So this weekend saw Bobs Bike Shed in Sunny Tuscany for this years L'Eroica. It had been a long term dream of mine to ride in this event having followed it for a number of years since it was first run in 97 and for those of you that have read previous entry's will no that over the winter of 2012/13 I rebuilt a 1980 Reynolds 753 Raleigh team Ti especially for the event.
Entry for the event changed this year with a pre-registration rather than a first come first served basis and following an email I received from the organisers, i mistakenly assumed that I had a reserved place, so flights were booked along with hotels and hire car and all I had to do was wait for the next email to complete the entry process. Well upon further investigation it seemed that i had jumped the gun and although I had been given a number (1347) it was outside the initial 1000 places set aside for foreign riders. Oh well I thought, we shall still go and just enjoy being there.
A few months later I got to a tweet from one of the people I follow, that stated some charity spots were available for riders that missed out on one of the initial 1000 places. Well that was it, in with both feet I paid my money and waited to see if I had been accepted?
Now for any one that has visited the official L'Eroica website they will tell you that its not the most user friendly, easily understandable site in the world and it was a few more tense weeks wait until I could confirm that I actually had an official place on the ride and I have to say when it was confirmed I was rather pleased.
So preparations began.
Now for some time i have been toying with the idea of hiring out bike box's to traveling cyclists and I though what an ideal opportunity to try out one of my suppliers hard case offerings and see how it faired traveling to Italy. Polaris is a company I have admired for a while having had and used a number of their products over the years so a call was made and a new rigid bike box was despatched to the shed.
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Polaris rigid bike box
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So here are some photo's of the Raleigh Team Ti being loaded into the box.
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| The empty box minus its foam inserts |
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| Foam inserts in place |
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| wheels packed and ready to be covered with the foam inserts |
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| bike packed |
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So the bike is packed and ready to travel. |
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The Raleigh Team Ti packed in its Polaris rigid bike box just about to be loaded on to the Plane at Gatwick
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| So its reached its final destination at Hotel Le Loggia unpacked and ready for riding ( well apart from its pedals) |
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