Diary of a Rookie

As an adult there’s nothing more humbling than trying to learn a new skill, so it pays when you’ve got a friend like Shimano Gravel Alliance rider Ibai Fradejas, who is arguably something of a veteran when it comes to the rough stuff, to guide you over the untrodden terrain.

From rookie to 500 km in just eight days, Ibai tracks Sandra Parra’s transition from purist road rider to Tuscany Trail finisher and what it took to get there.

With a history of enjoying the outdoors, a childhood spent camping and a passion for long-distance gravel riding, I’ve become the point of reference for anyone who is feeling the urge to explore. When my good friend Sandra Parra – a dedicated road rider living in Valencia – wanted to test her mettle with an adventure ride, she asked me how long it would take for her to complete her first bikepacking trip. Easy, I said. We'll do it this spring. While I'd jumped in to help, I knew I would have my work cut out – after all, she’s a rider that rarely, if ever, ventures away from the tarmac.

From the start, we got her rolling. It began with the hunt for her first gravel bike, speccing it with a Shimano GRX 2x11 groupset and adjusting her riding position. We kept her first 30km ride on mixed surfaces easy, and it passed without a hitch. By ride two – her first proper gravel ride – she was pushing her limits, getting to grips with the extra braking power of the GRX set-up, where skids and near crashes would turn into massive grins. What a relief.

Ride three was impressive; it filled me with excitement when her initial fear on a technical descent turned into the persistence to nail it. This gave us both the confidence that she’d be ready to fight through those inevitable tougher moments. By ride four, Sandra was hooked – it had turned from have-a-go into a hobby. Things could start to get serious now…

After Sandra's bike had arrived at the start of 2022, we had a few months of umm-ing and aah-ing over what the end goal would be. We settled on the and the time had now come to finalise the plan. Sandra was still a bit worried because she had never ridden so far, and even less with a loaded bike… She had a point. The Tuscany Trail is 500 km long with 8,000 metres of climbing, but we decided to go for it anyway. The logistics were not easy since the start and finish lines are at different points and neither location is anywhere near an airport.

We just landed at Pisa airport and took the airport shuttle train to the city centre. Once there, we built the bikes, packed everything into the panniers and decided to see the city as tourists before taking another train to Donoratico where we will start the Tuscany Trail tomorrow.

At 8:30 they opened the bib collection area. It was only 15 km from our hotel so we arrived on time. There are familiar faces and old friends to chat to, and eventually we start riding at 10 am. The adrenaline got the better of us and the pace was hot for most of the day. We only stopped three times: once for an ice cream, another for a sandwich and an ice cream, and the third time to eat a few slices of pizza and load up on groceries for dinner.

We took the small stretches of road at a fast pace, making sure to take extra precautions on the descents because the technical level is what it is. We're starting to feel the fatigue in our bodies so we've decided to set up camp. It's now 8:30 p.m. and we will enjoy some dinner with the last rays of the sun before going to bed.

The day dawned at 5:30 but it took us two hours to pack everything up – a bit slow. I put on yesterday’s dirty clothes but Sandra, the rookie, was unable – or unwilling again – to do so, and anyway, her saddlebag is packed with more clothes than necessary so it doesn’t matter. We expected a long day and that's what we got. The plan was to try and match yesterday’s distance so that we can finish the adventure in just three days. Far from being a race, we’re approaching it as a personal challenge, riding from sunrise to sunset at a constant pace and stopping to eat ice cream, pizza and take photos.

It was hard going for the first half of the day on narrow, stoney tracks that made it really hard to ride at a consistent pace. We reached Siena at noon having only ridden 60km. We stopped to eat and talked about how the second half of the day looks more favourable, although the weather forecast was warning us of seasonal electrical storms. We had 90km to go to reach our goal of San Quirico d´Orcia.

Our phones were not wrong, and the storms started to shake the sky. We decided it was sensible to shelter under a bridge and wait for them to clear. A little later we continued, choosing to refuel on a delicious porchetta panini—an immediate source of energy.

We arrived at the marked destination as it was getting dark. It would have been nice to sleep in one of the hostels in the town, but they were all full. Oh well, we have come to experience an adventure, so without being discouraged we looked for a park on the outskirts where we can spend the night - this time bedding down under a portico without bothering to set up the tent in an attempt to expedite the next day's packing.

When the sun came up we discovered that other participants had also had the same idea to catch some rest in this park. We had an energy bar for breakfast to plug the hunger in our stomachs before we reached the first town where we order a hot coffee and something to eat. The terrain has been favourable on the way to the coast. When there are just a few hills separating us from the finish line, this is the moment when you start to feel sad and think that the adventure is almost over. I wonder if we enjoyed it enough, or if we rode too hard, or what else we could have done. But the truth is that we have shared kilometres with people from all over the world with the same passion to explore by bike.

Today threw a few mechanical issues at us (easily solved, fortunately) before we made it to Ortobello and the finish line around 8:00 p.m. Just before the finish we crossed the stunning Duna Feniglia Nature Reserve, which put on a show with one of the most incredible sunsets I have ever seen in my life. As I write this now, it hits me that we are far from home with only our bicycles and a few things to survive, and it is so simple that this becomes magical.

After the long-awaited shower and rest in the hotel we are ready to travel by train to Rome. We swiftly do an express tour of the ancient city before hunting down a local bike store that has kindly kept two boxes aside for us so that we can pack our bicycles to fly back home.

Even though Sandra was not sufficiently used to the bicycle or the terrain, she had such a strong desire to explore and that's what got us to the finish in three days. What’s even more impressive is that it was also her first experience sleeping in a tent surrounded by nocturnal wild boars, not to mention the night in a bivvy bag and the fact that we went three days without showering. On the flight home, she even asked what the next adventure should be – so if that's not a result, I don't know what is. The takeaway from this experience is that anyone can turn into a bikepacking pro providing you’re willing to put in a small amount of preparation, just try and make sure you’re marginally fit (or at least create a route that suits your current fitness level) and don’t mind roughing it from time if you can’t find a hotel.

Adventure is everywhere, you sometimes just have to pedal a little further to find it.

An aluminium Kona Rove NRB DL, specced with 2x11 Shimano GRX groupset with hydraulic brakes and 650b x 48 mm wheels/tyres.