Never look a gift horse in the mouth...

July 6, 2008


Earlier this week, Rachel noticed a kiosk containing a bicycle rack and a couple of (what looked like) abandoned bicycles in one of the main piazze and wandered over to take a closer look. There was a large sign with what looked like a lot of rules but in the “headline” was the word gratuito (free of charge). There were 3 or 4 bikes missing on the numbered rack with keys inserted into the corresponding numbers. We looked at each other, could this really be true- free bikes?? And if so, how could we take advantage of such a great find? We attempted to read further. The Italian was a bit too hard for us but we were kind of getting the gist. We figured out this was likely a city sponsored (commuter?) program, allowing residents of Alessandria to borrow bikes between the hours of 7:30 am and 19:30 pm. We became very excited and decided to return the next day, dictionary in hand, to see if we were right, and if so, read the fine print.

The very next day we were motivated to get out of the house early for once and hit the piazza. We two goofy middle-aged American women stood for at least a half hour in front of the kiosk, looking up words, and carefully reading the entire, lengthy rules of the program. We were so pleased with ourselves that upon arrival here we had become legal residents of the City of Alessandria (which seemed to be the only requirement of bike use). Our next hurdle: having to find the office in a specific municipal police building in order to show proof of residency, put down a deposit, and thus obtain a key. Not to mention, explain what we needed in Italian.

With my uncanny sense of direction (which apparently only serves me out of the country as my daughter might quickly point out) and our handy little map, we found the right place. A very nice woman sitting in front of one of the offices surmised we needed help. (observation: there always seems to be at least one such person in all official places here who at first appears to be a bystander but turns out to be on the payroll, perhaps as “official greeter”). She found a partial-English speaking police officer (a little too Fascist looking for my taste- black boots with pants tucked in and all but nice) who took us to the right office after eventually determining what the hell we crazy Americans were looking for. Fifteen minutes later, we were registered, given keys and a map of the 6 bicycle kiosks around the city, and we didn’t even have to give the clerk a deposit. (I suspect this was an oversight but he was probably so flustered by all of our questions about the how-tos and wherefores that he probably just wanted us to leave, sooner rather than later).
Since our life here can be so exhausting; we needed our siesta time. Domani would be soon enough to implement “Signore Americane sulle bicciclette.” (I just love the fact that 99.9% of you can’t correct my Italian, let alone know exactly what I’m saying).

Domani came as well as our first foray to the closest (and original) kiosk. Careful readers will remember that in my first paragraph I mentioned what would turn out to be a key characteristic of the bikes and what didn’t take us long to discover. “a couple of (what looked) like abandoned” in other words should have immediately been determined as “still there” and why were they the only two there yesterday and today- where were the others?? Ignoring the obvious we decided to go on our first bicycle outing anyway. Helmets are nonexistent here; the streets are cobblestone and brick, uneven at best, missing at worst. Rachel’s bike had a front basket that wouldn’t go down all the way so she was riding with basket as windshield and I (with basket clattering on the back of my bike) flew by her only to discover when I tried to come to an abrupt stop that I had no brakes! We debated the pros and cons of our safety and undeterred we decided to continue on…

Surprisingly I did pretty well without brakes. I just had to be very careful of approaching intersections, kids, and other pedestrians. Occasionally there was a bike path but those often ended abruptly into traffic so I had to be on guard there, too. We rode quite a bit but Rachel’s concern over my safety got the best of her and she insisted we find a bike repair shop. Of course, like everything here, if you miss your window of time it may be a couple of hours until the shop opens. After the usual 2 hour wait, missing our siesta time, we returned to the bike shop where we had previously gone to price new bikes. They of course thought we were nuts to want to pay to have a “city bike” fixed. We acknowledged our insanity but we knew by then that of three kiosks we checked that there were slim pickings and assumed the university area would have been worse). “3 days to repair” was the only reason we caved and continued on…

Another of Rachel’s brilliant ideas was to purchase another fan while we had the bikes. Hmm…seemed like a good idea-what with our baskets and all- until we actually bought one. Rachel who can be extremely stubborn and a big know-it-all decided that she would carry the large fan (it was NOT in a box mind you) in her windshield/basket. She no sooner tried getting on her bike when the bike tipped and the fan crashed to the ground. Fortunately she didn’t fall (she with the new hip who thinks she’s invincible) but after a few choice words, looked aghast at the various pieces of the fan strewn around her. I so wish I had had the camera with me! I was on the other side of the street laughing so hard because I could see that she was fine. Again, not to be deterred and seeing how much easier it is for each of us to carry a fan in pieces, we continued home where Rachel successfully reassembled our newest (and very functional!) addition. Mamma mia!