I don’t want to spend this summer stuck in a bus. As thrilling as it will be to travel, see old friends and new places, and stretch in a million different ways, the inside of a stinky old metal machine is not my idea of paradise, nor is it an acceptable use of four months of sunshine.
So Paul and I have a pledge to bear with each other and make allowances for bike travel. I’m not sure if the bus will drive ahead, and wait for the biker to do their 5, 10, 20 or more kilometres of slow-traveling, or if the bus will travel at the same speed as the bike, forming a peculiar procession of two. I’m not training for anything, so I’ll only ride if it isn’t raining or cold, and Paul has not said whether he will ride much at all, but I bought a good bike that could hopefully inspire both of us to take to the streets more often (we have been sharing a road bike for more than a year. It wasn’t even a very good one, and we got it for free, so this purchase was long overdue).
Meet the Miele.
Two days in a row we drove into Dartmouth and up Waverley Rd. to the far-flung Spider Lake Steet to find it. Ribelle Angelucci has owned this Miele for a few decades, using it as his second or third string option, his winter ride. Ribelle, however, knows how to take care of a bike. He has been a long distance racer for a long time, and brought many bike parts with him from Europe when he came to Canada. His parents fled Italy to escape Mussolini, and he lived in France, Italy, and Montreal before finding himself in Nova Scotia. His thick accent belies how long he has lived here. He still rides but not as often or as far as he used to. He said he used to make 1000 km in a month, but now he is down to 600. He has a workshop next to the foundation of his house, carved into the hill, and he does most of his own repairs. He is a bit of a hoarder, keeping old tires, pedals and shoes long past their point of usefulness, but they are reminders of his trips, and who knows what else.
As thrilled as I was to find a sweet-looking bike, I think it was the story-hawk in me that made me want this one. I loved Ribelle’s stories, the way he talked, the things he didn’t say and I liberally imagined. His name means “rebel,” and his Italian friends would be embarrassed to call him by it, because it was so unusually bold.
Ribelle invited me back if the bike ever gave me any trouble, and I fully intend to take him up on that (whether the Miele actually fails, or not. This is one of those stories that I wanted to find this summer, and look, here, already, I have one!).
Edit: Actually, we have probably met two such people in the past little while. I wrote about the other one here: Annapolis Royal
Oh my
