Italy trip: Day 2

The ride today was slightly windy (for the guys on the front!) Our travels took us north through some beautiful medieval villages, over steep cobbled sections and around two large lakes. It's quite amazing just how old everything is here. It's all so very charming, with stone arches, castles, and narrow alley ways. You can't even imagine how they drive (like they're on fire) or how they park (randomly leaving their mico-sized cars just anywhere). Our loop was a challenging 100k with 32k of ascent. The descending was super sweet as some hit upwards of 80k coming down one twisty, long section. Everyone is still smiling, though that may be from delirium... We will see tomorrow how everyone recovers from a pretty hard effort today.

Ciao,
Patrizia

Monday Night Ride Canceled

Sorry everybody, too windy for the Monday Night Ride...seeya Thursday!

Day One: Action Wheels in Italy

Everyone was smiling at breakfast this morning as we prepped for a casual ride to start our week of cycling in Italy. We are on Lake Bracciano (Bra-Chano! Spoken with an accent and the stress on the second and third syllables) We took a nice spin around the lake with a side detour up a little climb. There will be lots of climbing in the coming days, but we only got a taste today. The weather is striking beautiful, like the scenery, here in central Italy. We are about an hour north of Rome and plan to spend our rest day sightseeing there this week. I can't post pics on the blog from my iPad, so checkout The Facebook for all the up to date goings on in the Lazio Region of Italia!

Ciao!
Patrizia

Italy pre-ride

I flew in to Rome early for this cycling adventure, to save a ton of money on airfare, so Saturday became a ride day! We rolled out this morning for an easy spin around Lake Bracciano. The lake is 32k in circumference, and fairly flat, so it wouldn't be too much to do before our "actual" trip begins on Sunday. The lake area is quite beautiful and the weather is perfect so it made for a great day on the road. Italian drivers are considerably less patient than those in Spain, but we easily adapted to being passed by Fiat Panda's while there was an oncoming string of traffic. There appears to be a Lotus rally going on in the area, so there's a inordinate number of race cars here, as well. After completing the lake loop, we headed back out to get in a nice 2 mile climb that starts about 5 miles down the road from the resort. The climb nets you a 2 mile descent, then we rode into Bracciano and grabbed lunch at I Love Pizza. The rest of our 14 person crew arrived this evening so we got all the remaining bikes assembled in short order and had our "Welcome" cocktail party. Dan Maker, tour guide extraordinaire, then apprised us that we are in for some killer climbing this week. Apparently, all roads do not lead to Rome, they lead to the clouds. Wish me luck!

Too foggy...

The National Weather Service has issued a dense fog warning and the radar shows more storms coming our way. We have canceled the 9a ride. Safety first! The weeknight rides start soon, so stay tuned. 'Like' us on Facebook to stay more up to date with what's going on at the bike shop.