When Jamie asked me to do some blogging for the site I don’t think he realised how slack I am. He also probably expected me to talk about riding bikes… Ah well, he was going to learn one way or another.
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I realised yesterday that I’ve now got naked in public in seven different countries and on three continents (not including our own fair shores). Because of mountain biking I’ve exposed my pasty body to the world in a selection of beautiful small towns, mountain passes and public car parks across the globe. It was my first time in Italy yesterday and it was a big moment for me. When I say big, what I mean is absolutely bloody freezing.
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I headed out here to the Italian Riviera to get away from the British winter, and, in fairness, we have had some lovely days in the last couple of weeks. Yesterday wasn’t one of them. We were riding the downhill track at San Romolo – it’s where Fox bring their race teams to try and break their forks and shocks. The place itself is beautiful, a 1,200m mountain that runs right the way down to the Ligurian Sea with a village nestling on its slopes. But at the top of the hill yesterday the gale force wind was bringing the snow in horizontally and it was settling fast.
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After six or seven runs I was ruined, cold and plastered with mud and crap. This is where my British guilt kicked in. Roberto who runs one of the local race teams invited me into his house around the corner to get changed, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He’d already fed me, driven me up the hill to ride one of the most amazing DH tracks I’ve ever ridden and now he was offering to let me tramp mud through his beautiful house to change in the warm. I just felt too guilty. So I treated myself to getting bare-ass naked in the square where we’d parked, in the middle a howling blizzard.
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Roberto looked horrified that I’d changed out in the wind and snow. I don’t yet know enough Italian to explain myself in situations like this, so when he asked me why there was only one answer I could give: “Inglese.”
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Matt Wragg is living, working and riding out on the Italian Riviera this summer and will be doing a few more of these for the site. You should check out the company he’s working for www.rivierabike.co.uk . Thanks to Simon at Saracen www.saracen.co.uk for their support.
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