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!