A special move today, from Italy to France, into the Alps. The five of us (Richard, Daan, Yka, Liesbeth and I) leave from our house with its garden and courtyard in Susa in the car to Avigliana to pick up the tree bike, half an hour’s drive. From there we cycle thirty-five kilometers via back roads back to Susa. The tree bike is with the three bikes. It is ten o’clock when we are on the bike. Sanne and Vincent stay a while in Susa because we do not have to check out until noon, and the tree bike is coming this way anyway. In Avigliana we first cycle the wrong way for a bit, warming up so to speak, then back on the route through the beautiful little villages. The backdrop of the mountains is beautiful here and it stays fairly flat as the mountains get closer and closer. The weather is nice and there is a breeze today. Clouds drift around the ridge. When we bump into the town hall in the small village of San Didero we stroll in, give a tree and forest book and take a picture, happy reactions here too. It is half past one when we have already covered forty kilometers and arrive at the lunch picnic spot where Sanne and Vincent have already set up shop. After lunch it gets seriously different, we climb a total of no less than one thousand meters into the Alps this afternoon, Avigliana is at four hundred meters and we end today at fourteen hundred meters. What a climb. We do it in many small steps because it is quite steep for the tree bike and the bike also needs to cool down. For the fellow cyclists this is less pleasant. The speed of the tree bike is actually too low with the climbing mode to cycle comfortably and then stopping every few hundred meters is tiring. And then there are the cars and motorcyclists, some of whom think they are competing, which is quite dangerous. Where do we draw the line ourselves? What is still acceptable? When should we stop riding our bikes? This is definitely something we need to talk about. Anyway, the beautiful views make up for a lot. It is around six when we stop at Bar Cenisio three kilometers before the summit and two kilometers before the border with France and park the tree bike. Enough for today. Then let’s take the tree bike into France tomorrow. We have done our best for today and now we really are in the Alps. And it is almost impossible to imagine that yesterday around this time the universal joints were replaced. As we ride toward our new lodging where we will be staying for three nights, and which is already quite a bit into France, we pass the border crossing and after a small steep climb at the highest point. Here we are above the tree line at about two thousand meters I estimate and with the evening sun it gives great pictures. We stop at the reservoir, I ride with Sanne, and here we spontaneously make the new video for Arcadia on the subject, how could it be otherwise: How to cross the Alps on a tree bike. We conclude that we should definitely take drone footage when we cycle by here tomorrow with the tree bike, precisely because there are no trees to be found here. On the way to our accommodation, it is already eight o’clock, we find out that all the stores are closed on Friday night. We call the other cars and decide to eat a pizza half an hour from our place of stay. A good decision, we are tired, and fortunately the service is fast and it is tasty. Thus we say goodbye to Italy with a pizza. It is already dark when we arrive at our mountain hut. We win the “quick unloading contest” and prepare for the night. A fine stay, tomorrow we will see where we actually ended up.