Italy was a Blast

I gotta admit, 2 weeks is the least amount of time ya gotta take off for a vacation to feel like a real and enjoyable vacation!!
After a long bit of travel via Auto, Aircraft and Motorcoach we arrived in Tuscany.
San Gimignano is truy one beautiful old city....however, everyone else knows it as the place was crawling with tourists all day, but 95% of them left every day at about 6PM.
Tuscany is a beautiful area and we had 7 awesome days of cycling.
Beautiful vineyard and olive grove covered hills with ancient walled cities on every hilltop.
Most days we'd avaerage about 85 miles and lots of climbing and awesomely twisty, fun descents.
Most of the climbs ranged from 500 - 1500 feet.
Every nite after cycling we'd wander out into the streets and alleys of San Gimignano followed up with a great dinner that was always accompanied with Chianti wine.

So, I've been swamped since we returned, so I'll try to get a bunch of photos posted tonite.
www.michele.squareonehosting.com/gallery/

Ciao!
JPE

One last Good Ride B4 Italy

A good group of ~8 yesterday for a Windy ride yesterday.
We trudged into the headwind all the way to Brooklyn and Dunkirk, before turning back Northeast for the run home.
A good ride that fully "tuckered me out", but at only 55 miles, I hope my legs cooperate for the long saddle time in Italy.
My PowerTap showed a 1040 Watts Max reading, so now I gotta find out when the hell I did that.

OK, we're pretty much packed and ready to go.
Flight out of Chicago on Tuesday, gets us to Europe on Wednesday.
Thursday we'll be riding....Yippee!!!
So, later this week keep an eye out for some photos and hopefully some entertaining commentary.
Ciao for now!
JPE & Michele

Cant Wait for Italy

OK, so we got 100+ inches of snow, and normally I'd be giddy about it, and I was, until Mid March, when I finally got sick of it. From Mid December thru Mid March it just kept coming and coming. I am ready for spring to arrive.

Since we're heading to Italy on 4/1 (no joke) we've been pretty hard core and out on the fendered tank bikes putting in the miles. It's too late to squeeze in any last form training, so our fitness will be what it is.

I am so totally jacked about CX for 2008. Renee and I have signed Planet Bike on as Title Sponsor for our UCI race weekend and the race will be, "Madcross Presents, The Jonathon Page Planet Bike Cup." Party On Wayne...Party On Garth!!!

So, for those of you interested, we'll try to keep this blog updated during our trip to Italy, in April.