Pre-Italy road trip anyone I spoke to would go on about this, that and the other being so much better in Italy; tomatoes, ice cream, coffee you name it, it was better here in Italy. Five days in I'm confident that this is not the case, perhaps some of us just buy the wrong products back home?

I have noted, though, at least fifteen different brands of Italian bicycle and I'm sure there are plenty more, though still about the same number of cyclists, maybe, even less than the UK. Is this evidence on the crippling regulations and taxes on small businesses in the UK I wonder?

Ciao