Something Completely Different

Miles from Home - 5370.1 miles
Firsts / Highlights - Riding the cobblestones of Verona
Miles Ridden - 52.10 miles
Vertical Feet - 4,136 ft
Route - View Today's Route Here.
People - Ride was with 7 Australians, 2 Finlanders, 3 Italian guides and a few Yanks.



This post is from May 15, 2009.

Since I am usually the one pressing the shutter, I thought I should post a picture of me to prove that I am really here.

Today marks the transition from "vacation" to Something Completely Different. I have been in Italy for 2 weeks now. If this were a vacation, I would be going back to work on Monday. Now begins a new perspective.

I re-joined the Bike Hotel culture today. We headed out on a ride with about 20 riders from Melborne, Australia, Finland and Colorado.

There was some light rain in the morning. I don't mind getting stuck in a little rain once I am out there, but I rarely set out on a ride with the sky leaking. It didn't look like anyone else was bailing out, so perhaps peer pressure got me to do the right thing. I went on the ride.

The course promised 4 passes before lunch and a spin through the walled city of Verona. I only see 3 on the GPS profile, so I guess we got shorted. It was a little unusual and interesting to have a city as part of ride. We usually stay out in the countryside. Having a significant city at the far point of the ride made this one memorable. If you switch to the satellite view on the link for "Today's Ride", then zoom in on Verona, you can see the coliseum we rode past as well as the fortress bridge that we crossed to get over the river.




Unfortunately, the rain returned as we left Verona. What was a pretty series of hill climbs on the way out turned into a 20-24 mph pace line on the way back. I have not done much pace riding in a while, so it was a good challenge. Perhaps a bit more challenge than necessary since I found my rear brake dragging when I got back to the hotel. I'm not sure how long it was doing that, but I may have handicapped myself a bit.

This bike hotel (Hotel Veronello) is a little different than the one in Riccione (Hotel Dory). Dory has been established longer and has more cyclists for any given week. Where Dory had about 100 riders divided into 4 groups by pace and distance, Veronello takes a single group with multiple guides (3 today). We rode as a full group for parts of the day, and split up for other parts. The "Type-A" group (which I went with today) rode over all of the hills. The "Happy" group sometimes went around them or took shortcuts. We regrouped in Verona and all worked on the paceline to get us back to the dry refuge of the hotel as fast as possible. It was a fun group with the unusual attribute of being 100% English-speaking, except for 2 of the guides.