Nice ride with Dominick, getting him back on the bike.

I did a quick ride this morning with Dominick, an American who has been here around 12 years and has a touring company that I do some work for occasionally.  He is involved with moving part of his business to Switzerland and moving the family there as well.  He is back in town for a bit and just getting back on the bike.  We are doing a promotional skype call this afternoon, so we got together for a ride this morning to discuss the call and get him back out on a fairly easy tour.  I knew he was a little nervous about "keeping up", so we basically did a tour he wanted.  It was fun and nice.  He is a strong rider, and is particularly good at some explosive power, so even at an easy pace, there were times I had to push.  Most of the time, I set a pretty casual pace which felt good.  I even threw in a little interval on the climb to Chiocchio, dropped Dom and doubled back to finish the climb with him.

We rode up from Grassina to Strada, the continued over / up to Chiocchio and Spedaluzzo, then descende to Passo dei Pecorai, then just cranked back into Firenze on the valley road through Tavernuzze, then home through the centro.  We went over toward Dom's office and had a cafe at his neighborhood spot, which basically was a riot.  I am in pretty good cycling shape, and my body and legs have taken on the typical shape for a cyclist.  There were 4 or 5 old men in front of the cafe that Dom knew, and they were all over him about his bike, and that he had a little extra weight, and used my bike (Italian) and my body as a comparison.  It was fun to be the point of comparison that they were saying he should move toward.  We all have egos after all.  It was also fun just to watch and understand most of the banter, all good natured, that was taking place.

A fun morning ride with Dominick and good to see him back on his bike.  36.0 miles in 2:26 rolling time for an average speed of 14.8 mph with 1273 vertical feet of climbing at an average temperature of 53.

Grassina, Strada, Chicchio, Falciani, Tavernuzze, Firenze by ridingwithcosimo at Garmin Connect - Details

Dominick on the start of the climb from Strada to Chiocchio.

The Chianti countryside in the area around Strada / Chicchio.