Wandering up and down the hills close to home.

Emily and I are guests of some nice folks tonight for dinner at a restaurant that was one of our favorites when we had more money to spend, and I am looking forward to it.  We met after Italian classes, had a cafe and pastry, then walked through the holiday fair at Santa Croce.  We bought a beautiful hand painted ornament then Emily had a burger and I had an excellent polish sausage with kraut.  I definitely needed some exercise to have a worthy appetite for tonight, so I decided on a ride close to home with lots of climbing.  I stayed with my recent theme of doing something different.

Today, I was up and down a few hills, but one descent and one climb were done a new direction today.  I climbed up Via Bolognese to the Cercina turn off and enjoyed the descent and small climb before taking the first option as a descent.  Really nice descent with only one portion toward the bottom that is super steep.  Down to the base road by Careggi, then over and up what is normally my preferred option for descent.  I had never climbed this road before, and it was mostly very fun.  There is one stretch which clocked in on Strava at 25% and on Garmin around 30%.  Needless to say, as it is around 75 vertical meters of climbing it kicked me around pretty good.  On the other hand, almost all the remainder of the climb this way is pretty mellow, with one other stretch at 15% or so, but for only around 25 vertical meters.

Anyway, I enjoyed the new direction and took some photos of things I have never noticed before.  At the top, I took option #2 down and did the wandering route around Careggi that I have only done once before.  Lots of fun, and I am now ready to enjoy the nights feed as it should be.  18.6 miles in 1:38 rolling time for an average speed of 114 mph with 2352 vertical feet climbed at an average temperature of 51.

A few climbs and descents wandering the roads close to home by ridingwithcosimo at Garmin Connect - Details

Starting the climb, before the 25% stretch I changed gloves

which allowed me to access the camera and take a few pictures.

You certainly see different things climbing versus descending.

Loved this villa in the trees.

Climbing a road I have always descended before, I noticed

this church and bell tower for the first time.

Love this road.  This is almost the top of the climb.

On the descent from the Church above Cercina, the haze 

emphasized the many ranges of hills in the afternoon light.