If I was in front of Barbara, her henchmen would attack from behind with her on their wheels, and I’d have to jump across the road to bridge to them. If I was behind Barbara, one of the guys in between would discreetly slow down until a space had opened between Barbara and me. When I realized it, I would have to jump around again, using precious energy to surmount the gap.
After a few of these tricks in a row, I got frustrated and did something a bit childish and silly. As soon as I’d bridged the gap, I turned around and made a rude gesture to the guy who’d purposely opened it. No, it wasn’t anything shockingly obscene: just my thumb on my nose and my four fingers waggling, as if to say, “Nyah, nyah … you tried to gap me but I got back on!” Well, I’m not sure if that gesture means the same thing in Italy, but suddenly I was surrounded by three or four angry men who were shouting and gesticulating wildly. From what I gathered of their shouting, they thought I should be embarrassed by my display of bad manners (which, frankly, I was beginning to regret).
At this point, a scene from the classic cycling movie, Breaking Away, popped into my mind. The hero, a small town American boy who’s obsessed with cycling (and with Italians, since they’re the best cyclists in the world), is thrilled when a real, live Italian pro team comes to town for the local race. He’s in a breakaway with the Italians, but they are incensed that this little pipsqueak is crashing their party. Eventually one of the Italian riders tosses his pump in our hero’s spokes, and the happy-go-lucky American gets thrown unceremoniously into a ditch. So here I was in a group of hopping mad Italian dudes, having apparently mortally insulted one or more of them. Surreptitiously, I started checking to see if any of them had a frame pump on his bike. Luckily, everyone seemed to have left those dangerous devices at home.
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