View down to the western coast
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View down to the western coast |
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cross
the island or circumnavigate the coast. The mountains often end
in
100-meter cliffs at the coast, dropping down to a beautiful but in
accessible
beach. Driving on the island is a challenge, as most roads are
just
wide enough for two cars, many only semi-paved, and none containing
straight
sections longer than 100 meters. 50km per hour is an expected
average
speed in general.
Cecilia and I flew from Paris to Bastia, in the northeast corner of Corsica, on Thursday morning of a long May holiday weekend in 2004. Upon arrival we rented a car and drove across the island to Ajaccio, which is halfway down the western coast. We arrived in Ajaccio in the late-afternoon (about a 3-hour drive) and spent the remainder of the day relaxing on the beach and having dinner at a cafe in town. The weather was perfect, and we looked forward to hard biking the following day.
We had packed our bikes in canvas bags, called "housses" in French, and had taken our chances with the airline handling services. When we unpacked the bikes on Friday morning we found that my bike had arrived in fine shape, but the two screws holding Cecilia's derailleur had been completely stripped. We drove to several small bike rental stores in Ajaccio on Friday morning, but were unable to find the correct size replacement screws. And, after more examination, we found that the internal threads had also been stripped, and that even a replacement screw would not have solved the problem. After more discussion we decided to try holding the drailleur in place with duct tape - in theory the broken part did not bear any load, but merely needed to be secured from falling. Our duct tape trick seemed to held fine during a test run, and we were back in business.
We spent most of Friday climbing from the coast to the top of the
nearby
ridges, and were rewarded with increasingly better views as we pushed
higher
into the the mountains. We stopped occasionally for a coke or a
snack,
and eventually returned 70km and 1100 ascending meters later to the
car.
A few images from the day:
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Saturday morning we had breakfast in Piana, then drove further
around the northwestern coast. We parked the car outside L'Ile
Rousse, and
again rode out and up into the surrounding hills. We spent most
of
the day climbing from the coast up to 820 meters, the highest point of
our trip. The ride down was quick, and 55km and 1200m of total
ascent
later we were back on the beach. We drove into town and found a
hotel for the night. A few images from the day:.
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Sunday morning we woke up early and drove the final 90 minutes back
to Bastia, where we caught our return flight to Paris. This time
both bikes survived the trip with no damage, and we rode from the train
station back to our apartment in the late afternoon.
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