Chestnuts, once essential for survival, now just a thorn in my life

Chestnut trees and their fruit have been a vital part of Tuscan culture probably since the dawn of humanity. Lucy and I learned about the importance of chestnuts years ago when we visited the Museo del Castagno in Colognora in the Garfagnana. People roasted and ate the nuts and also ground them into flour. They used fallen tree branches to heat their homes, and the trunks to build their houses and make all kinds of tools and furniture. In short, nobody could have made a living in the hilly areas of Italy without chestnut trees.

However, they have not been so friendly to me. I recently discovered that chestnuts are the reason I’ve had so many flat tires on my bike while riding on the country roads around Montecarlo. Andrea, the guy at the bike shop who fixes my tires, showed me that I had more than 10 chestnut spines in my tires. Most of them were too short to reach the inner tube, but it only takes one biggy to do the job. After Andrea patched the inner tube, he used a needle-nosed pliers to remove the other spines. Now that I’ve realized why Lucy and I keep getting flats, I’ve vowed to check our tires regularly and pull the spines out myself with tweezers before they can work their way into the inner tubes. Hopefully this realization will save us a few trips to the bike shop in the future.