Today I've decided to go to work from Novello (Langhe) to Fossano using my new e-bike.
I have to work our Coworking Space in Fossano. I must say I was already some half an hour late, so I needed to run a little faster that I would normally do.
The bike was fully charged, I'm wearing a newspaper under my t-shirt. I've heard my grand-father repeating this dozens of times: "when you leave from The Langhe, in particular in the morning or in the evening, always remember to put a newspaper under your t-shirt, even in summer. Otherwise you'll catch a serious cold".
Do you want to visit langhe in a different way? Rent a e-bike at BikeSquare Langhe, really cool!
He was right, in the first downhill after my house the bike soon gets 50Km/h. No need to pedal nor to break. The road is steep and the wind is cold.
You pass through beautiful vineyards, fields of wheat, little woods with limes in full blossom.
Then you arrive at the bottom of the valley of the River Tanaro and the road goes up to Narzole.
I remember the last time I did the hill of Narzole on my normal bike... I had to stop 3 or 4 times (I'm not trained at all).
This time, with the e-bike and supporting engine at level of 3 (out of 4), I could keep a stable speed of 21Km/h, without sweating too much. Of course I had to pedal at a good pace... but absolutely reasonable for somebody like me who is not a sporty-guy.
After Narzole the road is more or less flat. You are in the middle of a wide flat land at the end of which you find the Alps, and the Monviso just in front of you. Today was a crisp-clear day. There was no single cloud in the sky, a mild wind was blowing... this is a sensation you really don't get when you are in a car.
The road passes among some farms. You hear the cows (and smell the cows...), you see the frogs jumping into the ditches, and ear "ploff" as long as you ride the bike up to Salmour.
After Salmour the road goes down to the valley of river Stura. Here it's again easy to go faster than 50Km/h, so the smell of the landfield nearby lasts just a few seconds.
After some hundreds of meters where you have to pedal with some more energy, the road gets flat again, and you pass in a former military zone, now full of fruit crops, solar panels, stones, abandoned houses... It's somewhat a surreal landscape, at the end of which you see Fossano.
The road to Fossano is uphill. The e-bike supports you without efforts.
I deciced to go up using the ancient "San Lorenzo" road, which is paved in stones. I put on gear number 1 (the shortest) and engine on number 4 (the strongest). I pedaled with energy and the bike went up. The battery went down of one level.
CONCLUSION
These are 24 Km of a pleasant road from Langhe to Fossano, easily done on my electric bike. The whole road is not reserved to bikes but it's not dangerous. The number of cars is reasonable, and the road is wide enough to be safe during the whole ride. I used some 35% of the battery, while keeping power to Level 3 during most of my ride.
The average speed was 24Km/h. I arrived in the office, changed my t-shirt and I was ready to work (not over-tired, but well energized).
Visualizza Novello Fossano Bici Elettrica - 20 Giugno 2014 in una mappa di dimensioni maggiori
You can see in Google Earth the road, altitude, speed: Just click on the link below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1j9c5WezAtxeXpHRS15VXNHc0E/edit?usp=sh...
The picture in this post was found on the internet at this address:
http://images.nital.it/nikonschool/life/gallery/foto-integrale-aw100/big...
Do you want to visit langhe in a different way? Rent a e-bike at BikeSquare Langhe, really cool!