From Orosei to Olbia
10 August 2019
After the short holiday in the Gulf of Orosei with friends, with a view to setting off again on the 11th from Olbia, I decided to leave the day before to ride the Orientale Sarda without rushing, stopping in the port area to set off the next day fresh and rested. Sure.
The start
Knowing I would have the entire day available, I got moving not too early, with the idea — shared with my friends — of stopping near Posada for a concert by Paolo Fresu, as part of his Time in Jazz festival: I would set off by bike, and they would catch up with me (and overtake me) later. All pretty easy on paper, but some disorder in the festival’s online calendars complicated our morning a bit: it seemed that Fresu was at Torre San Giovanni and two other jazz musicians at the Pineta of Orvile, while at Orvile it was actually Fresu — with the result that we all arrived too late. In any case, a good chance to see some nice places.
The climb of San Teodoro
From the pineta of Orvile, where I was just able to do a nice gravel stretch of a few km before turning back proverbially empty-handed, I continued on the SS 125 with the idea of getting over the climb of San Teodoro before stopping for lunch somewhere. But I hadn’t reckoned with the furious heat, which at 13:00 began to make itself felt in all its power right when, after Budoni, the climb began. Speaking of climbs, I leave you with the surreal image of a wrong-way cycle path of just over 500 meters, which for a moment made me think I was having strange visions.
And speaking of desert and visions, while I was sweating off several kilos of heart-and-soul left on the burning asphalt, I kept thinking of Marcello Fois’s book In Sardegna non c’è il mare (“In Sardinia there is no sea”), which I have not (yet) read, but which has a title so effective that it sticks in your head like an advertising claim. The book is about Barbagia and the strictly mountain culture of Sardinia, but while riding the Orientale and the other Sardinian main roads you really don’t have the perception of living in a region surrounded by the sea, and lived in summer mostly for this reason. It is these new coastal towns, dotted with modern villages and settlements, that provide just a few clues, and that force the casual cycle-traveler to prepare with great precision or to follow the tracks that lead to the sea, with the risk of finding oneself in mega-parking lots of chaotic beaches or in coves unreachable except on foot and with great effort.
Distilling sweat and refined thoughts, I finally reach the top of San Teodoro which, considering the ever-poor athletic preparation and the off-the-chart heat, corresponded more or less to my personal Stelvio. The photo doesn’t do it justice, but from up there you understand that yes, the sea is very much there. It’s just hard to reach, or all too easy.
San Teodoro is a town prettier than the others, always serving a certain type of tourism but certainly more pleasant than other places in the area. Unfortunately, not knowing the beaches and having also a bit lost my bearings, I ended up at the entrance of La Cinta, a certainly splendid beach but totally unsuited to showing up on the entrance walkway with a bike and dressed like a fool. As often happens in these places you have to do several kilometers on foot to get away from the August crowds, and I certainly wasn’t in the condition to do it. Moral of the story, the idea of finding a place to eat something in front of the sea while getting some shade turned out to be a utopia, and I ended up eating a sandwich in some random place that could have been at Torvajanica.
A nice swim is in order
Refreshed, I set off again with the goal of finding a place to stop for an hour to catch my breath and cool off with a swim, and after passing the Stagno di San Teodoro, I find the turnoff for Capo Coda Cavallo and I decide to venture in. The road is long, mostly asphalted with a short gravel finale, about 6 km from the main road. Looking at the GPS track afterwards I realize I could have avoided a bit of road, but above all the issue of ending up with Tavolara in front of me instead of behind. But the little corner I found allowed me to finally stay a bit in the shade and above all to have a nice refreshing swim.
After a nice pleasant and relaxing pause, all that was left was to set off again, get back on the main road, and at my leisure finish the road to Olbia, thus concluding a long but pleasant route, and above all very convenient to find myself ready for departure the next day.
Or at least this is the ending I had imagined. In reality, things didn’t quite go like this.
The alternative ending
While I was quietly lying under my tree, I picked up the phone to look at some options for stopping to sleep, among the various options I had imagined while pedaling: more like something in central Olbia to have the port conveniently nearby, and have maybe a small aperitivo and a nice dinner as soon as I arrived? Or better an agriturismo outside the city for a typical dinner and a more authentic accommodation? I kept toying with these hypotheses also while waiting for the search results on Booking, when I found myself face to face with the truth: NOTHING. There was no availability from Capo Coda Cavallo to Olbia under €500 for one night. I start to worry and I set about looking for other solutions on TripAdvisor and Google. I get glued to the phone and I call agriturismos, bed & breakfasts, places recommended by the structures contacted. NOTHING. ALL FULL (obviously, you fool, it’s August 10th, who knows what you were hoping to find??). Ok. Now what? Suddenly while continuing to search I come across a hotel in Olbia with a room available (the last one, it says) at €150. Oh well, better than ending up on the street. I complete the reservation, I get the confirmation, and I relax for a moment. But really just a moment, because a few seconds later I get a phone call: it’s the hotel, there’s a mistake on Booking, the room actually isn’t available, and I’m forced to do the free cancellation. Only the next day, with a cool head, do I realize I could have had a good laugh and dumped the problem on Booking or on the hotel, who would somehow have had to relocate me at their expense. But in that moment I’m more worried about avoiding the no-show charge and I don’t think of the most basic solution.
Once I’ve slipped out of this problem, the most absurd thought begins to take shape: what if….. I went back? Not by bike of course but by bus. Ridiculous, right? Truly absurd. And yet. The house in Cala Liberotto is still there, the room is still there… A round of phone calls begins, and in the end we cook up the plan: I go to Olbia Airport, I leave the bike at the luggage deposit, I jump on the bus that leaves for Nuoro and I get picked up at the so-called Bivio Sologo to manage to reach Orosei and Cala Liberotto in the evening.
Said and done, I start pedaling like a man possessed to arrive in time to do everything. The road is hell: traffic, chaos, at Porto San Paolo I run into the Suckling Pig Festival, approaching Olbia ever more SUVs and giant cars that, especially uphill, brush past me, insult me or honk at me — not exactly the idyllic bike stroll. But somehow I manage to reach Olbia.
I arrive at Olbia Airport tired, sweaty and stinking, and luckily I find helpful employees who help me solve the problem despite this being the first time it’s happened to them to take in a whole bike, not disassembled, literally parked at the luggage deposit. The main difficulty is the impossibility of getting the bike onto the conveyor of the baggage check, which forces us to call an attendant for the manual test on the bike frame! Luckily the problem is solved quickly, and with €12 of bike deposit, €8 of bus ticket, and several meters of queue with my tail between my legs, I head back to the fold after having covered 100 km. Actually the GPS records 99.97 for me — not even the satisfaction of hitting the hundred mark! Good thing I really took it laughing — a sign that the heart is starting to be a bit lighter.
With this stage my strange and somewhat rambling Sardinian tour came to an end, with 300 km total and 3,165 m of elevation gain — for me a great physical and human experience, truly unthinkable until a year earlier. It’s hard not to think how much sadness made it possible and necessary, but there isn’t anything to do except pedal forward, with the bags full of memories — which luckily, the more beautiful they are, the lighter they are.