfully or happily pedaling up there. After the best meal of the trip, and lots of wine, I stumbled outside only to find myself smack dab in the middle of the Good Friday night Catholic procession through the cobblestone streets of Candela. It was quite extraordinary, and I was the only non-Candelan to be seen. A truly rich, extremely fortuitous, cultural experience. I couldn’t resist taking part and following the procession, but I will say Pasquale wasn’t happy an hour later when he finally found me to take me back to my B&B.

So, then there’s the pivot. I like a good plan, and I like sticking to the plan, but from the seat of my bike, just 15 minutes into my ride on Day 7, getting ready to once again tackle a strong headwind and a 2,000 foot climb over just 13 miles, l recalculated the entirety of what remained of my month-long trip. It was the previous day in which I’d limped to the finish line (pack of barking dogs), and even by the next morning I was still feeling pretty dead to the world. It’s not a good sign when you begin the day feeling exhausted and you know the day ahead is going to be another very difficult one.

I quickly calculated the two top priorities of this ride. One, health and safety. And two, joy. I was honestly worried about my health. I wasn’t sure I could do another day like the one I’d had the day earlier, and I wondered what would happen if my body just gave out half-way up that 2,000 foot climb. Bonking is a real thing and I didn’t want to experience it, not alone in the middle of Italy. Then, l considered joy. Yes, I’d had many joyful moments so far, but they had often come at the end of a very grueling, very taxing day. “Could it be possible for me to have joy without all the adversity?” I wondered.  “Was all the adversity a necessary component of this trip?” In some ways, yes. Yes it was. I like the idea of achieving a goal, setting out to do something challenging and then accomplishing it. So, shifting to a new route with a new goal wasn’t exactly easy for me, and as I sit here writing this, there’s still a small part of me that wonders if maybe I could’ve been alright. Maybe sticking to the original route would have been possible. But, then again, I consider my health, my safety, and the road conditions I’d already experienced in that part of Italy. So, on the morning of Day 7, as I was pedaling toward my climb I stopped, I turned around, and I made the bold and rash decision to scrap my route and head east. With the wind finally at my back and the road mostly descending, I headed toward the sea.

I arrived in Barletta, on the Adriatic, by day’s end, and damn, if it hasn’t been the best decision of the trip so far. Barletta is a gem and I’ve loved every minute of my time here. The beach, the vibrant city, the food, the gelato, my wonderful B&B run by kind Ricardo, the good wifi (hahaha). This is my second day of rest. Tomorrow I’ll be off again, and instead of heading toward the mountains I’ll be cycling along the coast, on what I’ve read and heard is a quite well-established bicycle route. I’ll take this route for a few days and reassess where the rest of my ride will take me. I’m still determined, and excited, about biking for another 3-4 weeks, I just don’t know exactly where it will be. At some point after cycling along the sea, I will likely choose to swallow a little bit of pride and take a train across the central Apennine mountains to get back to the western part of the country. The further north I go, the bigger the mountains become, so tackling them to get over to Rome or Tuscany or Umbria is almost definitely beyond my capacity as a cyclist.

This is the new plan, but it could be a second plan of many new, future plans. I have no idea. Shifting gears is a really hard thing for me, and, yes, I do realize that’s a very, very appropriate metaphor. But as I said, I like to have a plan. And I hate making decisions. I feel choice overload and decision fatigue very, very easily. So right now my mood is a bit low, and my anxiety is a bit high. I don’t look forward to all the new choices and new decisions I will have to make in the future weeks. Some people love spontaneity and letting the wind carry them where it will. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m just not that guy. So I’m struggling now worrying about the uncertainty ahead. I’m trying to be hopeful and optimistic, but sometimes those things just can’t be forced. I’m nervous. And scared.

When I think about my bike trip across Germany last summer, I always feel like it was a minor miracle that everything went according to plan, that I followed my complete itinerary, and that I actually made it to my final destination in one piece. Coming into this trip, I had a fair amount of doubt that I’d be able to experience a similar minor miracle, and I fully expected plans could change during my ride based on any number of factors. Shifting my route was always a possibility, and in many ways I actually feel quite proud of myself for doing it. As wise sage Kramer from Seinfeld said, “I don’t argue with the body. That’s an argument you can’t win.” My body told me to head to the sea, now my mind just needs to catch up with that decision.

I have another sunny day to enjoy in Barletta then tomorrow I begin to pedal northwest along the Adriatic coast. Ironically, there is wind and rain in the forecast, so no choice is the perfect choice. But I’m determined to take my time, keep my itinerary fluid, and try to enjoy the ride.