Excellent team ride to San Baronto with alternate routes.

A very nice team ride this morning.  After a kind of late night, with a fair amount of wine between Emily at a nice Valentine's day dinner, I was surprised at my energy today.  We had a nice group of 6, with the unusual mix of 3 women and 3 men.  It made for a nice pace on the way toward Vinci.  Andrea led the tour, and it appeared that he must cycle this area often.  I have ridden up through San Baronto at least 10 times, probably more, and had never taken this route.  We headed out through Lamporecchio, then turned off the regular way from there, descended a little, and ended up on a nice little back road with little traffic.  The climb on this road was much harder, with a number of places averaging 12 to 15%.  It was really beautiful though and a fun alternative.  We regrouped at the top, then descended through Vinci to a turn off toward Vitolini.  We regrouped there, and then climbed up this beautiful road then turned off to continue climbing, then descending on a beautiful road to Empoli.

We turned off toward Limite, and Andrea had another fun alternative for us.  There is a beautiful back road that winds through the countryside which makes you miss around 5 kilometers of traffic.   Really nice, although there was another 50 meters of climbing.  From where we rejoined the main road, it was a group crank back into town.  It ended up being a good, long tour, which I definitely needed.  I am planning on the long course for the granfondo in a month and one half, and I need to start doing some longer training rides.  Well, this was my first longer ride.  Now, for a long ride with more climbing.  Soon!  69.3 miles in 4:31 rolling time for an average speed of 15.3 mph with 2136 vertical feet climbed at an average (sun effected) temperature of 59.  Thanks, Andrea, and a great team ride.  Ciao.

Montelupo, Lamporecchio, San Baronto, Vinci, Limite, Firenze by ridingwithcosimo at Garmin Connect - Details

The sun came out after Montelupo and it was a nice ride through the various

towns on the way toward Vinci.

Looking back toward the climb basically completed at this point.

We took a different and much harder route to San Baronto today.

Just past the top was a park with this rock decorated and labeled

with the climb we just completed.  I really like the cyclist

at the top with arms raised.  Cool!

The second piece of cycling art, where we came into the main road

by San Baronto.  Actually a pretty cool mosaic at this pass.  This

location is a total cycling scene.