FROM CARLOFORTE TO MAMOIADA
The waiter comes rushing in with a plate of Fregola Sarda ai Frutti di Mare, a local favorite. The dish includes a whole crab split into two, nestled in a sea of clams, mussels, and calamari. It resembles something the crew of the space tag Nostromo might have had, had they succeeded in killing the Alian. It’s a simple, almost rugged dish, yet it’s nothing short of fabulous. Some would say it makes the perfect analogy to the island itself. I think they’re on to something.
Picking up where we left off
We disembark the ferry at Portoscusso. Under the soft spring sun, the port area has transformed overnight and now looks as lively as a bar after happy hour. Back on the boat, I let the ship’s medic look at my hand and foot injury. He changed the rudimentary bandage on my left pinky and told me to keep it clean and dry. I am encouraged by my ability to walk down the ferry stairs and onto the vehicle ramp. I mount the bike, hit the gear lever down to 1st gear, and ride on.
The nasty crash at Carloforte (see Part I) had slightly altered our planes. Instead of touring the isle of Sant’Antioco, and to make up for lost time, we would ride straight to the hotel – some 95km away. From the Port area we will head to Iglesias, some 30km to the northeast. From there, we’ll take the extra twisty SS126 road all the way past Guspini. Turning right at Dessi to SP4, we will cut across the flat western valley of Sardinia to reach our final stop, which is another easy 13km away. The route should take about 3 hours, including lunch and fuel stops.
It’s painful to hit the road
It’s already past noon as I navigate the Motorcycle slowly out of the port area and into the freeway. “Getting the bike moving was easy,” says my inner voice, as my left foot reaches the gear lever and pulls up to second. The next thing I see are bright stars as a loud whimper breaks the silence of the intercom. My confidence in surviving the crash unscathed is blown to smithereens, which oddly is precisely how my left foot feels after my hasty and failed attempt to get up to 2nd. While pushing down a gear was easy and painless, pulling up a gear is a whole different opera. As staying in first gear for the rest of the day is not an option, I pull the clutch lever once more and – trying hard not to cry – slowly pull my busted foot against the reluctant gear lever.
Sharp pain cuts through my leg and climbs up my spine. The more I apply pressure on the stubborn foot lever, the more it hurts. After what seemed like an eternity, the lever gave way with a loud “clack!” Now, in second gear, I start picking up some speed. I reflect on my painful surprise and realize the next riding day is going to be hard. Too bad I don’t have enough time to think as I now need to shift into third. Oh boy!
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Lunchtime
The ride begins uneventfully, with a mostly flat and straight SP82 main road. The perfect weather and beautiful carpets of flowers surrounding the freeway help to somewhat relieve the pain. We cut into route SP126 and soon reach a traffic circle with a big parking lot and a restaurant on the left-hand side. I’m reminded that in Italy, lunch ends at 14:00, no matter what, and suggest my friend we stop over for a bite.
The parking lot is empty, not a good sign. Still, GoogleMpas reviews are good, so we take the risk and plunge head-on into the Piedra Del Sol Restaurant. Seeing the cavernous dining hall empty as a Church on Monday, we grab one of the (many) empty tables and sit beside a neatly pressed red-checkered tablecloth.
Semolina story
The menu is all written in fluent Italian, which is great if you are fluent in Italian, but not so good if you are me. Cellular reception inside the restaurant is poor to non-existent and faced with no other good options, I turn to the waiter and ask (with as much facial mimicry and hand signals as I could master), “What is Fregula?”
The waiter then ventures into a long monologue, of which 90% is lost on me. Of the tiny 10% I get, I understand this is some Local pasta dish with whatever they brought in from the sea that day. Game on!
Fregula is a traditional Sardinian pasta, resembling something between risotto and Couscous. The key ingridiant is Semolina made from durum wheat. Known for its coarser texture and higher protein content, Fregula would easily dominate the “rugged” and “authentic” sections of your local Supermarket – if your supermarket would be posh enough to carry such “rugged” and “authentic” products. I know that is somewhat of a conundrum, but at least in Sardinia, “rugged” and “authentic” come with a rugged and authentic low bill. In our case, close to nothing. Oh, and by the way, it’s fab! You can find a link to the full recipe here.
Please do me a favor and send me an invite if it’s any good. Thanks.
Remembering Julio
We leave the restaurant feeling vindicated for choosing it despite the empty-car-park red flag. More precisely, my friend goes outside while I slowly limp behind. I’m comforted in knowing that, at least on a motorcycle, we can stride at an equal pace.
We roll on to the SP126 towards Iglesias—a village name I will never be able to say without thinking about Julio and Enrique—and then chuckle. The muse helps me forget the pain in my leg as I carefully (and slowly) up the gears and let the bike gather speed through the gently curving road.
So far, none of the roads – with one Carloforte exception – were challenging. All are gentle, flat and easy to navigate. The real fun begins as we pass Iglesias (…Nathalie, en la distancia, tu recuerdo…etc.) on our way north to Guspini. This is where the SP126 meets the Sardinian mountains in a 50-odd kilometers concerto to tarmac and rubber.
On the SP126
While I’m not new to twisty roads, nothing I can recall from the Black Forest, California coast, Austrian Alps, or my home country, Israel, can come close to this section of the SP126. The Italian engineers who designed the route must have been motorcyclists themselves, or just too drunk on Limoncello.
For 50km, the SP126 doesn’t have even one straight section of more than 100m, max. I leave the bike in 3rd gear and let the torque swing me from one bend to the next. The Versys comes alive, and I’m impressed both with the chassis and suspension configuration as well as with the even power delivery of the modest 650cc two-in-a-row engine. Oh, almost forgot. No cars. No traffic. Nothing! We stop for a breather at a charming little town with the not-so-charming nor little name of Fluminimaggiore.
Short break, long name
Tucked between a gushing river and a mountainside, Fluminimaggiore boasts one long main street lined with beautiful seasonal flowers. We spot a lovely café and park our bikes nearby. Next to us, we find a large group of Italian motorcyclists who rode down from Lombardy and took a night ferry to the island. Many ride large, fully-equipped GS Bimmers, while few have Honda Aftrica Twins, Ducati Multistrada, and one odd Yamaha Tenere. Most have communicators installed; sadly, none is a Cardo. I make a mental note to tell this to our Italian country manager and slowly walk to the main street and enter Bar Trattoria Vittorio Emanuele.
The bar also doubles as a pizzeria, but since lunchtime has passed, we settle for a nice 1 Euro espresso. As the barista behind the counter obviously knew the job well, we went again and ordered another. I use the break to snap a few shots of the cup against the rough blue wooden table. When the time comes, we say “Arrivederci” and head out to our bikes.
How do you say Sardinia in Italian?
The rest of the road is equally fabulous all the way to Guspini. By the time we get to Dessi, I’m already anxious to get to the hotel and check on my foot. Lucky for us, the last 12km are straight and flat. We dispatch them with ease, arriving at the Sardegna Termale Hotel & SPA at around 16:30. Dismounting the bike and grabbing the heavy side cases is somewhat of a challenge. I’m angry for crashing earlier that day.
Now, I suffer as I head slowly, carrying two heavy bags up to my room. Once in the room and armed with duct tape, my good pal made a short work out of the busted side bag I broke while crashing earlier that morning. The patched-up bag now looks almost legit and fully operational. Good work!
Taking it easy, very east
While he is busy with the tape, I carefully take my foot out of the riding boot to reveal, “surprise-surprise,” a large red bruise. If my life experience serves me right, my foot will likely get worse before it gets any better. The following day, I’ll find, to my disappointment, I wasn’t wrong.
As for our nightly establishment, the isolated Sardegna Termale is a no-thrill, run-of-the-mill four-star spa joint, complete with a large pool, a bar, and massage facilities. We both book an hour each at the spa and spend the time till our booking slot at the poolside with glasses of Mojito and books. After getting properly pampered and following a quick shower and a change, we head straight to the hotel’s dining hall. The place looks unpromising, just like any other consumer-tourist drab restaurant: big, cheaply decorated, and with an air of micro-wave industrialized cooking. Having no other real options around the area, we lower our expectations and take a seat near one of the corners.
Going “Native” on dinner
Looking at the short menu, we decide to go full native. I choose Culurgionis d’Ogliastra for a starter and Penne with clams for the main. My friend chooses a bottle of red Cannonau di Sardegna from a short list of local wines. My plate arrives after a few minutes. One look at it is all that it takes to understand I should have left my initial doubts back in the room.
Like the Fragula at lunch, Culurgionis is also made of the same rough and delicious semolina dough. This time, it’s the local Sardinian take on ravioli. The hand-made dumplings are stuffed with pecorino cheese, potatoes, onions, garlic, and mint and are served with freshly peeled tomatoes, Cocked in fish stock, and garnished with cream, fish roe, and mint. The dish is full of intense flavors, combining tastes of both land and sea. It is rough and basic yet delicate and sophisticated. I wouldn’t blame you for equating it with the island itself.
The entree is a more conventional mix of Penne and clams in cherry tomato and oregano sauce garnished with crushed pinenuts. It’s another winner. We also had dessert, although I cannot remember what it was. Perhaps it was nothing to write home about, or it might have been the glasses of Cannonau that have faded my memory into a pile of blurred mush.
Rise and shine
The following day, two bags at hand, limping slowly to my Kawasaki, I wasn’t sure whether my left foot had improved. My hand felt ok as I rebandaged the gash at the top of my finger. It wasn’t too painful, either. But the leg? We will have to wait and see.
This Day will take us to the mountainous retreat of Mamoida, a small town on the main ridge that splits Sardinia like a spine. We will take the longer route through parts of the Sardinian western coast and then back inland for some serious mountain riding to our final destination.
We start by driving back to Guspini (see day 1), a 17km of easy flat ride. Then, we’ll take a right on the narrow, winding SP4 road. Riding for close to 40km, we would get to Sant’Antoinio di Santadi on the Mediterranean coast. From there, we’ll cut back inland through a series of back roads that include the SP69 and SP49 to Terralba. A short leg on the SP61 and the E25 (the last one is a relatively large freeway), taking the next exit at Uras and continuing for 45km until the town of Laconi. Once there, we will switch to the SS295 and ride some 82km north through the mountains until we reach a junction with road SP22. From there, it should be a short 15km east to Mamoiada and our nightly stay at the AbbaNive Guesthouse. All in all, some 329km of extensive ride.
Go west
We set up the course west on the same road we took yesterday. The air feels crisp and fresh as we cut through the straight roads leading to Guspini. My left pinkie hurts a bit, but that’s not the issue. Kicking up a gear with my left foot is. As expected, the foot has had time to swell during the night, making it harder to put on my riding shoe. Now it’s much, much harder to pull a gear up. I yank the clutch lever and, with great pain, slowly raise my left foot until I hear the anticipated “cluck!”.
Now, accelerating in the right gear, I start to grasp the gravity of my situation. As upping a gear takes a very long and excruciating endeavor, downing one should be avoided at all (reasonable) costs. Fortunately, the Kawasaki 650cc, twin-cylinder engine is flexible right across the RPM range. With this broad band of available torque, I can give my foot a bit of a rest and keep the engine in 3rd gear purring from about 40km/h all the way up to 100.
We take a right turn at Guspini to SP4, heading for what should be another glorious stretch of twists and turns. We soon discover, however, that was not to be. The single-lane narrow road is too broken, at times even unpaved, to travel at any meaningful speed. After taking a few wrong turns, meeting deadends, and turning back, we reach our coffee stop in the village of Sant’Antonio di Santadi.
A shot at Antonio’s
Despite its prime location on the island’s western coast, the village is nothing more than a drab collection of small, ill-kept houses. And it’s empty. Very empty. As if the Zombie apocalypse has chosen Sant’Antonio as its “ground zero.”
We travel through the main road until we reach the center square. We know it’s the center of town by the run-down old church. Another building reads “Municipio” and an espresso bar where the last few remaining inhabitants of Sant’Antonio di Santadi are busying themselves with a game of Domino. No shortage of parking places is one of the very few fringe benefits of Zombie Apocalypse. So, with that said, we dismount our bikes as close to the bar entrance as possible, leaving our helmets and keys on the bikes, and head inside.
Everybody knows that “All roads lead to Rome.” A slightly less known, but not less critical, Italian rule is “no Cappucinos after 11am”. As the clock reads 11:45, and not wanting to break local taboos, we order a single shot of “Espresso Normale” each and take it out to have it with the local geezers. Though the village may feel like a dilapidated set of some forgotten Spaghetti horror movie, the air we breathe is intoxicating. Blowing in from the mountains, the wind brings the scent of fresh pines mixed with the aroma of a thousand different blooming flowers. Blend that with the Mediterranean salt and get a Sardinian sonnet for spring. Realizing there is nothing more to do, we mount our motorcycles and leave Sant’Antonio behind us.
Riding nirvana
Riding on the SP69, we cross the Isthmus at Marceddi and head east through a field-strawn plateau to Uras. The land is flat and full of side roads. Despite our navigation app, we botched it up a few times, going in circles, getting onto offroad single tracks and dead ends. It takes us some time to reach the small town. Once there we head onto SS442 for 44 glorious kilometers on a fast and winding road to Laconi.
After some excruciating struggle, I manage to kick the gearbox into fourth gear. Now in fourth, the twin-engine raw torque carries me smoothly through the bends. The view outside the helmet is staggering. Dazzling colors of spring wildflowers in full bloom. Match that with an ideal 22 degrees Celsius, and you get a riding nirvana. One that, for a little while, helps me forget the pain in my left leg. With Road Trippin’ by the Chilly Peppers playing through my Packtalk Edge helmet speakers, I shut down my cognitive cortex and turn into “meditative” mode. We reach Laconi too soon.
Detour in the mountains
Still full from breakfast and pumped on adrenaline, we skip lunch and continue on our journey north. The SS128 we’re taking snakes its way through the backbone of Sardinia’s main north-south ridge. At times, a sweeping road with extensive vistas. At others, a broken, pothole-strawn path, the SS128 isn’t really what we had expected. After a couple of unpleasant surprises, we decided to take it more carefully and avoid the worst Italian-maintained asphalt has to offer. Finally, a road closure just past Tonara forces us to improvise and switch roads. We take the SP31 and then the SP4 instead. Just to prove a point, the road is still closed as I write these words.
Back on the much better-paved SP4, I put my bike on third gear and let my left foot rest. As we reunite with SP128 some 40km later, we reflect back on the journey since Laconi and can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed. Turning right to SP128 towards Mamoiada will instantly change our mood.
Getting closer
Starting with a short 1.5km of sweepers turning into 3km of single-lane twisty tarmac and culminating in 12km of pure joy of a road. I am torn between my aching foot and the desire to “just rip it.” I chose the latter (duh, like this was ever really a choice…), and the hell with the foot! We reach the village of Maimoiada, with two massive greens and a decision to redo the section the following morning.
Mamoiada is a sleepy town of about 2,500 just east of Sardinia’s geographical center. Nestled in a shallow valley surrounded by gently sloped peeks and lined with old-looking houses, it plays the role of a mountainous retreat well. Our GPS leads us through the main street all the way to the edge of town. Just before leaving, we are guided right into a series of steep alleys that make us question our Google Maps app. Memories of yesterday’s crash in Carloforte flash before my eyes as I struggle to navigate the challenging uphill pathways. When I finally arrive at AbbaNive Guesthouse, shut the engine down, and slowly pull down the sidekickstand, I feel immensely relieved to have made it all the way in one piece.
Finally there, and in one piece
AbbaNive caters mainly to motorcyclists. We met a couple from Germany who rode down on a BMW 1250GS and a few “local” Italians from the mainland. The place is tiny, with five rooms in total and a grand porch overlooking the town and surrounding mountains.
Hungry as we are, we peel off our riding gear and, following a shower and a change, head down to the town center to hunt some dinner. We pass through the main street lined with restaurants, trattorias, bars, and osterias – all shut. Clearly, the place lives and breathes during high summer. Right now, it’s late April, and we’re hungry.
Great Pizza in Shutdown City
After aimless wandering between the closed eateries across Corso Vittorio Emanuele III, we land at an empty (but open) Pizzeria adjacent to the Il Ritrovo restaurant. There’s a lone guy behind the counter and a big Pizza oven next to him. We choose a whole pie and toppings while we wait for the oven to warm up. Meanwhile, the waiter-turned-chef takes a large pile of semolina sourdough and places it on the counter. He then starts working it into an elongated pie, spreads the topping generously, and then shoves it in. A few minutes later, we are served a delicious-looking, meter-long pie. We devour it and promptly order another.
As we wait for the second pie, our new German biker friends step in. Apparently, the greatest Pizza in town is the only Pizza in town. We don’t mind a bit, nor do we mind the ridiculously low bill. Honestly? Such excellent quality for such a low price should be outlawed!
Full and happy, we step into the cold, dark street and slowly climb back to our room above town. We hit bed and fall asleep instantly. I dream of riding a Ducati Panigale through route SP126. The following day I wake up with a massive smile. There are more roads to run, and that day, we both intend to ride as much as we can.
