Monte-ville Ride

View Riccione in a larger map
Miles from Home - 5509.5 miles

Firsts / Highlights - First ride on my sabbatical. First Hilltowns. Monte Grimano was very cool and worth the climb.

Miles Riden - 52.6 miles

Vertical Feet - 3,417 ft

Route - I have misplaced my USB cable. I will upload my route once I can find one to purchase.

I was well into my ride today before I realized that I was enjoying it. For the first 15 miles, I was feeling sluggish, my knee hurt, my brakes were dragging a little, my gears weren't shifting very well, the traffic was heavier than I expected and the scenery was uninspiring. wah, wah, wah. After about 15 miles, I hit the first hill. My GPS showed 5%, 6%, then briefly 10%. Nothing big, but my body started to wake up. Heart rate came up, and so did my mood. About the same time, the traffic dropped off and the scenery improved drastically. I evetually figured out that I had started the ride at 2:00am Mountain Time.

That might explain the slow start. Fortunately, I rode by myself today. That allowed me to go at whatever pace I needed to and stop to take a lot of pictures. I'm sure most of my initial problems were good old fashioned jet lag.

I noticed that there were a lot of towns on the map called Monte-whatever. Monte Cerignone, Monte Grimano, Montelicciano, Montescudo and Monte Tauro, for example. I also discovered that any time you point your GPS at something called "Monte", you better be ready to climb.



After figuring out that I felt better climbing today, I decided to abandon the route suggested by the hotel biking director that morning and go off and bag some Monte's. My GPS allowed me to go on a Monte-quest on unfamiliar rodes and still find my way back to the hotel.

The first half of the perscribed ride had about 700 feet of climbing. By the time I was done Monte-hopping, I had climbed about 3,400 and seen some really pretty countryside. The pace was slow, but it wasn't the easy break-in ride that I planned. Some of the Monte's have fairly steep approaches. These are hills in this region rather than mountains, but there are a lot of them. Monte Grimano, for example, was a consistent 9% grade for about 2 miles. One of the particuarly nasty Monte's had a grade of 15% for a little while. While departing Montecerignone, I descended a stretch that I think was 25% (on cobblestones with grass growing in the cracks). Sorry, I wasn't watching the GPS to get the exact grade. I had other things to think about.

Getting back to town, I had a funny and somewhat humbling experience. I had only eaten a bannana and 1 energy bar all day. I tried to stop out on the road, but was a victim of the afternoon siesta shut-down. When I got back into town, I stopped at the first open cafe I saw. The man at the counter didn't speak much English, but we were able to communicate. He asked, "How many kilometers?". I said, "about 85" (a bit over 50 miles). I'm used to having people think that is a long distance. This guy said, "oh, that's okay". He then asked, "how long, three hours?". I said, "no, about 3 1/2" (it was actually closer to 4). He said again, "oh, that's okay" in a consoling tone. I guess if I am going to keep up with the Italian's, I'm going to have to up my game.

I changed hotels today to the place I will stay for the next 5 nights. I couldn't stay here last night because they do all of their check-ins on Saturdays. Most of the guests stay for a full week of cycling. I could only stay 5 nights because I need to get up to Venice later in the week for the start of the Giro. We had a meeting in the lobby this evening where the Director of Cycling and Hotel owner went over what to expect for the week. There were about 25 or so cyclists, and the inventory of languages was impressive. Only one person was Italian. I think there were 5 languages in the room, but the presentation was given in German and English. That gave most people at least one version of the speach they could understand. There was one other native Engish speaker in the room. A British geologist named Pete. I suspect I will be riding and having some meals with Pete.


Take a look at the bike storage area in this picture. It's not your typical American hotel.

The k's should start to mount tomorrow. I am hoping for a good night's sleep to take the edge off the jet lag.