Great ride with Jen and Jean Charles.

I had a very nice tour today with Jen, one of my daughter's best friends here, and a wonderful person whom Emily and I have become close with, and her relatively new friend Jean Charles.  It is great to see Jen with such a nice, interesting, fit and fun man.  Jean Charles is from France, close to Belgium, and both he and Jen had three languages - French, English, and Italian.  With one and one half languages, I sometimes feel a little out of it here.  I continue to struggle with Italian, but continue to try, and I do think it is slowly improving.  At least I hope so.

We did a nice tour, on a medium route, but both Jen and Jean Charles were stronger and more interested in going fast than I expected.  They used my two extra / rental bikes, and had flat pedals with running shoes.  Even then, they both were kind of competitive and fast.  Really fun to ride with so many different people with different levels of fitness and different mindsets in relation to cycling.  We had another day of basically perfect weather, and enjoyed it.  A nice stop in La Luna, excellent cafe and pastries, then down to Ginestra.  Given the option of a little extra, they took it, and we climbed up to the little ridge ride to just below Montagnana.  I gave them the option of extending then, and they kind of wanted to, but basically wanted to have some relaxed time before a dinner tonight with many of Jen's friends in Florence.  As we returned through Chiesanuova, Galluzzo, and Cinque Vie, it was apparent that we had made the right decision as they were both slowing a little and were getting sore in various body parts, as neither of them cycle often.

Great job riding today guys, and thanks for "Riding with Cosimo"  Today's ride was 60.5 kilometers in 3:09 with 601 meters of climbing.

Jen and Jean Charles almost done with the Grilliao climb.  I sprinted ahead to 

catch them on the way to where I took this pictue, but by the time I had the 

camera function of the phone ready, they had passed me.  So, here we see

them from behind.  Next time a faster sprint, or tell them what I am doing

ahead of time, as the increased their speed to not get left behind.

Jen with the valley between Ginestra and Cerbia in the background.

Jean Charles climbing toward Montagnana.