I awoke to pretty nice weather this morning, and my compulsive cough was pretty much gone. I decided to get a ride in and was waiting for it to warm up to allow some comfort. As I was waiting, having breakfast, etc., I heard a fair amount of commotion outside, and there was this huge demonstration going on, called a Manifestazione here. The streets were blocked off, and many people marched by the apartment to protest the Mafia here and in all of Italy. It was easily the biggest manifestazione I have seen, and all the people came by the apartment. I left with about 1/2 hour's worth of people still lined up to pass, but I wanted to get going.
I climbed up Via Faentina to L'Olmo, a pretty good climb, then cut over to Alberaccio, where I descended to the cut off for Santa Brigida. I thought I might see our old landlords there, as they often come out there on the weekends, but no one was there. I did check out the house, and one person was working on the grounds / olive grove. I continued descending from there, and had my first crash in ages on a hairpin right before the Castello del Trebbio. I think I noticed some loose dirt / gravel on the turn, started braking, and the bike went out from underneath me. A bent drop out bracket, but it was returned to straight easily enough by hand. I have a couple of good scrapes in the usual places - forearm / elbow, and hip. Not too bad, and just a good reminder to pay attention.
I got everything back together, the electronic shifting continued to work well, although I lost my easiest gear, but that probably has to do with the way I straightened the drop out. I will check with the shop tomorrow or Monday. After the crash, I continued down through Molin de Piano, then to Sieci, where I turned toward town, then cut off to climb through Monteloro. I am a firm believer that if you can keep going without a lot of pain, it is better to work through a couple of bruises / scrapes. I enjoyed the climb and at the top stopped to check things out and realized I had a couple of good scrapes. I headed down through Fiesole, and it finally warmed up pretty good, above 50. I have some patching to do on a couple of garments, and the scrapes will heal, and hopefully I will not have a big bill at the shop, but we shall see. I enjoyed the ride anyway. The cold is definitely not gone, and what I did do today probably pushed what I should have. With that in mind, I will probably not do the team "raduno" tomorrow. Sorry, guys (ragazzi). The summary is: 33.5 miles in 2:53 rolling time for an average of 11.6 mph with 3750 vertical feet climbed at an average temp of 50. Take away the crash and the cold and it was perfect. As it was it was still fun to get out. Ciao.
A peace flag being carried by our apartment in a "Manifestazione",
which is a public demonstration. This one was huge, with at least
10,000 people going by to demonstrate against the Mafia.
Looking over toward Pratolino from the climb to L'Olmo.
The demonstrators are lined up below to start the march through
the city.
A picture of L'Olmo above on the climb up.
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