Riding with Cosimo, custom cycling tours in Tuscany: Close in ups and downs

This will be a couple of days worth of blogging with one day riding. Yesterday, Halloween, was quite rainy. Kate needed to do something quickly on the computer for work, so she and Vittorio came over after Kate dropped Viola off at school. They ended up spending the morning, then we all went out to lunch. Vittorio was all over the place, as much as our apartment allows. The funniest thing was him trying on Emily's rain boots, then having to try to walk around in them. They were longer than his legs, and he basically crashed with every step. We went to one of our favorite piazza restaurants for lunch, but they do not serve pizza at lunch, so we all had pasta, which was great. After lunch, Kate and Vittorio went home. Emily and I joined them again, along with Viola, for an evening Halloween party. They don't really do Halloween here, so one of the Moms - Kate's friend Jen - had a second annual party. She set up some places for them to trick or treat, and aside from the rain, it was super fun. The party itself was pretty crazy, with 15 2,3,and 4 year old's amped up on sugar and going 100 mph.

Ninni and Vittorio reading a book.

Torrio and I check out the terrace.

He wants to put his feet out past the rail, which makes Kate quite nervous.

He just had to be in the boots.

Today, we awoke to rain again, but the forecast was for clearing skies this afternoon. Emily and I did a walk through the centro - today is the holiday here - then returned home and I decided it was clearing enough for a ride. I rode up the back way to San Domenico, then up to the turn off to Maiano, the descended through Maiano to Chiesa San Martino, where the Vincigliata climb starts. Up the climb, then at the road junction, turn right for the very switch back filled descent into Compiobbi. You get on the main road in Compiobbi, then after a few kilometers you turn off at Le Falle for the climb up and through Monteloro to the Fiesole / Olmo road. This is a fun climb, never more than 8%, and pretty long. When I hit the Fiesole road, I descended to Fiesole, turned right at the roundabout, then descended to Pian de Mugnone. You catch another road there, Via Faentina, which you can basically take back home. I started raining on me just above Monteloro, so I had around 40 minutes in the rain - not bad. It was dry and sunny by the time I returned home. Check out the link for more information, but the summary is: 27.7 miles with 3075 vertical feet of climbing, in 2 hours, 31 minutes of rolling time, which is an average of 11 mph. Fun, fun, fun.