Hills and rain close to home, but a great ride!

After my return from Denver, I took a ride in very nice weather the afternoon I returned.  I was quite jet lagged, but wanted to ride anyway, but the jet lag had me less aware of everything than normal.  Well, it has been raining since, but yesterday morning it let up for a while, but started again.  I was determined to go this morning, as I do not have Italian classes on Friday, but a steady rain started to fall around 9 am.  I decided to go out anyway - I have the gear to keep me dry and warm in most conditions.  I did not really suit up for cold as much as wet, as I knew I would be doing some climbing, and the temperature was around 50, not too cold.

I took off in a steady rain, but after a 1/2 hour or so, it let up, then stopped.  At that time, I had ridden out the back road to San Domenico, up, then down through Maiano, down to San Martino, the up past Vincigliata to the bigger road.  With the rain gone (at least for a while), I decided to add to my plan and turned right and descended through Montebeni to Compiobbi, where I hooked up with the main road by the Arno, and headed up stream a few kilometers to Le Falle, where you can connect with the Monteloro road.  I climbed up through Monteloro to the Fiesole / L'Olmo road, and descended to Fiesole, then took the right turn to descend to Pian de Mugnone, then hooked up with Via Faentina, and returned home via Piazza Della Cure.  Check the link for all the specifics, but it turned out to be a really fun ride with around 4300 vertical feet climbed in a total of 27 miles in 2 hours 25 minutes, averaging 11.2 mph.  A little slow, but I was super careful on the descents with the wet, steep roads.  Ciao!

I am a much happier person when I can get a good ride in - yeah!  (I did not take the camera, but I did the almost identical ride on November 14, so I have a couple of pictures from that ride.  Same scenery, but it looked really different today with heavy, dark cloud cover.  Still beautiful, though.)

Hills and rain close to home, but great! by ridingwithcosimo at Garmin Connect - Details

The road from Le Falle toward Monteloro.  From a different day.

Some vineyards to the side of the road above Monteloro.