30 Miles Up, 20 Miles Down

Miles from Home - 5509.5 miles

Firsts / Highlights - San Marino

Miles Riden - 46.3 miles

Vertical Feet - 3,455 ft

Route - View Today's Route Here. If you don't think you are seeing everything on this site, post a comment here and I will post instructions.

Our rolling band grew to about 25 today with the addition of some people from England and Switzerland.

We re-traced some of the roads I rode on my first solo day, but the repetition was incidental. We stopped for a bite at Monte Grimano that I really liked on the first day.

The first pictures on today's post came at a price. For the most part, our group is so well matched that no one ever drops more than 100 meters off the back. That is remarkable considering all of the hills. When I rode past these two scenes, however, I had to make a decision. Can I call myself a photographer if I don't at least try to capture those images? I have seen a lot on these rides that I would love to stop and photograph, but there just isn't an opportunity. This time, however, I was climbing a 9% grade and decided that I had to try. I wasn't likely to be back there again. It only took about 2-3 minutes, but that was enough time for the entire group to climb out of site (you can see the last of them on the first image). To make matters worse, I saw another scene 200 meters up the road and was faced with the same decision. Once again, I stopped and shot. Great... I MIGHT have captured a usable picture, but now I had to catch up to the group on a pretty substantial climb. Fortunately, we were within 2-3k from the top, and everyone had stopped for lunch, so I didn't have to use the GPS to get me back to the hotel over the the final 30 miles.

On both of the first two days of riding, I had seen a hilltop town (actually, an independent microstate) called San Marino. It is the highest point in the area and has an old fortress on top of a craggy cliff. From the sea side, it didn't appear to be approachable, unless possibly by cable car or ropes and harness. The inland side was not vertical, but appeared formitably steep. It turns out that a sneak attack on the fortress is possible by bicycle. I wouldn't want to carry much in the way or munitions for an attack, but getting there is possible. This wikipedia article on San Marino is worth a quick view.

I stopped at the top upon arrival and was greeted by an older man. He gave some words of encouragement for making it to the top, then pointed in the other direction and whistled a downward glisando and pointed down (like the roadrunner cayote falling off a cliff). I took that to be a good sign that we had a fun descent coming up. We did.

With about 10 miles to go, I was thinking about getting back to the hotel. I forgot that today was the day to meet out at the family farm. It was a very special place. Stefano's family has had it for a number of generations and it sits high up in the hills. We are not in Tuscany, but it has the feeling of a Tuscan villa. He has all of the riders (and any non-riders) from the hotel out there every Monday. The staff puts out a food spread that is the best I have had yet in Italy. After lunch, they brought around cups of cappocino, grappa and (presumably) homemade lemoncello. Mike Lomas - the bar has been raised. You are going to have to start inviting all of the hotel guests out to your house next ski season.



Image for the day - 25 riders going 21 mile per hour on a remote country road barely wider than a bike path. A Fiat starts to pass the group, but can't get all the way around, so he joins the peleton. We were going about as fast as he could, so he wasn't upset. Another Fiat came from the other direction and both cars had to move their right wheels off the road to make room to pass (without slowing down and causing a mess). When the way was clear, our Fiat beeped once and passed to the front of the group. It wasn't a, "get off the road" kind of beep. Just a, "I'm going around now" kind of beep. It was a potentially dicey situation, but a little cooperation goes a long way.

By the way, if there is any transformational news out there, please let me know. I am completely out of touch right now. I figured out a headline in today's paper that said Lance Armstrong is predicting that Basso will win the Giro, but that is the only story I have seen since arriving. BTW - Lance might really believe that Basso is going to win, he could be pandering to the host country, or he could be playing opossum. He has done it before.