Our son, Ben is visiting for a week and one half, so I have not been riding, as he is not a cyclist. We have been doing a lot of walking and sightseeing, which is surprisingly tiring. For me, being on the bike is refreshing, even if it takes a fair amount of energy. I had a stomach bug last Saturday night through Sunday night, which hit me pretty hard in the intestines. Ben caught the bug yesterday night, and had a very difficult night with major stomach problems. He was better when he awoke this morning, but was not up for any of our possible plans, so I got out for a ride.
I rode up Via Bolognese to Pratolino, then took the back cut off to the Monte Morello road. I had not been on the Monte Morello road for a couple of months, and it is really nice. I continued up to the top of the road, close to the peak of Monte Morello, then descended. After where I caught this road through 3/4 of the descent mileage, this is a really great, twisty, turny, well graded contouring road. A really fun ride. At a certain point of the descent, it gets quite steep, I would guess around 20% for probably 500 meters, then settles in at 10% for a series of really nice, tight switchbacks. Today, I caught up with first one, then a second car on the switchbacks, and they were nice enough to slow down and wave me by. Thanks. I really enjoyed the new bike on the descent, it is really smooth and fast. The descent ends at Sesto Fiorentino, then you take relatively busy roads back at the base of the area you just climbed / traversed / descended, back to the apartment.
As always, super fun to be on the bike. The garmin link is below, but the summary is: 21 miles in 1:38 rolling time for an average speed of 12.8 mph, with 2350 vertical feet climbed at an average temperature of around 45 degrees F. Sweet!
Looking up the road around midway between the turn off at Pratolino
and the top of the road, right next to Monte Morello.
Looking back down the fun, twisty road from the same location.
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