Two Wheeled Life Part 11
Our next "Life in Italy" experience came when Heather was chosen as a fellow at the American Academy in Rome in 2014. She'd get room and board there as a winner of the "Rome Prize" so a leave-of-absence was granted by her college in Iowa. The Academy let me join her though there were payments involved, which we happily made.
We'd actually already spent a month there a few years before, paying to live in an apartment across the street so Heather could use the library and other features.
But now we needed residence permits, something we'd never bothered with in the past. Heather was a fellow so she easily qualified but how would I? Becoming a student of the Italian language was one way so the Academy recommended a local language school, one used by other local academic institutions catering to foreigners. I thought it would be easy to sign-up, get some sort of proof and use that for the residence permit and it was.
Until the language school informed me that I actually had to regularly attend the classes! I thought I'd be having fun in Rome (we planned to bring bicycles) but now I had to make time for language classes. Not that I didn't need them, but now I had a schedule to keep beyond the one at the Academy.
While we did bring road bicycles down to Rome with us, the cobbled streets of Rome and the bike's narrow tires weren't the best, especially when dealing with tram tracks! I soon went back to our Piedmont HQ and dragged out the old MTB's (same ones we wanted to stash back when our former boss was thinking of canning us) as we'd brought them over a few years before to play with in the Italian Alps. We even designed a mountain bike tour in the Italian Alps but found zero interest, despite a friend who worked at a magazine insisting it would be a hit and a magazine feature.
These old MTBs were THE bikes for Rome! No problems on what Romans call the San pietrini not to mention the unpaved paths in the nearby parks or out on the Appia Antica. We had a lot of fun on those ancient roads.
Time flew by and soon it was time to head north again to begin the bike tour season. We were more sure we wanted to live in Italy permanently but Rome (like Viterbo) was not the place.
CycleItalia was doing fine but we were starting to tire of the point-to-point tours. We'd had plenty of requests from new and returning clients to just stay at our Piedmont HQ hotel and enjoy the riding there. Once they arrived, no packing/unpacking, no van transfers, just ride, eat, drink sleep, repeat.
We'd already started to reduce the logistical challenges, changing Paradise in Piedmont to Best of Piedmont with fewer hotel changes, at the same time getting more and more interested in vintage cycling. We discontinued the Rome-based tours and started adding ciclismo come una volta as a slogan - cycling as it once was, the idea that we were taking a step back from the constant change that cycling was going through.
The business was changing too as internet things like Map my Ride made potential clients believe they could simply download (for free) routes as great as the ones we painstakingly developed over the years, while short-term vacation rentals sprang up to rival the hotels we loved. We knew none of that could replace our local knowledge and relationships but combined with our own desires to spend less time on-the-road with hotel changes every day or two, it was time for a shift in business strategy.
Another challenge was the rise of so-called "Bike Hotels" in Italy. The idea began on the Adriatic Coast when a few hotels started thinking of a way to sell lodging outside of the summer beach season. A consortium was created and expanded to include hotel members not on any beach, but with rooms to fill and decent roads to cycling on.
We decided to create our own "Bike Hotel" though we didn't bother joining the consortium, instead calling ours Piedmont Cycling Resort.
We offered packages as short as two days. Ride with us or do your own thing. Rent a bike from us (we added full carbon bicycles to the rental fleet) or bring your own. Get to the hotel on your own or arrange airport pickup/dropoff. Join us for meals, dine on your own or take an apartment with kitchen and cook for yourself.
This made things more fun for us and our clients. One warm day we found ourselves near the top of a small hill on the border of the Barolo wine region. We sat down outside at an osteria and ordered bottles of cold mineral water to start. The smiling owner/waiter quipped "Water is for washing your hands! For drinking there's Dolcetto!" so we agreed. It was a little hot for Barolo so a cool magnum sized bottle was quickly brought to our table. I think there were 6 of us so the bottle was empty once forks were finally put down. We'd also consumed plenty of cold mineral water despite his joke.
But dessert? What about that? The dessert menu was tempting and we had plenty of kilometers left to ride so everyone ordered one. How 'bout some cold, sweet dessert wine to go with 'em? A magnum size bottle of Moscato soon appeared with the desserts. Just like the Dolcetto, the bottle was soon empty.
When the coffee was brought out and the bill settled I announced that anyone not 100% about getting back on their bike come with me in the car instead. From the osteria it was a twisty downhill and I wondered about someone missing a turn. They all hopped on the bikes and blasted off down the hill. I followed in the car, taking it slower than normal, on the lookout for someone overdoing it.
Once at the bottom, one of the clients burst out with "That was one of the most fun descents I've ever done in my life! You need to recommend drinking this much wine in your advertising!" to which I nodded, smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.
Over the years we'd gotten to know the best places to eat on our routes along with good places to stop for just a snack or drink. We delighted in sharing them with clients who wanted to ride with us though by this time we'd caved-in and created GPS tracking so they could do their own thing without having to look at (or lose) a paper map. The region became more and more bike friendly as well.
We'd done some advertising to promote our revised programs, including offering custom, private tours. We were really liking this new program, especially once Heather started running study-abroad programs in Sicily, a place we'd always want to visit, especially in winter.
Between the resort packages, bike rentals and custom itineraries we were making a decent return while doing far less work. Heather had more freedom for academic pursuits to boot. Life was pretty good - lots of time in Italy, not so much time in Iowa and putting every extra bit of money into our retirement fund.
What could happen next?
