Riding with Cosimo, custom cycling tours in Tuscany: 2 rides in one post - San Baronto with Luca and a surprise FBB chianti tour.

First, this is a two ride post. I did not post yesterday, as my camera was out of battery charge when I tried to take a picture at San Baronto yesterday. Luca texted me to see if I wanted to ride in the afternoon, and we met at 1:30 with the ambitious agenda of getting to San Baronto and back before 5. It is getting dark around 5 these days, and it is not that safe to be out later than 5. We absolutely cranked it out to Pistoia, which was around 12 kilometers past our turn off for Quarrata, where we wanted to go. I thought he had an alternate route, and he was leading, pretty much all the way, and was going quite fast, around 40 kph. As we got to Pistoia, he said, we shouldn't be here, and I told him we missed the turn off around 10 k ago, so we went back and took the right road. We rode quite fast up to San Baronto, then returned. It was a nice ride, and Luca is always fun for me to ride with. He is fit, a great cyclist, 28, and super enthusiastic. It was all I could do to stay with him most of the time, although as we returned he ran out of gas a little and I led the last 5 or 10 k into town. 97.2 k in 3:19, for an average speed of 29.1 (at one point on the way out we were at an average of 34) with 480 vertical meters climbed.

Today, I had a surprise tour for Florence by Bike. They called yesterday, and I was free, so why not. This is my first tour in November in 3 years, and I had pretty much thought I was done for the year. I had two groups, a couple and a single guy for a total of three. They were all reasonably fit, in particular for the Florence by Bike groups, so we had a pretty good day out there. Same route out as always, but we were early, so we rode into Impruneta and they had 20 minutes to look around before we returned to Monteoriolo for lunch. We had a truly excellent lunch there, which gives me my taste treat of the day - a chestnut tart, which was truly awesome. Also she made some crostone with fresh sausage and cheese which was right up my alley. Todays ride was 53.2 k in 3:22 for an average speed of 15.8 kph with 609 meters of climbing. 17,243 kilometers for the year, so only 2,757 k to go for 20,000. Ciao.

Dave checking out the view on the way up to Monteoriolo.

It was a very nice day for early November, but a change

is due tomorrow.