Last Day in Riccione

Miles from Home - 5509.5 miles

Firsts / Highlights - Urbino in le Marche region

Miles Riden - 73.4 miles

Vertical Feet - 6,316 ft

Route - View Today's Route Here.

Today's ride would make another trip to Italy worth the effort. Beautiful scenery, lots of ancient towns and I felt great on the bike all day. It wasn't without effort, however, with over 1 mile of cumulative climbing. The only downside is that only I get to see it. I was not able to take a single picture because my camera failed to startup again. I am going to order a replacement battery to see if I can solve that problem.

I don't know what made today different, but I climbed better than usual. Whenever the grade kicked up to 9% or more today, I was able to accelerate and ride off the front of the group. I got some shouts from behind. I know I got one "Allez" and a couple of "Attack"s. The rest may have been unflattering references to my parents, but in Italian, it sounds good. One of the German riders came up to me in Urbino and said, "You doping?", "I think unnatural". Later on the descent, I had dropped to near the back of the group. He rode up and asked, "Doping defect?".

Scene for the day - As we were arriving in Urbino (you'll have to live with a Wikipedia reference and a stolen image from Google since I don't have any pictures), a helicoper was flying overhead. We were riding on some of the roads that will be used on the Giro d'Italia in a couple of weeks. I theorized that the helicopter was there scouting scenic shots to be used on the internationsal feed during the race. I further theorized that they must have the cameras locked onto us as we climbed a 20% grade on cobblestones into the town. Although the road was only 10 feet from building-to-building, I suspect that their camera telephoto lens was able to track us. That's my theory. You can believe it or not.

It was only one week ago today that I was saying goodbye to everyone at the office. What a week.

Time to pack up my bike and head to the next town.

Rained Out, sort of

Miles from Home - 5509.5 miles

Firsts / Highlights - First cookie in 5 months. First pizza in Italy (prisiutto crudo).

Miles Riden - 5 miles

Vertical Feet - 0 ft

Route - Rode around town for pictures, but no GPS data to show for it.

Tuesday was scheduled to be the long 120km ride. The weather forecast was not looking good, so the guides made a 7:30 call to swap the Tuesday ride with the Wednesday rest day. It turned out that by 9:00, the weather was fine, but the decision had already been made. Fortunately, the rest of the week should be sunny. Tomorrow will be my last day of riding from Hotel Dory before I move on to Venice for the start of the Giro.

The guides for the hotel put in a lot of miles. If you figure 60 miles per day, 6 days per week, and 6 months per year, that is 8,640 miles per year. That's assuming that they don't ride a single mile on their own time. That is twice as many miles as I am likely to ride this summer, even taking 5 months off from work and doing a major tour down the Pacific Coast. When you consider that they are riding in the front of the pack all day, every day, that's a lot of effort.

The guide for my group this week has been Lucia. It is unusual to see Italian women riding bikes at all, much less as a group leader. Our group clearly has not pushed her to her limit.

The head of the guides is Richard (Riccardo) Steiner. He was the coach of the Swiss national team in the Bejing Olympics and brought back 1 gold and 3 bronze metals.

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.

A Sunday Ride in Italy

Miles from Home - 5509.5 miles

Firsts / Highlights - First time riding in an international peloton. First Sunday ride in Italy. Passing an elderly Italian man wearing a suit on a bike nearly as old as he was. A scene for my Italian memory book.

Miles Riden - 62.3 miles

Vertical Feet - 3,368 ft

Route - View Today's Route Here. This site will let you view a map of the ride, an elevation profile, my heart rate and pedal cadence throughout the day. You can also use the "Player" option to playback the ride while viewing a graph of any of the recorded data. Or... you can just ignore it.



I had read that Sundays in Italy were a bicycle spectacle. Today I got to experience it. Hundreds and hundreds of bikes out on the road. Not in massive groups like event rides in the U.S., but smaller clusters all headed in different directions. Every roadside cafe had tables full of cyclists, and you see them on the road everywhere. Some groups wear the outfits of their clubs and hammer down the road in a color-coordinated blur.

I was in a group of about 17 riders and will be with the same people all week. Not surprisingly, it was a fun group of people all sharing an appreciation for the experience. This was far-and-away the most international group of riders I have ever shared time with. I have the honor of the greatest distance covered to get to the starting line. We had representatives from the Italy, France, Wales, Germany, Switzerland, England and the U.S.. That's a lot of languages going around just to exchange pleasantries and communicate road hazards. "Stop" and "okay" seem to be universal, but the rest is a matter of interpreting inflection. Lucky for me, many of them speak English as a second, third or fourth language. With representation from so many countries, I can imagine what communication must be like inside a professional racing peloton where the exchanges may not be quite so pleasant.

I rode today with Stefano Guiliodori, the owner of Hotel Dory and founder of the Italy Bike Hotel organization. What a great idea. If more Americans knew about this opportunity, I think it would be a valid option for people who take much more expensive active vacations from companies like Backroads and Butterfield & Robinson. Not quite as cushy, but a great option for riding enthusiasts. He is going to call a friend of his who operates an agriturismo farm in Tuscany. If all goes well, I may be able to stay at his farm as my home base in Tuscany after chasing the Giro next week.



Every morning this week, 4 groups will leave the hotel off on different routes with their guides. Tomorrow is unique because all groups converge at a farm owned by the hotelier's family. We have lunch there before finishing the last 10 miles of the ride back to the hotel. Should be another good one. Weather has been great so far, and it looks like it should remain so for the rest of my time in Riccione.

Tuesday is an early start (8:30) because we will be riding 120km into the north section of le Marche region.

My electronic woes continue a little bit. I have not shorted out the power supply in the new hotel, but I temporarily misplaced my Blackberry (don't panic Mark, it has since been found). I had some camera battery problems today. Riding with the group, it will not be possible to take a lot of pictures, but I missed some good opportunities. After some time on the charger, I think I will be okay tomorrow. With only one power adapter, rationing recharge time for all of my gadgets has required some diligence. At any rate, no new pictures today. I have included some from yesterday because I suspect there are some people who will never see these words that just check in for the pictures.

It's hard to believe that so much has already happened, and I am just at the equivalent of a long weekend away from work.

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.