L'Eroica 2013 My ride Part 2

  So we had arrived at http://www.villagloria.it/index.php?lang=eng just north of Siena and about 20k from the small town of Gaiole, the start of L'Eroica. We woke up on the saturday morning to mist, low cloud and rain and my heart sank as to what might be for the Sunday ride. However we ate a quick breakfast jumped in the car and drove to Gaiole to sign on, soak up the atmosphere (and the rain as it turned out).
We made our way from Quercegrossa via Vagliagi towards Gaiole over some of the Strada Bianca that we would be cycling the next day. It didn't look good in the rain with rutted roads and steep descents, I was worried as to how we would fair? However we arrived in Gaiole, found somewhere to park up and made our way to the centre of town to sign in.

The un-organised chaos of signing on to the L'Eroica

Finally at the front of the que!

Following signing on we had a good look round the stalls and wondered the side streets taking in all that was on offer. Vintage bikes, parts both NOS and some that looked ready for the skip were  available for sale but as forums inter-mated in the UK, prices were of the inflated variety and although there were some very tempting things to purchase prices were just to steep for me.

I think these need a little work 

Parts old and new ( well almost)

Seats covered up as the rain pours down.

 The rain just kept on falling so we decided to get some food and made our way to a restaurant . It was supposedly a Pizzeria that couldn't serve Pizza (the oven wasn't fired up) or indeed Cappuccino ( the machine was broken!!!) Not a great start to the weekend and as the rain fell we headed back to the car and our hotel for hot showers and hot food. Tomorrow was another day and lets hope it was to be a dry day