Another alternate Giro de Mugello.

After a couple of days at the beach with Kate and family, which were quite wonderful, I am back in Firenze and back on the bike.  While I was gone, a friend put a friend of his who is visiting Firenze in touch with a few folks from the team, and we are meeting for a ride on Sunday.  We are meeting in Settignano, which I have descended through many times, but I never really registered the piazza where we are meeting.  So, I decided to find the meeting place and plan my ride from there.  I checked out the route on Google maps, and found the piazza pretty easily.  I had not ridden the main route to Settignano before, but it is a reasonable road to ride, not too steep.  From Settignano, I climbed to Montebeni on a pretty tortuous road which my Garmin device recorded at 28% in places.  After Montebeni, I enjoyed the route over to the road from Fiesole to Croce alla Vetta, then up to Croce alla Vetta.

I descended from the pass, and turned off before Polcanto to climb, then descended down to the valley around Borgo San Lorenzo through an alternate valley.  It is a steep descent, and goes through a couple of towns on a very quiet road.  After it hits a beautiful valley, the road levels out a bit, but also becomes pretty rough.  I joined the road in the main valley, then rode over to Vicchio, then the back road to Dicomano, one of my favorites.  I found water in Dicomano, then headed out toward Rufina where I turned off to ride the quiet road on the west side of the Sieve river.  On the way to Rufina, I rode with a couple of different people and it helped with a pretty steady headwind.

From Rufina, I enjoyed the "Popes road" to Pontesieve, then battled a headwind back into Firenze.  It was quite hot on the way back, and I stopped in Rufina, then in Sieci for water refills.  Great ride, hot, but super fun.  53.6 miles in 3:42 for an average of 14.5 mph with 2630 vertical feet climbed at an average temperature of 91.  Ciao.

Settignano, Croce alla Vetta, Saliole, Dicomano, Firenze by ridingwithcosimo at Garmin Connect - Details

A line of trees on the road above Settignano.

The belltower in Sieci.  I love the stone work on this 

tower.  I took the picture from my last water break.