A few of us previewed the Raduno course for next Sunday

I met up with Chris and Lorenzo from the team at 8:30 at a spot on the way out of town.  We waited for 5 minutes or so, and no one else showed up, so we started off.  It was a beautiful morning.  Sunny with a few clouds, but pretty warm with a predicted high of 65 today.  We rode out on the North side of the Arno through Sieci and Pontesieve, then turned off to stay by the Arno and continued through Carbonile to San Ellero, where we turned off to start the real climbing.  Both Chris and Lorenzo are quite strong, but Lorenzo has not been on his bike much lately, so I was able to stay with Lorenzo on the climbs, as Chris powered ahead.  It is a really beautiful climb, first to Donnini, then continuing up to Tosi.

From Tosi, we descended down through Paterno, then had a little climb to Pelago.  From Pelago, you basically traverse with small climbs and descents to hook up with the road back to Pontesieve.  On the Pontesieve road, it is a definite descent.  The roads were a little wet in places, so we all took it relatively easy.  From Pontesieve we returned to town the same way we left, but navigated through the city to the climb to Fiesole.  Chris really took off here, and I found out this is one of his favorite climbs.  I surprised myself by dropping Lorenzo, only the second time in many rides with him.  He typically drops me pretty easily on climbs.  (Also flats if he wants to)  We climbed to Fiesole, and met up at the piazza there.  With the weather nice, Chris decided to add another longer loop to his ride, and Lorenzo and I descended down to Pian de Mugnone, then back into town through Piazza della Cure.

We are all planning on doing the raduno tomorrow which is hosted by a club in Signa.  So, we will meet tomorrow morning at a different place, probably many more people will show up from the team, and do that raduno.  Our hosting of a raduno is a week from Sunday, and the course rode quite well today.  Ciao.  The summary is:  47.5 miles in 3:06 rolling time for a average speed of 15.3 mph with 3025 vertical feet of climbing at an average temperature of 58.  Sweet!  (Sorry, no pictures today, no real stops to take out the camera.)

Raduno preview with Lorenzo and Chris by ridingwithcosimo at Garmin Connect - Details