Another quick ride wandering to the north between storms.

Nicola had sent me a message to see if we could ride together either Wednesday or Thursday afternoon.  Checking the weather, it seemed like Wednesday would be better, and as I write this Thursday morning, while it is pretty much dark and pouring rain, it seems we made the right decision.  Still, as we started, it was sprinkling rain, but pretty much stopped for almost all the ride.  I kept us close going up and down a couple of times, of course on different routes to the church above Cercina.  If the rain had returned in earnest, we had the option to bail, and if we had done a different type of loop, we would have been committed.  We both had fun.  Nicola is fun to take out, as she is strong, and always seems to like, enthusiastically, the small out of the way roads I take her on.  We had a fun ride, and we  both needed to be back in a couple of hours, which was good, as the rain started up again less than 5 minutes before we returned.  A good ride, 37.2 kilometers in 2:00 for an average of 18.5 kph (slow, again) with 828 meters climbed.

Before meeting Nicola, I had an extra hour plus, so I started on the process of working on the Eroica bike.  It was fun, but this is going to take some time and loving effort.  I was quite impressed that everything worked when I checked the bike out, than I started with the process of taking some parts off, one at a time, and trying to remove the rust and shine up the chrome.  I started with light steel wool, but soon used google to find out other methods.  I saw a video of a person recommending using aluminum foil, which actually works quite well.  It will take time, probably lots of it, but I think I can make it look pretty awesome.  We shall see.  I will post some pictures as the process goes along.  I checked the sign up process for the race, and I cannot sign up until Monday the 9th of February.  There are travel packages with hotel, etc. that you can get earlier, but I do not want to go to that expense.  Hopefully I will get in, but the restoration will be fun either way.  Ciao.

I often seem to take a picture of this bell tower and church at the top of the 

climb above Cercina.  I guess it just speaks to me architecturally.  This picture

actually makes one believe that it was a nice day, but alas, other than this moment

it was quite cloudy, with sprinkles when we started, and rain starting when 

we returned.

Nicola getting ready for our first descent from the area by the church.