CycleItalia

A new contender emerges

2012-01-27T19:06:00.000+01:00

Our search for good wines never ends! This Rosso Sicilia SYRAH is a strong new contender in our money-saving, everyday wine search. Less than 5 euros for 2 liters means it costs less than our previous 10 euros for 3 liter champion. And while very different in taste, the quality is very close..close enough to add this one to our choices....we can alternate and still save money to put towards more of the really good, tre bicchiere wines we REALLY like!

Sunday in Siracusa

2012-01-23T14:26:00.000+01:00

Sunday afternoon here in Sicily was 40+ kms of cycling, a bit short because the skies clouded up after we got started, followed by a classic bruschetta al pomodoro antipasto. Next was another Tuscan (yes, I know we’re not there but we can’t have Sicilian food ALL the time!) specialty, ribollita – a rich vegetable soup literally reboiled to make it better (other than fish soups, are there any that are not better the following day?) and full of cavolo nero (don’t ask me what this is in English but Swiss chard works OK) and chunks of stale bread (those Tuscans rarely throw anything away) to the point where a spoon stands straight up. Drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with black pepper, it’s amazingly good. We finished up with another classic, bistecca fiorentina, thick beef steak seared on the outside and almost raw on the inside, washed down with a syrah from Spadafora here in Sicily. Yes, it was Tuscan-style food but Sicilian vino. We wandered out to the San Sebastiano festival in the evening to see Seby’s likeness carried through the streets, complete with arrows sticking out of him, then paused for pistacchio pastries at a bar in the piazza before heading home. And there WAS even football this Sunday, as one of the Italian channels showed the AFC championship game, though we went to bed after the first half – I love it when the announcer says “primo down" and "dieci yards".

And now for something involved with CYCLING

2012-01-19T14:23:00.003+01:00

Our friend Bill McGann has a nice interview with champion Jan Janssen here. Janssen won pretty much everything EXCEPT the Giro d'Italia. We think you'll enjoy reading it.

Sicilian wine

2012-01-14T21:06:00.000+01:00

Now that we've decided upon our low-end wine (scroll down a few posts for details on that) with the money we're saving we can afford to sample some wines at the other end of the spectrum, namely the ones that win the coveted tre bicchiere (three-glass) awards from Italian Wines, our "bible" of wines in Italy. We seem to like the same kinds of wines the editors do - quite often we stumble upon something and look it up to find they liked it too while we've yet to be disappointed with any selections we've made using their ratings. So we set off to find Sicilian three-glass winners "excellent wines in their categories" as they describe them. So far we've enjoyed two - Harmonium 2008 by Firriato, "a wine of incredible personality and character. Purplish and inky, with hints of blackberry, black plum, spice and autumn leaves. It combines power and vitality with wonderful drinkability." We'll agree with that! The other was Cottanera's Etna Rosso 2007, "this wine shows a real sense of its volcanic terroir, integrating rich mineral, smoky notes with focused, elegant fruit. Full flavored and fresh, it has perfect nose-palate consistency underpinned by silky tannins and a body of rare weight and length/" All we know is that we enjoyed it immensely! There are more where these came from including a rare, under 15 euro winner of the three-glasses...we're determined to find one if there are any still for sale!

ETNA

2012-01-10T15:20:00.000+01:00

Here's a shot Heather took of Mt. Etna just a few days ago. Here's a link to video of what was going on up there very recently. Before we leave here we plan to rent a car and take the bikes close enough so we can ride up as they did in the Giro 2011. Here's a link to video from that day.

Another day in paradise...

2012-01-06T21:31:00.000+01:00

Heather poses in front of a field of flowers in JANUARY. Short sleeves and shorts on the bike no less!

And the winner is....

2012-01-03T17:08:00.001+01:00

We promised results of our tasting of various cheap, everyday-type wines once we had some time to sample a few and the winner is this Nero d'Avola and Frappatto blend. Yes, these are the same two grapes blended to create the DOCG Cerasuolo di Vittoria, but this vino in a box is just 10 euros for 3 liters, or $3.25 a bottle at the current exchange rate. Now that we've discovered our "bottom end" we'll proceed to the top, sampling as many of the Italian Wines 3-glass award winners from Sicily as we can find. With the money we're saving with this wine, the average price per bottle will still be reasonable. Here's a LINK to more about the the young woman who makes this wine

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T12:26:00.001+01:00

At year's end, here's a clip from the busy outdoor market in Ortigia, just a few minutes walk from our apartment. You can hear Heather saying this clip will use up the entire photo card's capacity but what the heck? Unless you come and visit you won't see it any other way. Best wishes for a great 2012!

What's in a name?

2011-12-27T14:30:00.001+01:00

Flying sugar? Or is it cycling sugar? Spazzy trash bags? Stinco, stinko, what the hell is that? It's powdered sugar (why it's velo I have no idea, maybe because you throw it into the air?) garbage bag (from spazzatura in Italian) and stinco (shin in Italian as in the shin of the pig, football shinguards are parastinchi) all odd names in English but perfectly understandable in Italian. You get the hang of it after awhile.

Christmas comes early?

2011-12-24T21:38:00.000+01:00

Not really, but today may as well have been Christmas - gorgeous weather, a 3 hours ride amidst olive groves and and fields of grazing sheep, then a wonderful dinner prepared by Heather. Crostini with fresh sheep ricotta started us off, followed by orange flavored risotto with a second plate of fresh swordfish prepared with tomato, onion and capers. We capped the night off with a stroll through the quiet Piazza Duomo before returning home for panettone and spumante. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Street music in Ortigia

2011-12-23T13:00:00.000+01:00

Here's some poorly shot and horribly edited video of musicians at the outdoor market in Ortigia. But at least the music is good! How can you not smile when you hear this? HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Fish-Bread

2011-12-21T11:00:00.000+01:00

Our favorite bakers, the Drago Brothers, the ones with the wholesale bread-making operation who sell a loaf or two to those who know where to find them, make this special fish-shaped loaf for the holiday season. We're sure others in the area do this too, but we KNOW this one will be as good to eat as it is to look at! Babbo Natale will be arriving here in Siracusa in a few days and the town is ready with decorations galore. The warm-up, the Festa della Santa Lucia concluded last night with the venerable statue (Heather claims it's a rebadged Athena) returning to her home on the island of Ortigia after a trip to the "mainland" of Siracusa. Big fireworks displays, both when she crossed the bridge to the island and when she finally made it back to the Piazza Duomo were enjoyed by thousands, including us.

Sunday morning on Ortigia

2011-12-18T21:23:00.000+01:00

If we get up early enough, which we rarely do, we can be greeted by a scene like this one. We went back to bed after taking this one! Larry fried up some "french toast" for breakfast, but not having any maple syrup he made do by smearing some Nutella on it while Heather more sensibly went with butter and powdered sugar. A bike ride after breakfast set us up for an early dinner of an orange and fennel salad topped with crushed pistacchio, spaghetti with spicy red sauce followed by pollo cacciatore and fresh zucchini. "Sedara" by Donnafugata went well with all of this. We ventured out in the evening for some cannoli to cap another day in paradise. Buona notte!

Our home in Siracusa

2011-12-15T17:51:00.001+01:00

Some of you might have seen "our" apartment via this link to professional staged photos of the place nicely decorated, just inviting you to spend a vacation week or two on the sea during the summer months. These photos show how we've moved in and messed it up for daily living, especially with our cycling passion. These shots are of what Larry calls the kitchen/garage since the bikes are parked under the stairs with various other bike related stuff (workstands, spare parts boxes, etc.) in view. With no actual garage this is good as it gets and we can't beat the security! You can see our trusty Gaggia for Illy espresso maker in the corner and the kitchen shot shows the organization Larry likes, since he's the one who does the dishes and cleans up after Heather's wizardry at the stove! The rest of the place is pretty much as in the link photos.

December in Sicily

2011-12-13T10:45:00.000+01:00

These are certainly the "I hate you guys!" types of photos, especially if you're snowed in or captive in a land of bad food. Sorry folks, but someone's got to be here to enjoy it! Locals say there's always a period of beautiful weather in mid-December when the Festa della Santa Lucia is held, today in fact. We'll head over to the Piazza Duomo after a bike ride and pranzo. The other photo is of a pizzolo, something they say is made only in some of the small towns in this region. Somehow a crispy pizza crust is split open and fresh ingredients crammed in as in a pita or piadina. Just right on a warm, sunny day, especially when the ingredients include fresh mozzarella di bufala and rucola (arugula) mmmmmm!

Monte Faito

2011-12-10T16:31:00.000+01:00

When we were visiting the Vesuvian Institute last week, one of Larry's desires was to drive up the famous Monte Faito climb. This climb was made sort-of famous in the film "The Greatest Show on Earth" (you can see the clip here, they start the climb about 7 minutes into the segment) where Fuentes attacks his rivals. The turn off the main road is just a couple of kms from the Institute itself so on our way back to the airport we detoured up the climb. The road was technically closed and the weather less-than-ideal, as you can see, but as we like to say perche no? (why not?) so up we went. The road surface has deteriorated greatly since the film was made, perhaps La Corsa Rosa needs to return - inspiring some repairs? It was easy to imagine these rocky slopes lined with screaming tifosi as shown in the film though for us visibility was limited. Overall it reminded us of the paved section of the infamous Finestre climb in the Italian Alps, though probably not as steep. These places are sort of "holy" to us as fans of Italian cycling and it was a special experience to see this climb first-hand. Perhaps if we live here in 2013 we'll try it on bikes.

Ancient Stabia

2011-12-08T15:01:00.000+01:00

We were treated to a private, guided tour of Ancient Stabia by Prof. Thomas Howe, sort of an "Indiana Jones" type, complete with the hat. It was amazing to see what they've unearthed and how well it's been protected, unlike Pompeii or Ercolana. Having the story told in person by a guy who actually dug up the place is a rare experience. We enjoyed dinner with Thomas on our last night in Castellamare and walking back from the seaside ristorante in the rain, stumbled upon this tiny stand frying up graffe, which are zeppole in other regions of Italy and are the Italian version of fried dough. It seems every culture has some sort of fried dough to eat, whether it's called a donut, doughnut, funnel cake, krapfen or something else. Fresh, right out of the fat, plain or filled with creme or hazelnut/chocolate, it's easy to see why these are enjoyed the world over. Some photos from the dig site are here too. Grazie Thomas!

Quick trip to Naples

2011-12-06T11:49:00.001+01:00

Heather needed to visit the Vesuvian Institute so we hopped on an AirItaly flight (how can you go wrong with a plane trimmed in the tricolore with staff featuring the same colors on their uniforms? This should be the official airline of CycleItalia!) after an early morning bus ride up to Catania. We picked up a rental car and drove down along the bay of Naples to look for apartments in case Heather decides on locating her study-abroad program here in 2013. You can see by the view of Vesuvius this will be a tough choice. We stopped for pranzo on the Sorrentine peninsula and Larry ordered...gnocchi Sorrentina. In the past this has been a goopy mess of melted mozzarella and little else - but this one was done right, with a subtle tomato taste Heather likened to pizza. We were treated to a viewing of the ruins at Stabia later, more on that next time.

Energy bar - Sicilian style

2011-11-30T14:38:00.000+01:00

Heather poses with a soon to be consumed mini cannolo. Who needs mylar-wrapped energy bars when you can enjoy these?

Santini SMS - official supplier to CycleItalia

2011-11-28T12:45:00.001+01:00

Here's a link to a great article about Santini, official supplier to CycleItalia. Long before CycleItalia was created, we purchased Santini products for our own use. It all started with Heather's friend in Bergamo, a boyhood chum of Pietro Santini. Whenever we'd visit, Renato would have some nice gift for us, quite often a maglia rosa produced in nearby Lallio by his friend Pietro's clothing company. We liked the quality and fit along with the fact that it was 100% Made in Italy. Larry even purchased short inserts from Santini and had them sewn into the shorts we received as part of a sponsorship program while we worked for another tour company, just like the pros described in the article! When it came time to order custom clothing for CycleItalia, the decision was truly a no-brainer, the only question was the design itself. Santini had helped there too as Heather had been given a Santini jersey with an Italian bike shop logo on it and had always like the design and graphics - so some colors were switched around, logos changed and some slight design changes made and the now almost iconic CycleItalia jersey was born!

Festa Ringraziamento (Thanksgiving in Italy)

2011-11-24T14:39:00.000+01:00

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the USA! We've celebrated this holiday in Italy numerous times, including once in Agrigento during our first visit to Sicily. Heather created the big feast, complete with pumpkin pie (though we roasted a large chicken instead of a turkey because of the size of our tiny oven) and all the trimmings to share with our friends visiting from Viterbo. Larry sneaked out for a ride out to Fontana Bianca which you can see here -- a wonderful Thanksgiving Day even without the football games on TV!

It's that time of year

2011-11-20T12:00:00.000+01:00

It's been a bit rainy here lately. If it's not too cold to ride outside where you live there's still the mess if the roads are...well, messy with rain or snowmelt. We brought a couple of sets of these Crud fenders with us just for these situations. Here you see them mounted on "Bugno" in front of our apartment. The coverage has been greatly improved over the original version. They install with no tools and will snap off if anything major should get stuck in them. We found their suggestion as to whether they'll fit your bike is pretty accurate, one other tip might be where your brake blocks fit on your calipers. On "Bugno" here the blocks are near the bottom of the slots, meaning there's enough room for the thin fender to fit between brake and tire. On Heather's Mondonico-built Torelli 20th Anniversary bike, the brake blocks are way up near the top of the slots and there's simply no way the fender will fit without rubbing the tire. They say if a 4 mm hex key will fit between your brakes and tire, these fenders will fit. If you don't have a "winter" bike already set up with fenders but hate that skunk stripe up your back along with wet feet, these fenders may be just the thing. (Disclaimer: we purchased our sets at retail and received nothing from the makers or distributors - they're just a product we thought you might like to know about)

Moonlight over the waves

2011-11-12T16:14:00.000+01:00

Ortigia/Siracusa, Italia

Naked bread!

2011-11-10T18:23:00.001+01:00

Some readers of the previous post asked for a photo of the darn bread! Seems reasonable so her she is, laid out naked for the world to admire along with the "clothes" (the paper bag) they slip her into once you hand over your 60 euro-cents.

Bread - a detective story

2011-11-08T09:29:00.001+01:00

Last weekend after a beautiful ride through the Anapo valley, we headed out to find a restaurant for Sunday lunch and ended up on the touristy side of the island, i.e. the Porto Grande, where the cruise ships dock and empty their little swarms into the city for the day. There are good restaurants here and also the risk of tourist traps, but when we stuck our head into a place that was full of Italians, we figured it was a good bet. Well, we lost the bet. Actually, it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t special – the service was a little brusque and the prices were a little high. The house wine—rosé only—was too sweet, the salad was too plain, the shrimp in the pasta were too small... Wow, I’m sounding like a whiner even to myself.

Anyway, the point of the story is that you can get something great out of even mediocre restaurants; in this case, it was the bread: a wonderful loaf with thick crunchy crust and a chewy, moist interior. I asked the waiter whether one could get this bread in town.

“Of course,” he replied, “from Drago.”

“Where is that?” I asked, imagining a white-tiled bakery with a glass case and cheerful young women with little hats and aprons calling the number of the next person in line.

“Ooooh,” he groaned, scratching his head, “it’s Sunday and everything is closed.”

“I know, I mean for another day. We’ve just moved here and we’re still looking for the perfect bread.”

A look of sympathy spread over his face. “It’s in….mamma mia…Piazza, ummm, what’s it called, Piazza Gargullo—around there.”

As soon as we got home, I looked it up on the web, wrote down the address, located it on the map (just a few hundred meters from our house) and the next morning sent Larry out to find it.

He was gone a long time.

Eventually, he marched back through the door, breadless. “Well, I found your bakery…finally!” he said. “But you can’t buy bread there.” He went on to tell a story of winding through little residential streets (as the photos show) with no apparent storefronts, other than one, which when he barged in, he discovered to be a furniture restorer. He was just about to give up when he saw a guy carrying a huge basket full of bread. He went back to where the guy had come from, through an archway, and ended up in a little courtyard, with the smell of fresh bread in the air and a grumpy guy scraping cornmeal off huge pans into the trash. The guy gave him a stare, as if to say, “What are YOU doing here?” and Larry surmised that this was not a retail bakery. So much for my fantasy of the cheerful young women in the white hats.

We continued to experiment with various bread sellers during the week, but Saturday morning we were strolling through the neighborhood when we saw an old man on a scooter with a bag full of bread on his handlebars. “I bet that guy’s coming from the bakery,” I said.

“Yeah, I saw him before,” Larry replied. “He must be the delivery man.”

“Look at that street sign,” I said. “Ronco Antonio Drago, Panificatore – they named the street after the baker—that must be where the bakery is.”

“That IS where it is,” said Larry.

About then, a man in his sixties who was just slightly overdue for a shave and haircut, looked over and said, “What are you looking for?”

He wasn’t threatening, but wasn’t exactly inviting, either. I stalled, trying to construct a sentence in my head.

“Do you want bread? Fresh bread? Nice and warm? Follow me, signora.”

He took us into the courtyard and Larry said, “This is where I came, but there was no one here selling bread, though they were making a lot of it.”

We went to an open door where a young man with a white cloth tied around his waist was standing amidst white plastic crates of different kinds of bread.

“The signora would like some bread,” our guide announced as he seamlessly exchanged a few coins for his own loaf and left. The young man looked at me as if to ask what kind I wanted. There were flat ciabattas, long baguettes, even some whole wheat rolls.

“Just a ciabatta, today,” I said.

“Sessanta,” he replied, slipping the still-warm loaf into a paper bag and handing it to me.

We paid him the sixty cents and headed back out into the street with our warm bread, winking at our guide as we turned the corner of the secret street named after the bread man, Antonio Drago.

Campagnolo - passion before profit

2011-11-05T16:38:00.001+01:00

Here's a link to a wonderful article about one of our favorite companies, Campagnolo. Click HERE to see it. One analogy we like is the film "Big Night". Compare Primo and Secondo as Campagnolo to their passionless competitor Pascal as Shimano/SRAM. The passion before profit is our line, not Campagnolo's, but it's something we think about -- it's not totally black and white, but there's a large gap between the "passion before profit" camp and the "passion FOR profit" operations, whether they make bike parts, create bike tours or operate restaurants. We believe we're firmly in the passion BEFORE profit camp.

Stormy day in Siracusa

2011-11-02T12:30:00.001+01:00

Heather shot this from our window this morning. We'll never live this close to the sea again so we're savoring even days like this!

"Ride food" vs real food

2011-10-31T16:59:00.000+01:00

Raining like hell in Sicily today, but we're still moving into our new place so it's not so bad. For some reason Larry was thinking about the few who bring what we call "engineered food" (you know, the bars, gels, chomps, goos, etc.) on their tours with us -- and most often end up taking most of it back home with them. Here's a link to a Chris Horner diary entry - from a guy who HAS to eat this stuff - about the joys of real food. With real food in mind, the photo is of a tasty risotto al barolo Heather created awhile back.

WE'RE IN!

2011-10-30T17:31:00.000+01:00

No photos yet as we've been busy, but you can use this link to see the place via the landlord's website. We got up this morning (Sunday) and after breakfast Larry rode the shopping bike down to do some recycling (for some reason there are no bins on the island itself, but they're easy to find just across the causeway) and noticed the cleaning crew inside our-soon-to-be lodging. We finished our packing and decided to see if we could drop some of our stuff off in the new place by dropping by -- surprisingly, the folks were putting the stuff we left in the landlord's garage into the apartment when we arrived! What service! So we headed back to bring the rest of our stuff down so they could haul it over too. We were in (minus a few things they forgot back at the garage) by noon! Plenty of time to ride over to the commercial center and shop for a small "toaster" oven. Heather really likes these vs firing up a huge oven whether it's gas or electric. The real project was, after purchasing it, how to get it "home"? We strapped the rather large box onto Heather's bike's rear rack but Larry had to ride next to her and stabilize the load so it wouldn't fall off the back of the bike when she hit a bump in the road. We wobbled our way over the 3 kms, through the (thankfully) light Sunday afternoon traffic and got our prize home safely. All in time to head out for lunch to celebrate. NO moving for the next 6 months, WOOHOO!

We're moving!

2011-10-29T10:03:00.000+02:00

Finally we're set to move into our "permanent" place where we hope to stay for the next 6 months. In the meantime, here are some photos from the area to enjoy- two views of the ruins of the Temple of Apollo, bikes parked in front of our (current) favorite place for cookies, a colorful stand selling drinks and one of Heather posing with Ortigia across the bay.

Aretusa

2011-10-26T10:52:00.000+02:00

Here's a photo of Heather posing at the Aretusa fountain on "our" little island here. Right next to the sea, this is fresh water! Legend has it that this originates in Olympia, Greece. The photo was NOT taken today as it's raining like hell here right now...but we've got everything we need here in the apartment so it's no big deal.

Da Mob

2011-10-24T12:37:00.001+02:00

Some folks asked us, when we told them of our plans to move to Sicily for the winter, "Aren't you afraid of the Mafia?" We laughed and replied that organized crime didn't scare us much, it's the DISorganized crime that might be a problem! Seriously though, an orientation meeting conducted for new students at a school for foreign students here included a warning that doing foolish things, like trying to buy dope on the streets, WILL introduce you to organized crime, otherwise you're no more likely to get involved with mobsters here than you would be on the streets of New York. Interestingly enough, there's a special institute for the study and elimination of such things right here on the island of Ortigia, as shown in the photo.

Vino Siciliano

2011-10-22T12:44:00.002+02:00

Sicilian wines used to be shipped north in huge tanks to be used as blending (or "cutting") wines by producers of bottles with very famous labels. Recently Sicilian producers have decided to bottle their own wines on the island. Famous labels like Morgante, Donnafugata and Tasca d'Almerita are now seen in wine shops worldwide and command hefty prices. But many Italians don't spend the money on bottled wines with corks - instead they buy bulk wine. One may instantly think low-quality, and there are plenty of those sold in boxes in the grocery stores, or in large glass jugs, but good-quality vino can also be had for not-so-much money as in the example shown here. This Nero d'Avola is (to us) as good or better than any low-cost bottled version we've found in the USA. This 2-liter jug set us back just 4 euros so even with a not-so-good exchange rate we're talking $3 for a liter of good-quality vino! Today we visited a "vino sfuso" shop where they fill your containers directly from their barrels. Their Nero d'Avola was the same price as the one in the photo so we bought a jug for a taste-off!

Market in Ortigia

2011-10-20T20:30:00.001+02:00

Most days there's a market in Ortigia with vendors selling fresh vegetables, fruits, and fish, along with bread, cheese, etc. For those of you on the coasts the fish market may not be anything special but in Iowa fish is pretty much "Mrs. Paul's" or "Long John Silver's" so for us it's a big deal to see huge tuna for sale where the guy chops off a steak with what looks like a sword. There's little doubt this stuff is fresh as there's no fishy smell around the market and these stalls are packed in next to fresh fruit and other vendors, including our friends here at the cheese shop. This place is most often crowded but on this day I was able to get a photo of them in a rare moment of inactivity. Yesterday I waded into a mob of both tourists and locals alike, asking for fresh mozzarella di bufala. Our friend said yes, he had some, but wait just a minute OK? So I waited while he unwrapped a huge prosciutto, sliced off some bits, rewrapped it and returned to the case, and then proceeded to prepare two large sandwiches with cheese along with the cured ham. I figured these must be for someone waiting ahead of me....but once he had them completed he cut them into smaller portions and started giving them away! Next he actually did make some sandwiches for waiting customers, who now were not in much of a rush as they enjoyed the free samples. This included yours truly! Once the sandwich folks were on their way, he turned to me and pulled out a huge ball of fresh cheese and I was on my way....before I spoiled my lunch appetite with any more free samples!

In Sicily

2011-10-19T09:19:00.001+02:00

We made it! We loaded up our stuff and headed down to Civitavecchia on Monday to catch an overnight ferry to Palermo. We were able to get to Siracusa (the island of Ortigia to be exact) by midday, where our new landlord informed us the place we'd agreed to rent was not yet available. But not to worry, he's putting us up (seemngly at no charge) until November 1 in a tiny place with an excellent sea view and sunny terrace, as you can see in the photos. All the stuff that won't fit here is stored in his garage on the other side of the island and he says he'll help us move it in November. We welcomed ourselves to Sicily with a dinner at APOLLONION, a "no menu" place. We forgot the camera so you'll have to be content with the images on their website but we'll tell you it was excellent and an amazing value - barely $50 each for a seemingly endless series of antipasti - both cooked and raw fish, shrimp, etc. before a pasta dish with more fresh seafood, then grilled whole fish, a "destroyed" cannolo (seems to be the rage here, the shell is broken into pieces instead of being a filled tube as we're used to) and included an excellent bottle of local white wine, water, caffe, grappa, even a couple of glasses of malvasia to go with our desserts! We'll be back at Carlo's place again! The other photo is of the famous duomo, a converted Greek temple in which you can see the columns inside.

Giro di Lombardia Part 2

2011-10-15T18:07:00.001+02:00

As you can see, a gorgeous (but too cold for us to get the bikes out) day at Madonna del Ghisallo. We began the morning with a visit to a local bar for cappuccino and a copy of La Gazzetta dello Sport, then up to the shrine/museum where Tour de France 2011 winner Cadel Evans was donating an autographed yellow jersey to be displayed. Other cycling celebrities were there, including Gianni Motta who won La Corsa Rosa back in 1966, if what was written on his bike is correct. These ex-pros show up at a lot of events to shake hands and be remembered. A lot more will be in Milano tomorrow for the official announcement of the 2012 Giro d'Italia course. You can see photos of the big screen TV at our hotel where we watched the race for an hour or so before they arrived here and we ran out into the street to see it live. Once the race caravan passed and we'd cheered Vincenzo Nibali's audacious (but sadly, unsuccessful) attack, we ran back inside to see the conclusion of the race. We'll enjoy a pizza and birra tonight before we head back to our HQ to prepare for departure for Sicily.

Giro di Lombardia Part 1

2011-10-14T16:26:00.000+02:00

We loaded (and I mean loaded - two bikes in the back seat plus our luggage, etc) into the CycleItalia Fiat Panda and headed off to a hotel perched near the top of the famous climb to Madonna del Ghisallo to await the legendary race tomorrow (Saturday). But first we stopped for pranzo on the way. Our "bible" Osterie d'Italia (the SlowFood Guidebook) payed for itself again when we found (and trust us, you'd NEVER find this place unless you were looking for it!) Crotto del Sergento, just outside the town of Como. They had a midday feature, a piatto unico (not one of Larry's favorite concepts but...) we tried two of them as you can see here, one with a classic spaghetti with tomato sauce and a grilled steak, the other with a pasta we could not quite identify but it was good, along with a piece of baccala cooked with capers, tomato and olive. Really good, especially with the Tuscan Sangiovese included. We did splurge for a dessert we forgot to photograph, a luscious chocolate "foccacia" with vanilla sauce. After an excellent caffe we were back on the road towards Bellagio and onto the race course for tomorrow. You can see the view from our hotel room, if the weather's awful tomorrow we can see a lot of the race from here and the rest from the big screen TV downstairs!

Gran Piemonte 2011

2011-10-13T19:39:00.001+02:00

A sort of warmup (though much flatter) for Saturday's Giro di Lombardia took place today with the finish in the Citta di Campionissimi, Novi Ligure. Larry went down to see the finish and here are a few shots he took. Some race action and some of the equipment, especially the way the teams take care of transporting their bikes both on the car and inside the bus. Note the Androni guys have specific holders for their bus while Garmin and Liquigas just sort of throw them in. On the cars, check out the "business card" from FA.CO. cut right into the wheel holders including their phone number. These same folks made our roof-racks as well - they're one of the best in Italy. Note the photo fo the team guy securing the bikes on the outside of the car racks with zip ties the minute the cars arrive to park next to the team buses - they zip tie them on to prevent some sticky-fingered thief from making off with one while nobody's looking. Bicisport Magazine had a recent editorial about the costs of fielding pro bike teams being a reason sponsors are tough to find - perhaps bikes worth $10K each are part of the problem? The paintings in the photos were displayed outside the Museum of Champions where they'd reduced the normal admission price by 50% just to celebrate the race! Finally, you see Larry with Aldo from Vittoria Tire. They provide neutral support for the big races in Italy and an excellent espresso too.

Magical Monferrato

2011-10-12T17:16:00.000+02:00

We're here at our northern Italian HQ, sorting through our stuff before we load up and head down to Sicily for the winter. But first, we'll pop over to Lombardia to see the "Race of the Falling Leaves" as they call it. Meanwhile, we're taking full advantage of the summer-like weather. The vineyards are taking on a golden hue and the sunlight has that special fall quality while the temps have been in the low 80's in mid-afternoon. Here are some photos from just one of the loops we've mapped around the area. These are part of More Monferrato and our self-guided Taste of Piedmont and both Vineyards to the Sea and Best of Piedmont will let you enjoy some of the same great cycling, scenery and tastes if you join us for one of those. If there's a heaven on earth for cyclists, this could be it!

Ready, set, MANGIA!

2011-10-09T08:05:00.001+02:00

For those of you wanting some mangia bene to go with the posts about pedala forte, here it is: Osteria Palazzo dei Mercanti in Viterbo. We discovered this place last year during our time living here. Luigi (shown here with colleague Sandro) is from nearby Caprarola and has run the dining room in locations all over the world while also being an award-winning sommelier. In addition to their ristorante, they run this osteria offering more simple fare. Simple does NOT mean easy or lacking flavor, the food here is outstanding! World-class food for just 20 euros as I enjoyed on a recent evening. A classic caprese was perfectly prepared and presented, followed by a wonderfully grilled beefsteak. Luigi provided a very tasty Valpolicella, a wine that is often nothing special when imported to the USA. I finished with a crostata of ricotta, pine nuts and chocolate chips and an excellent espresso. Grazie, Luigi!

l'Eroica - finale

2011-10-07T11:42:00.000+02:00

Our last installment on l'Eroica features some other photos. One is of the Moser group's guest of honor, Alfredo Martini hobknobbing with VIP's in their stand while another shows the stand of the REAL Gios-Torino. Alfredo Gios (say Joe's with a long sssss) owns the world-wide rights to the name, and is trying to market Chinese products in the classic blue color. He had a huge stand at the recent Interbike Expo but if you looked closely, you could see all the bikes on display had tiny "Made in Taiwan" stickers on them, so they were Gios products only in name and color. Meanwhile Aldo Gios and son Marco keep the flame (and torches) burning back in Italy with Biciclette Gios near Torino. Sadly, their rights to the name allow sales only in Italy. If you want the "real thing" you might have to come over a few days early for your tour with us and make a trip to Volpiano.

l'Eroica - part 2 "we ride"

2011-10-04T10:38:00.000+02:00

This event made us remember why we took up cycling in the first place! These folks express our philosophy of pedala forte, mangia bene in a special way. We drove up to Radda in Chianti on Sunday morning and unloaded our bicycles, donned our retro-CycleItalia jerseys (which you can order here) and headed up to see the cyclists pass through a control point and ristoro, as they say in Italian. These stops offer ribollita, the tasty vegetable soup, bruschette and a glass or two of Chianti to provide energy for the ride. NO engineered food in mylar wrappers here! Since we were not officially participating we did not partake in any of the delicious offerings here but we were inspired to get on our bikes and see more closely the event and the participants so off we went down from Radda. There were all shapes and sizes, both riders and bikes, with classic machines of the past in various conditions, along with their riders. Francesco Moser had a group there, all dressed in "team" kit, they blew past us rather quickly. Rumor has it Franco Bitossi and Italo Zilioli were there among others. Larry stopped to aid one unfortunate fellow with a flat tire - mechanical issues were prevalent, our guess is some of these old bikes don't get much of a shakedown before the big day and problems crop up. On the climbs we heard plenty of chains skipping and auto-shifting as the old-time shift levers failed to hold the gear position along with squealing brakes and the smell of burnt rubber brake blocks on the descents. Dressed in our retro jerseys and riding steel bicycles painted in the Italian tricolore, we fit right in, despite our automatic pedals, aero brake cables and bar-mounted shifters (all prohibited by the regulations) and were cheered by the crowds as much as any, especially as we (having ridden only a few kms and having low gears) managed to complete a tough climb on a rocky dirt surface where most walked. We took a detour on another dirt road back to Radda, leaving the official route, only to rejoin the parade once back on pavement. We returned to Radda and enjoyed a panino and bottle of Chianti in a tiny square surrounded by re-enactors of WWII along with the old-bike fans. We left convinced we want to scare up some bikes which meet the regulations and participate in a future event, especially as they're popping up all over Italia.

l'Eroica

2011-10-02T19:05:00.001+02:00

Ciao from Toscana and the world-famous l'Eroica old bike rally. These are photos from Saturday afternoon, some museum exhibits, some bikes ready for the event tomorrow and some looking for new owners. Wonderful names from the past like Legnano, Gloria, etc. were represented well. The tiny town of Gaiole in Chianti was full of vendors offering old bikes and parts to complete your own restoration project. It seemed a lot like an old car rally but the participants not so stuffy. Next installment will be photos from the actual event on Sunday, where we donned our new retro-wool jerseys and took to the road, both paved and upaved.

In ITALIA

2011-09-30T15:14:00.000+02:00

No photos yet, Heather's got the camera and she doesn't arrive until this evening. But Larry's (jetlagged of course) having a great time. Got in yesterday afternoon in time for a shower and some unpacking before a classic piemontese dinner at Hotel Ariotto: antipasto plate with vitello tonnato (veal with tuna sauce) robiola cheese, carpaccio Ariotto, lingua con salsa verde (beef tongue with parsley, garlic and anchovy sauce) zucchini in carpione (sort of lightly "pickled") and pollo in aspic (kind of a chicken "jello") followed by a first plate of agnolotti with meat sauce. My second plate was the classic brasato al barolo (beef braised in red wine) with some more zucchini, this time cooked with burro e salvia (butter and sage) all washed down with a Barbera di Monferrato Superiore from just over the next hill. I burned some of this off this afternoon with a ride through many of the tiny hilltowns of Monferrato - Conzano, Camagna, Vignale, Grazzano, Ottiglio, Ceresetto and Sala Monferrato just to name a few. Tomorrow we're off to see l'Eroica in Tuscany, the famous old bike rally on the strade bianche (white roads, as in dirt) where you must ride a pre-1987 bicycle and wear period kit as well. We hope to have some photos soon.

Interbike 2011 - tricolore stuff

2011-09-28T17:49:00.001+02:00

Larry's a sucker for anything tricolore, especially if it's 100% Made in Italy as these two products are. Kask announced a new USA distribution scheme at Interbike, while I believe Bottecchia is looking for a USA distributor at present. Larry tried this helmet on and wants one ...we're talking to them about a special CycleItalia version to match our kit even though this tricolore model pretty much does the trick!

Interbike 2011 - Larry's wish comes true!

2011-09-26T15:24:00.001+02:00

Regular readers of the blog know Larry lamented his favorite tire was no longer in production. He even stockpiled a supply, though all-black versions of this tire were still being made. Aesthetically, all-black just doesn't cut it for Larry. High-end tubulars still have brown sidewalls, why not the clinchers made with the same process? Vittoria Tire heard the requests and while I was looking at their new radial tire (sadly another all-black) a sales guy pointed out this example of my favorite tire, back in production. GRAZIE Vittoria!

More Interbike 2011

2011-09-24T16:20:00.000+02:00

Larry ran into old friends Mauro Mondonico and Bill McGann at the bike show as you can see here. Mauro (and father Antonio) turned off their torches awhile back and closed up the frame shop while Bill has sold Torelli and retired to become a book-publishing magnate in Arkansas. Mauro's currently helping the folks at prologo after he left Cinelli/Columbus recently. We wish them both buona fortuna!

Interbike 2011 - more great books!

2011-09-22T14:41:00.000+02:00

Here's yours truly with Ted Costantino, book-wizard at Velopress. Old folks might remember Ted as half of the team at the late, and much lamented Bicycle Guide magazine before Petersen purchased and destroyed it. Ted now spends his time finding great cycling titles to share with us, including the newest, Italian Racing Bicycles. I got just a quick look at this soon-to-be-published work and I can't wait to get my hands on my own copy. This year's seen a great collection of English-language books come out about our favorite subject, cycling in Italy. MILLE GRAZIE to all!

Interbike Expo 2011 - SANTINI

2011-09-20T18:14:00.000+02:00

Here you can see Larry with the nice ladies from Santini, our official supplier of cycling clothing. We go way back with them, to the time when we visited our friends in Bergamo, who always seemed to have a gift for us - an autographed Maglia Rosa from Felice Gimondi, etc. The founder of the company, Pietro Santini (natch!) was a boyhood friend of the patriarch of Heather's Bergamasca famiglia so when it came to ordering the CycleItalia kit, it was a darn good thing we liked their stuff!

Interbike-Albabici

2011-09-18T15:34:00.002+02:00

Here you can see Larry with Alessandro (the one with hair!) and Gianluca at the Albabici stand. Alessandro is back from his move to Italy so the partners are together again. They're wonderful friends and help us with not only SMP saddles but also Hibros embrocations, Bicisupport workstands and Sci-Con bags. You can find more information on all these fine Italian products here.

Interbike 2011

2011-09-16T21:40:00.001+02:00

Most years Larry jets off to Las Vegas for the annual Interbike Expo. This year was no exception as this is the best place to catch up with our friends and official suppliers while taking a look at the new things they'll offer to tempt you to whip out your credit card. Our friends at Campagnolo (as you can see here) always have a smile to go along with their beautiful components. They say "coming soon" when asked about their electronic gruppo, in case you were wondering.

CycleItalia goes retro?

2011-09-08T00:04:00.000+02:00

We ordered a couple of samples from SOIGNEUR as you can see here. Yes, we know they're not technically ITALIAN but the quality is excellent and Larry will attest the soft, 100% merino wool is NOT itchy as he tried these on with no undershirt. We think they're pretty cool but want your input. Let us know if you prefer the red/green design or the tricolore. If there's enough interest in purchasing (we'll price them at no profit to us just to get our name on you!) we'll see about having a small production run done and perhaps we can arrange for yours to be shipped directly to you from the maker in NZ? Note the logo is NOT embroidered on, rather it's knit right into the fabric. These should be perfect for those cool days or to go with your retro kit for the old bike rallies (as in Tuscany's l'Eroica which we'll try to visit this year) popping up all over Italy and elsewhere

Have VISA, will travel

2011-09-05T17:44:00.000+02:00

Not the credit card mind you, but we received the OK to return to Italy this week! Before we go Larry will head out to Lost Wages for the annual Interbike Expo, the US gathering of the world-wide bike biz. It's a good way to visit our Italian bike-biz friends, much easier than going out to their establishments in Italy though the food's not as good (of course) as it is there. We hope to have some photos and other stuff to share from Interbike 2011. CycleItalia will be the guest of Albabici as usual. Larry's happy to help out a bit at their stand, or just stay out of the way, whatever Gianluca and Co. desire. At month's end we're off to Sicilia to live on the island of Ortigia.

Busy, busy, busy...

2011-08-29T16:34:00.000+02:00

We've been busy at the CycleItalia office in Iowa, getting the website revised with all the 2012 details as well as preparing for fall activities. Heather's got some academic projects which require travel while Larry's off to Interbike mid-September. All this going on while we're getting ready to return to Italy in late September and with some luck we'll be able to stay until July of 2012! The newest edition of La Gazzetta dello CycleItalia has been sent out, the reservation pages are ready and all we need now is for YOU to reserve your place(s) for 2012!
Don't forget our special Giro d'Italia book offer for everyone who reserves their place before the end of 2011. We're already excited about next season!

Party Time!!!

2011-08-15T00:31:00.001+02:00

We celebrated Lorenzo's upcoming birthday on Saturday, inviting the folks who look after our place in Sioux City while we're in Italy. GRAZIE to Lillian, Brent, Nick (Il Ducatista) and Sara! You can see here the birthday cake being created by Heather in the posh CycleItalia test-kitchen, a Carlo Zarri recipe for torta nocciola, made with hazelnuts we brought back this summer. Another shows the wine line up - we finished with a rare Montiano by Falesco in Lazio, a souvenir of our time living in Viterbo. Next you can see some of the group admiring the huge bowl of panzanella (Tuscan bread salad) and yes, we did manage to eat it all!

But we saved room for the main course, Larry's attempt to recreate the famous bistecca fiorentina - massive porterhouse steaks sliced "three fingers" thick and grilled over hot coals. Heather also prepared special tuscan beans with sage and tomato along with grilled zucchini and peppers to go with the steaks. Makes turning 56 years old pretty nice, don't you think?

CycleItalia 2012 Reservations

2011-08-13T16:22:00.000+02:00

Click HERE to reserve your place for 2012

CycleItalia 2012

2011-07-27T15:41:00.000+02:00

We're working now on 2012's schedule. Nothing has been confirmed as of yet but we're hoping to start next season with a guided version of our popular Taste of Tuscany (same itinerary as the self-guided version) May 10-17 followed by Campania's Cilento Coast May 17-25. We'll head back up to Piedmont for More Monferrato (same itinerary as Taste of Piedmont) May 27-June 2. Next will be Vineyards to the Sea June 3-12 and a new Best of Piedmont tour June 11-19. Our Sardegna Coast to Coast to Coast tour was a hit so we'll return June 10-28. We'll finish up with Legendary Climbs of the Giro (East) July 1-12, this time arriving in the mountains after the invasion of cyclists for the famous Maratona has subsided. We'll begin confirming these dates with our hotel partners over the coming weeks and announce the finalized schedule in the next issue of La Gazzetta dello CycleItalia so make sure you're signed up to receive it, if not, use this link.

We're excited already about sharing la dolce vita in bicicletta with you!

Congratulations to Cadel Evans

2011-07-23T22:29:00.000+02:00

This really has little to do with CycleItalia, though we were in Pinerolo to see the race finish there before we left Italy for the season but we wanted to congratulate the first Aussie to win the Tour de France. A complete rider, one who climbs well, descends very well and is excellent against the clock, Evans finally won the big prize and he deserves it. Bravo also to Damiano Cunego who tried his best and defied many of his critics. Let's hope they'll come to the Giro in 2012!

Round and round we go...

2011-07-18T17:33:00.000+02:00

As we wind up our season-ending preparations it's interesting to note the, well, cycles that cycling and the cycling marketplace go through. If you've been around cycling long enough you know that every decade or so, something's IN while something else is OUT. Up until very recently light weight was IN but now the talk is about how "aero" is IN. Seems everyone and his fratello now has a bike in the "aero road" category. These super stiff machines are starting to appear under the pros and with the spate of horrendous crashes in the Giro and Tour this year, talk is whether these machines are to blame. Along with this is talk about bikes simply being too light, too stiff and too fragile as well. None other than Ernesto Colnago has said "basta leggerezza, ci vuole sicurezza!" which roughly translates as "enough with the lightness, we need security" and he means surefootedness in the corners and on descents. Making up time on your rivals going uphill doesn't do much good if you just lose it going down the other side, or worse, crash when your bike loses contact with the road surface in a bumpy corner! So perhaps the cycle will come around again to bikes which aren't so light but ride and corner well? We'll see, which brings us to the photo of "Bugno" one of our standard rental bikes. He's been dialed in for Larry in this shot but the only "performance" modification not included on our standard rental fleet is his favorite Vittoria CX clinchers, here in a rather ugly grey rubber edition they market as "extreme" meaning (I guess) the gray rubber on the cornering areas adds extra grip for extreme conditions. They have the same nice ride as the standard black tread, brown sidewall version that is still Larry's favorite. These bikes are anything but light, though we have only the "hoisting it up onto the roof rack" test to go by, this Torelli Gran Sasso feels a fair amount heavier than our personal Mondonico-built Torelli's made from Columbus' NEMO tubing. But once the tires are on the ground and you're riding along, the weight's no longer something you feel, even climbing the Passo Fedaia or Passo Gavia - both were climbed by Larry on this bike this season. And going down the other side, the surefootedness leads to big fun as the roadholding of these bikes is unsurpassed. "Chairman Bill" did his homework with these (sadly, no longer produced) bikes and Larry will bring this one to Sicily to ride there as he thinks the triple crankset setup will be more versatile than the compact double his personal bike is currently setup with. These days Larry gets asked why he rides such a "heavy" bike -- he points to his rather ample middle section and replies that rather than optimized for going uphill, he prefers his bikes be optimized for going DOWN. As Andy Hampsten once said, "the only thing worse than racing uphill without a super-light climbing bike is racing down the other side WITH one!" That might be even more true today?

Legendary Climbs Finale

2011-07-15T18:47:00.000+02:00

Our final ride took us to the shrine and museum at Madonna del Ghisallo, in the tiny town of Magreglio above chic Bellagio. Here are some images from the chapel and museum. After pranzo at the local bar where the panini are named after cycling champions, it was a quick transfer back to Ariotto to pack bikes before our farewell dinner. Marina found some truffles to shave over our tajarin (pasta) and we enjoyed a few rare Monferrato wines. We'll have 2012 schedules and dates on the website soon so if you have not signed up for La Gazzetta dello CycleItalia, now's the time. See you next year!

Legends made, legends remembered

2011-07-12T18:07:00.000+02:00

Today our tappone included both the Passo Mortirolo and Gavia. Here's a shot of John at the Marco Pantani memorial on the Mortirolo climb. There's an inscription - "To you cyclists. To you passing by I ask only a small gesture, a little greeting, a little thought for this great man who liked to make us dream. Let's give homage to the Pirate! Let us remember that this is HIS climb, his peak, his way to make us experience emotions, true emotions, emotions we experienced only as children. He will never be forgotten."

The next shot is of Jack and Larry as they make their way up the Passo Gavia while another shows Larry `clowning around on a "motorcycle"....about as close as he gets to one these days. Finally there's a photo of the anniversary sign atop Passo Gavia. Tomorrow we're off to Lake Como and the shrine and museum at the Madonna del Ghisallo to complete our tour.

more Legends get made....

2011-07-11T15:32:00.000+02:00

Our tour continues - a photo of our little group (from left - Dave, Jackie, Larry, Jack, Rich and John) atop Passo Pordoi in front of the Coppi Monument as we leave the Dolomites - just before the "Maratona" invasion hits its peak. The other shot shows Heather relaxing on the Passo Stelvio climb. We're happy to report everyone made it to the top of the famous pass. We're in Bormio now, resting up for our tappone tomorrow - Passo Mortirolo and Gavia.

more Legendary Climbs...

2011-07-08T17:28:00.000+02:00

A montage of photos to catch us up a bit since last time. Morning on the Passo Campolongo and a shot of Larry and John alongside our van. Local sign advertising specialties of this mountain region while Heather and "Gianni" display a pretzel before devouring it at the rifugio atop Passo Valparola. The last shot is a cute weathervane atop Passo Giau. We escape the invasion of cyclists for Sunday's "Maratona delle Dolomiti" (and we mean INVASION, the roads are filled with cyclists here!) tomorrow via the Campolongo and Pordoi on our way over Passo Costalunga to our night's lodging overlooking the Trento valley.

Legendary Climbs of the Giro 2011

2011-07-05T22:05:00.000+02:00

Our little group poses atop the first climb of the tour, Passo Erbe. From left you can see Jackie, Rich Heather, Jack, Dave and John posing with the sign indicating the summit. From here it was just a quick descent to our hotel and a "cena ladina" complete with panicia (barley soup) buckwheat ravioli filled with wild game in a butter and juniper sauce, then a pork roast done alla "fiena" (hay) with an apple cake for dessert. Fueled up for tomorrow we tumbled into bed dreaming of Passo Furcia and the fearsome Tre Cime di Lavaredo, part of tomorrow's route to Cortina.

Sardegna Wrap-Up

2011-07-03T17:35:00.000+02:00

A few last gorgeous images from our first Sardegna Coast to Coast to Coast tour. End-of-trip evaluations were all positive and 2012's edition is scheduled for June 20-28. At top is a shot of just how clear the water actually is here, while the second shot shows Sally, Heather and Dave enjoying popsicles while the last one shows Antonio ready to dive in to his plate of spaghetti with lobster in Alghero. We hope you can join us next year!

More Sardegna...

2011-06-29T14:36:00.000+02:00

We're on the "other" coast of Sardegna now, in Alghero. Today we enjoyed a ride on one of the most beautriful stretches of coastline we've ever seen, the road south to Bosa. Heather and Steve pose on their way back through Alghero. We'll dine on rock lobster tonite in the old town before we head back to the east coast tomorrow. We'll stop along the way at a lovely agriturismo and dine on some inland Sardinian specialties, including the famous roast suckling pig, "porceddu".

Sardegna - Coast to Coast to Coast

2011-06-26T18:36:00.000+02:00

Here are some scenes from our first-ever tour in Sardegna. Sally welcomes Dave back from a warmup ride around the Costa Smeralda while Steve enjoys cycling by the sea. The other photo is of an insalata rustica some of our enjoyed as part of our lavish welcome dinner. The first plates were excellent as well, with a tasty fresh tomato sauced mezza maniche with pecorino cheese and a seafood fregula. Second plates included a baked fish dish as well as a variation on eggplant parmigiano. Tonite's dinner near Castelsardo will be almost totally fish-based --as we can see the sea from our hotel rooms! More soon...

Taste of Piedmont 2011 Finale

2011-06-24T17:14:00.000+02:00

Most of our little group poses here before our final day of riding. We had a great lunch at Tre Colli midway, then returned via the van when the skies started to weep. We were sad to see this week end so perhaps the skies were as well? We wrapped things up with another sumptuous dinner at Hotel Ariotto and enjoyed a slide show prepared by Claudia while sipping caffe and grappe.

Thanks to Angie, Jason, Steve W, Max and Claudia and Steve F for the company. Now we're off to Sardegna Coast to Coast to Coast.

And now, for something completely different...

2011-06-23T07:44:00.000+02:00

Here's a photo of a real Italian pizza. We took a night off from classic piemontese cooking to treat our guets to what for many, was their first taste of a genuine Italian pizza. On a scale of authenticity, 10 being pizza made within 50 miles of its creation in Napoli and 0 being the frozen, cardboard pies sold in the USA or the awful, "pizza-like substance" sold by pizza chains advertising on TV (stuffed crust, a whole pound of cheese!, meat lovers, etc.) these are around a 7 on the scale, but close to a 10 if you've never been down to Napoli. We headed off to a gelato shop afterwards for another "first" for many, true Italian gelato. We'll dine at the hotel's Ristorante della Villa tonight for our farewell celebration.

More tasting in Piedmont

2011-06-21T15:34:00.000+02:00

A caffe stop on our shorter, flatter ride route today. Some of our guests are eager new converts to true ITALIAN espresso while others have discovered "caffe freddo" (cold coffee) at the bars. Even a small group of foreign cyclists showing up at a tiny, local bar like this create a bit of excitement for the towns people. We continued on to San Salvatore Monferrato to another bar where we ordered up some beer and sandwiches while the local men eyeballed the details on everyone's bicycle while we ate. Not much chance of your bike being stolen when a semi-circle of men surround it and discuss your component and gearing choices! We'll head off tonight for pizza and birra.

Taste of Piedmont 2011

2011-06-20T19:03:00.000+02:00

We just couldn't NOT have a Piedmont tour in 2011 so we offered a guided version of the fixed-base, 5-night self-guided tour and threw in all the dinners just to make a special value for 2011. To our delight we have Max and Claudia, Jason and Angie and Steve here with us now. We're combining pedala forte and mangia bene as you can see here with a photo of our Italian "sister" Marina shaving the truffles over our risotto last night and some of us burning off a few of those calories climbing the hills of Monferrato. In many ways this is an overlooked region as serious wine fans swarm all over Barolo and Barbaresco country, leaving Monferrato pretty much untouristed...and unspoiled.

A day "off"

2011-06-17T10:28:00.000+02:00

A full day to play yesterday, no commitments until today when we pick up some early arrivals for Taste of Piedmont. What did we do on our day "off"? Slept in a bit, then took the bikes out for a loop of the Monferrato vineyards. We'd ridden past a little eatery in the tiny town of Cuccaro hundreds of times, with "one of these times we need to come past here for lunch" being said most every time. Heather planned a route that would have us here midday so off we went under warm temps, blue skies and puffy clouds. We didn't even bring along a camera! After a relaxing tour of Montemagno, Castagnole Monferrato, Fubine, and other tiny wine towns we rolled up to "Risto Pub Vineria Stefania Porrati" to find some folks enjoying lunch, but no sign of the proprietor. Eventually Carlo showed up and we asked about a fresh salad.....he pointed to the huge bowl on the table of the other diners and indicated all the salad was gone. When he found us less than enamored with a simple panino, he suggested a salad made with his "own" greens from the garden, cicoria. He explained it's a bit tart and pulled a bag out of the cooler. Heather grabbed a leaf and decided it would make a fine salad for our lunch. Carlo proposed adding some peppers, carrots and chunks of ham and cheese to complete it and we eagerly agreed. He soon came back with two bowls of salad and some crusty bread to go along with our cold, fizzy mineral water and glasses of "vino bianco fresco". The perfect lunch on a warm day, especially when finished with a local chocolate morsel and an excellent espresso. After refilling our water bottles we had just another 20 kms to ride before arriving back at Hotel Ariotto. These are the kinds of days we take for granted too often as "just another day in paradise" but this one made us pause to consider just how fortunate we are to be able to combine our business with such pleasure.

Meanwhile, in the world of academic publishing...

2011-06-15T16:47:00.001+02:00

We dropped our outgoing Vineyards to the Sea clients off at the airport this morning and have a few days to prepare for the arrival of those joining us for Taste of Piedmont. Meanwhile, the latest fruits of Heather's non-CycleItalia labors have hit the publishing world. Here's the link to her latest book
http://www.remote-sensing.routledge.com/books/details/9780415669504/

From vineyards to the sea...

2011-06-13T14:57:00.000+02:00

Here you can see Heather posing as we ride above the famous Cinque Terre on the Ligurian coast. Skies cleared though it's stayed cool for the past few days. We'll enjoy another seafood dinner tonite along with rare Ligurian white wines before our last ride tomorrow -- back up the steep mountainsides to a pizzeria for a quick lunch before our van transfer back to Hotel Ariotto. After packing up bikes we'll toast the finale of the tour with a sumptuous feast at Ariotto's "Ristorante della Villa". We have a few days to prepare for the next tour, Taste of Piedmont though a few guests are arriving early to help get over the jet-lag.

A visit with Marenco

2011-06-11T17:44:00.000+02:00

Here's a photo of our little group at the Marenco wine-making operation. We used to come by quite often back when our Paradise in Piedmont itinerary included Asti but now we've added this route to Vineyards to the Sea. These folks make one of our favorite wines, Brachetto. They kindly offered us some tastes and snacks before we continued on to Liguria where, after some serious climbing, we arrived to enjoy some of the best pesto anywhere! The skies have also stopped dropping moisture on us to the relief of most everyone we spoke with along our routes. Too soon it seems we'll be on the coast and near the end of this tour!

Vineyards to the Sea 2011

2011-06-09T18:53:00.000+02:00

Ciao from Piemonte! We're on the vineyards part of of Vineyards to the Sea. We'll head into the steep Appennine mountains starting tomorrow on our way to the sea. Here you can see real, handmade "tajarin" (fresh egg noodles) we enjoyed for lunch on our way through the Asti hills, shown in the other photo. Our little group has bonded well, a nice mixture of old friends and new. Tonite we'll try a new (to us) SlowFood osteria nearby for dinner. We're keeping the ration of pedala forte and mangia bene just about perfect so far!

Meet the author, CycleItalia style

2011-06-04T19:28:00.000+02:00

We' ve longed for more English-language books about Italian bike racing, especially the Giro d'Italia for years. Our dreams came true in 2011 with not one but TWO great books about La Corsa Rosa! First there was Bill McGann's "The Story of the Giro d'Italia" Volume 1 and a real surprise, "Maglia Rosa" by British author Herbie Sykes. Since Herbie lives in Torino these days we contact him about a chance to meet. He kindly offered to meet us at our Monferrato HQ..as long as we had tea! A thoroughly delightful two hours of conversation ensued and we're looking forward to meeting up again in the future. Herbie graciously left us with a copy of his first book, "The Eagle of the Canavese". If you can't get your hands on these books any other way, contact us as we'd love to help you and these wonderful authors. Mille Grazie, Herbie!

New for 2012

2011-06-03T18:08:00.000+02:00

We're just back from completing a new itinerary for 2012. "Best of Piedmont" will feature, well, the best of our former Paradise in Piedmont itinerary, including three nights at Villa San Carlo. We'll begin and end the tour at Hotel Ariotto and in-between enjoy two nights at l'Ostelliere/Villa Sparina Tentative dates are June 11-19, 2012. We'll visit Castellania, birthplace of Fausto Coppi as always, as well as the Museum of Champions in Novi Ligure. We don't believe any other place on earth can rival the cycling, food and wine of Piedmont and this will truly be the best of all of them! We'll announce more details and pricing later this summer.

SPOILED ROTTEN!

2011-05-31T14:38:00.000+02:00

Our Northen Italian HQ, Hotel Ariotto

has us truly spoiled. Not only have they built a garage more or less just for us to use during the season, they included a place to park our vehicles and even wash them and the bicycles. "Heather and Larry Square" has been christened as you can see here with this little sign. They're currently constructing some apartments with the idea that we might rent one for periods during the year. This is truly "home" for us in Italy, looked after by our Italian Mamma and Babbo and brother Valerio and sister Marina. It really is "all in the family" here.

A day at the Giro d'Italia

2011-05-29T11:40:00.001+02:00

We had a great day at the Giro's final mountain stage. Though the overall victory was pretty much sewn up awhile ago, seeing the epic stage to Sestriere via the unpaved Colle Finestre was too tempting to miss. We've taken our clients over this pass a few times since its 2005 debut but this was our first time seeing the pros race over it. We drove up from our HQ to Susa, parked the van and jumped onto the bikes. The 19 km ascent was closed to everything except bicycles and people on foot so everyone you see in these photos got up there under their own power, including us. In the past we've climbed this at the end of our season with plenty of miles and climbs in our legs but this year was very different as we're lacking much in the way of form now. Our struggle was made easier by the amazing job the organizers did on the unpaved surface - watered and rolled smooth for the race and a LOT different from what we experienced in the past. Here are some photos of the promotional stuff Susa put up to welcome the race as well as some crowd shots and a race photo or two. This is the closest we've ever been to the racers as they came past us and looked down the valley to see their chasers below. Epic courses like this are what sets the Giro apart from the other big races and we hope the organizers ignore the whining of certain team directors and keep La Corsa Rosa the most beautiful of races, if not the biggest.

Larry has to add a plug for PezCyclingNews

as our friend Richard was atop the Finestre as we rode up. He's probably the guy "in the biz" who loves Italy and Italian cycling almost as much as we do and it not only shows in his website, but in the fact that he shows up all over Italy. We saw him last year atop the Poggio at Milano-San Remo.. We took a photo of Richard to show he made it up the climb (from the backside this time) but couldn't get the darn photo adjusted via the computer program to show him vertically! Sorry Richard, next time Larry will orient the camera correctly so we can show your smiling face!

Let the bike tour season begin!

2011-05-27T18:44:00.000+02:00

We are ready! After returning from Sicily we're back at Hotel Ariotto with a fully-prepped van ready to look after our guests. We couldn't do this nearly as well, or enjoy it as much without the help of Torelli, Campagnolo, Santini, Selle SMP, Sci-Con, Hibros and Vittoria shoes (who didn't send us any stickers this year) These nice folks and great friends supply us with their wonderful products. Before our tour season gets going in earnest we'll sneak off tomorrow to see the Giro's final mountain stage on the unpaved Colle di Finestre. More about that in the coming days.

And we have a winner......in our apartment search

2011-05-24T11:15:00.000+02:00

http://www.casedisicilia.com/eng/case/06/06.html

Was the winning entry in our "find an apartment for the winter" competition. It took almost a week and we must have looked at almost THIRTY apartments, but the winner only emerged on the final day! Before this we'd seen only the outside of this building but the landlord of our first choice, when we went to hand over the deposit and sign the papers, told us we could have this for the same price. Once we saw the inside it was, as they say, "a done deal" and we'll be back here in October to enjoy the off-season living for almost 8 months while Heather writes a few books...just like in Viterbo last year.

Siracusa-Ortigia

2011-05-21T22:06:00.001+02:00

The search for an apartment continues, though not without some time for fun. Some of these tiny "streets" (vicoli") are amazingly narrow, suitable for fishermen to get down to the sea with maybe a donkey cart -- but thankfully unsuitable for modern automobiles though there are more than a few obnoxious jerks with noisy scooters blasting around. The other photo is of the cannoli the nice guy at the cheese shop gave us as part of our shopping there. We bought two types of cheese along with some excellent fresh mozzarella, a chunk of spicy salami, some pickled vegetables and a bottle of wine, all for less than $20! Many things are more expensive there than in the US but good food is NOT one of them! We've narrowed things down to an extravagant choice on the seafront and a pragmatic one in the center of the town...but we have a couple more to see before we choose and complete the deal before we head back to the mainland and start our bike tours season.

Sicily

2011-05-18T19:37:00.001+02:00

Ciao from Sicilia! Heather has a sabbatical coming in the fall and we're planning on spending a few months here in Ortigia, a tiny island on the edge of Siracusa (Syracuse) so we're here looking for a suitable apartment. You can see the looking-around is very "difficult" under bright sunshine and glorious blue skies and water. The search for apartments continues for the next few days as we'd like to secure something before we head back up to Piedmont to prepare for the CycleItalia bike tour season.

Tires - more important than you think

2011-05-11T23:07:00.000+02:00

Watching today's Giro stage over the white roads of Umbria (the photo is of 2010's Strade Bianche event in Tuscany as we're not yet in Italy) made Larry think about tires, especially after reading the June 2011 issue of Velonews. Various editors tested 4 bikes in the "Endurance" category. These bikes are designed for the type of riding most of us do vs the cut-and-thrust of criteriums or dropping your rivals on an endless mountain climb. These used to be road racing bicycles before marketing baloney pushed that terminology and technology into a description meaning bikes you need a follow-car to enjoy and you'd better not venture onto anything less than glass-smooth pavement. Of course the pros do just that on these unpaved road sections, a throwback to the days of Coppi and Bartali, but if YOU want to do this, they want to sell you yet another bike. Besides the typical "laterally stiff but vertically compliant" claptrap, VN "tested" these bikes on a sort of vibrating machine to rate their bump-eating abilities. It wouldn't be a bad guess if you figured the bike company with the biggest ad budget's product "proved" to be best, but what was interesting was the mention that the worst bike in their "overall vibration results" category scored almost as high as the winner with nothing but a simple exchange of wheels! That's correct, just putting the wheels from the winning bike on the loser made them rate almost the same on their testing gizmo. The biggest single difference was tire size, 25 mm vs 23 mm. The VN boyz noted the loser "was unduly hurt by poor tire choice."

In a sidebar they offered some excellent advice - "when you want a more comfortable ride, put on bigger tires and go easy on the floor pump." How easy? Their vibration measuring gizmo went off the charts with any more than 90 psi in the tires.

What should you look for in a tire? The largest size that will fit on your bike is a good place to start. But you need to measure to be sure - the Torelli tire shown here is one of our favorites, a supple, high-thread count casing (120 tpi or more) lightweight folding bead and hand-made to boot! What we'd REALLY(hint to Todd at Torelli!) like is a larger size, as this "23 mm" measures just 22.5 mm when mounted on a Torelli Triumph rim. Larry's current favorite tire is Vittoria's CX Evo in the same 23 mm size -- but the actual tire on the same rim measures 23.3 mm, almost a full millimeter larger. Doesn't sound like much, but the larger air volume can be felt! If Torelli offered the same tire as in the photo but in a 24-25 size that would still fit on most modern bicycles, we think he'd have a winner! If it had the classic brown (or honey as Torelli calls it) sidewalls we'd chip-in on the development/molding costs! They could call it the TORELLI "Lorenzo" instead of Arezzo! It would be the new "official" tire of CycleItalia,, what do you think?

RIP Wouter Weylandt

2011-05-09T23:56:00.001+02:00

Here's a photo of Wouter winning Stage 3 of the 2010 Giro d'Italia. Sadly he lost his life today descending the Passo del Bocco while racing as a late replacement for Daniele Bennati. If you'd like to support Wouter's family with a donation, click here.

Giro d' Italia starts tomorrow!

2011-05-06T16:23:00.000+02:00

We have pink fever this time of year as the Giro gets started. We'll have to be content with live coverage via the internet for the first week, then catch the second via RAI TV while we're in Italy the second week (looking for a place to live for next year's sabbatical) before we see it live on the Colle Finestre on the penultimate day. Here's a shot of Heather on the stage back in 2007 and a shot of the monument atop Colle Finestre. The unpaved section is tough but the first (paved) half is in some ways more difficult!

Just a few weeks left...

2011-04-29T18:20:00.000+02:00

We'll be in Italy soon. Probably a bit early for summer truffles shaved over our risotto like our "Italian sister" Marina is doing in the video clip but we can dream anyway! If you've not yet reserved a place to join us in 2011 there are a few places left on selected tours so act fast, we'll save some truffles for you!

And the winner is.....

2011-04-19T20:50:00.000+02:00

The race was a tie! Two great books about the Giro d'Italia showed up at the same time at the posh, well-lit CycleItalia HQ. Bill and Carol McGann's The Story of the Giro d'Italia needs no introduction as we've blogged about it in the past but it's wonderful to see the finished product. The other book Maglia Rosa, turned out to be a pleasant surprise to us and to Bill and Carol! We've been in contact with author Herbie Sykes who lives in Torino, not too far from our HQ hotel in Italy and perhaps we'll meet this season if his schedule allows. Look for reviews of both of these books once Larry's finished reading them both.

Campagnolo in Rouleur Magazine

2011-04-14T20:01:00.003+02:00

Rouleur Issue 23 has Part One of a story on CAMPAGNOLO. We were lucky enough to visit the headquarters in Vicenza two times, but the story and photos in this issue are almost as great as being there! One of the things that first bonded "Harry & Leather" back in the late '80's was their mutual admiration and respect for the venerable Italian component company. (Disclaimer: Campagnolo is an official supplier to CycleItalia)

CycleItalia "schwag-o-rama"

2011-04-05T22:52:00.003+02:00

Like most folks, we LOVE to see our name in print! So much that we put it on a lot of stuff, a lot of which we give to our clients when they arrive in Italy. Here's what 2011 guided-tour guests will receive - on the left is a "Bottle Bubble" the perfect way to bring back that trophy bottle of wine in your checked luggage. Below is a special "Jersey-Bin" to keep your euros dry in your back pocket of the CycleItalia Jersey by Santini in the center of the photo. Below are the custom "Cue-Clip" to hold your map, samples of chamois creme from our friends at Hibros, a pair of custom socks and at right a cinch-sack/backpak to haul all the stuff away! We had 'em put a big white panel on it so you can write your name on it to keep track of your stuff in the van.

CycleItalia Workshop

2011-03-29T21:40:00.002+02:00

It's spring, though around here you wouldn't know unless you checked the calendar! A snowy morning made Larry think about cleaning up the workshop a bit and once it was all clean, why not take a photo or two? Here you see the workbench and tool board. We notice a lot of shops keep tools laying around on benches or stashed in drawers -- if you're going to work on bikes for a living Larry thinks you should let you customers know you have the tools (as well as the expertise) to take care of their needs. Having things up on the board makes it easy to find the exact tool and tell if something's missing. The shop wheel-building area's a bit less structured since the truing stand and other fixtures are often moved to gain a bit of room for various wheel-related tasks. White, while tougher to keep clean, reflects light better and is always our first choice when it comes to paint-schemes where visibility is important. Anything not covered with tools in our shop is covered with Giro and Tour memorabilia collected over the years.

The Story of the Giro d'Italia

2011-03-22T17:42:00.002+01:00

The Story of the Giro d'Italia by our friends Bill and Carol McGann is now available. Volume 1 anyway, as Bill and Carol are slaving away over Volume 2 as I type this. When "Chairman Bill" first told me he was moving to Arkansas (after selling Torelli Imports) to run his BikeRaceInfo website and write a history of the Tour de France, I pestered him to instead write the first English-language history of the Giro d'Italia, mostly for selfish reasons. I was additionally motivated by desire to share with Bill the contents of the CycleItalia library. We've collected Italian-language cycling books while in Italy for over 20 years and also have video records of the more recent Giro editions that are no longer available. I thought all of this could be put to good use and would be very helpful to Bill and Carol. They thanked me and continued work on The Story of the Tour de France which has been well received. Once it was done, they turned their attention to our beloved Giro and we not only made the contents of our library available, we continued to collect and send books to Bill as he worked diligently on this project so dear to us. Now you can read Volume 1 and learn the history of La Corsa Rosa. Bill captures the spirit of the race and shares our affection for it, which you can read here in a bit Larry wrote at Bill's request a few years ago. We're also waiting for another English-language book about the Giro...which one will make it to our mailbox first and stake the claim as the first? We'll know shortly!

Milano-San Remo and homemade ravioli

2011-03-20T16:23:00.010+01:00

A wonderful Saturday - tuned in Universal Sports webcast of Milano-San Remo (not quite as good as being there as we were last year of course!) in the morning and in the afternoon invited some friends over for a semi-annual ravioli-making party. Once 3-400 of the tasty pillows of dough were created by our team - Larry mixing and rolling out the dough with (shown here) Heather, Lillian and Brent inserting the fillings and doing the cutting and crimping, we retired to the posh CycleItalia living quarters to enjoy some well-deserved snacks. You can see some of our autographed jersey collection in the background - these are replica jerseys but the autographs are genuine - you can see Tour green from Sean Kelly, Giro pink from Gianni Bugno, two Tour yellows from Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond, plus the old combined points Tour jersey from Stephen Roche.

Tire wars: Clinchers vs Tubulars

2011-03-17T15:02:00.003+01:00

Larry noted an interesting passage in "We Were Young and Carefree" about Fignon's 1989 season. Fignon writes: "There was a new technical development available to us that year. At the System U team we had begun to use Michelin high-pressure covers (as in clinchers, Larry says) It was a kind of revolution. Tradition demanded that the thinnest possible tubular tires were used by the pros: 20 mm in general. And now, not only were we being given standard covers to ride, but Michelin asked us to use 23 mm section tires. Three millimeters sounds like nothing at all but it seemed impossible to us. We were not proud of them, and we didn't have confidence in them. Of course, the most advanced technicians from Michelin came to present the data on the issue. They were determined to prove to us that the amount of rubber that came into contact with the road didn't change even if the tire was a little wider: it would always be 8-9 mm. For them, the big change was elsewhere: how the tire reacted when the bike was cornering. They assured us there would be more tire in contact with the tarmac so it would hold the road better. During our first training sessions on the tires the problem was in our heads rather than anywhere else. The size of the tire seemed 'large' so we felt they were slowing us down. Then we raced the Tour du Haut Var. It was the best possible weather for testing the tires: it lashed down with rain all day. And miracle of miracles, on the descents, using the tires we were leaving everyone else behind. No one could keep up, they couldn't even hold our back wheels. It was fantastic, the roadholding was exceptional and here was a considerable technical advance. As far as rolling resistance went the difference was actually minimal and they were definitely more stable."
Very interesting comments from a guy who, at the time he wrote this, had nothing to gain by extolling the virtues of these tires. Heather was sponsored by a team supplied by Michelin a few years before this -- the riders on this team thought the same thing in the beginning and only after the team boss forbade them racing on anything else did all of them start to experience the characteristics of these tires. Michelin also sponsored the Carrera Team of Claudio Chiappucci and the Gatorade Team of Gianni Bugno. We witnessed the wet weather cornering superiority during a wet Giro stage as "El Diablo" repeatedly dropped his companions on a twisty descent,just as Fignon described. We also spoke to a Gatorade mechanic to find out if they really were using these tires rather than some tubulars badged as Michelin clinchers -- we met Marco at the team truck and saw him mounting the tires - clincher rims, inner tubes, NO GLUE! He, as a mechanic was especially enthusiastic since he could just install the tires, no mess and no waiting for glue to dry before the wheels could be used. It truly was a revolution - one that Larry was slower to adopt than Heather, sticking with "tried-and-true" tubulars until the cost of decent-quality examples became onerous. Once he switched he never went back, after finding the performance claims to be true. A few years later we spoke to a Michelin rep who told us of how they, who also owned the Wolber tubular tire concern, would quietly supply Banesto's "BigMig" with clincher wheels for the big TdF mountain stages, where his tubulars would shift on the rim as the glue softened under braking heat, leaving an annoying lump at the valve stem. On these most-crucial stages with the harrowing descents, Mig trusted these CLINCHERS rather than the old-school tubulars!
You might wonder about the current pros -- why have they gone back to tubulars if clinchers are so good these days? Think about these facts -- with the clincher now accepted by most cyclists, there's no reason for the makers to pay teams to use them as they did back in the late '80's or early '90's. Second, tubular wheels are still lighter, especially when made from carbon fiber, a material which does not work very well in a clincher shape. Third, all riders fear a flat tire coming off the rim at high speed. While this is extremely rare, a tubular, since it's glued onto the rim, has far less chance of coming off.
If, as a pro team boss you get whatever tires you want at no charge as well as the wheels while no clincher company is paying out more sponsorship monies than the tubular folks, plus YOU don't have to glue on the tires yourself (someone else gets to deal with that mess) and you'd prefer not to worry at all about losing a star rider for the season due to a crash from a tire coming off as a result of a flat (though tubulars roll off the rim from high cornering loads while fully inflated now and then) I think you'd pick the tubulars too.
If none of this applies to you, I think you'd choose the clinchers, as the vast majority of us (even the stubborn traditionalists like Larry) do these days.
(FTC disclaimer: Heather likes Michelins, Larry likes Vittorias and we both use Torelli's "open tubulars" (clinchers) as well as they are an official supplier to CycleItalia.

"We Were Young and Carefree"

2011-03-15T18:13:00.003+01:00

Recently finished reading this autobiography of Laurent Fignon, famous rival to Greg LeMond in the late '80's and early 90's. Larry was never a fan of Fignon but respected his independent spirit and ability on the bike since before he saw the epic Tour de France battle of 1989 play out live in France, only the second "Grand Boucle" he'd followed around France up to that time. This book recounts much more than that however, even a cycling fan as old as Larry learned a few interesting facts he'd not previously known - for example, Fignon claims to have started the first truly independent pro cycling team (along with Cyrille Guimard the legendary coach) as in THEIR company, Maxi-Sports, assembled the team and controlled the expenditures while "selling" the advertising benefits to the Systeme U supermarket company. Cycling teams in France had previously been controlled (as with their previous Renault squad) by the sponsors who spent the money, hired the staff and controlled the program 100% as their own entity. Another interesting technical tidbit will be covered in a future posting but overall, this is an interesting book, whether you were a cycling fan during Fignon's career or came along later when BigTex hit the big time.

La Gazzetta dello CycleItalia

2011-03-12T19:47:00.002+01:00

The newest issue of our electronic newsletter, La Gazzetta dello CycleItalia was emailed today! If you're not yet signed up for La Gazzetta, here's the link for the archives. Sign up for future editions by clicking here, then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the sign up details.

Rocks...lot's of 'em!

2011-03-05T03:55:00.004+01:00

Today was a day to play "offroad" so we loaded the ancient MTB's in the car and drove north of Moab to the "M & M Trail" loop, described by Ashley at the Chile Pepper Bike Shop as a great ride for old folks who got into mountain bikes BEFORE there was any more suspension than the fat tires. We grew tired of bumping our old 26" wheeled hardtails over the slickrock, trying to avoid endoing, so we wanted something more mellow. Though a bit short, this trail had great riding and great views as you can see here. THANKS ASHLEY! Tomorrow we'll ride the road bikes along the Colorado River road on our last day here. Sunday morning we'll hit the road for the (we hope) thawing-out plains of Iowa.

SPRING BREAK!

2011-03-02T03:11:00.002+01:00

Heather's college scheduled "spring break" a bit early this year -- too early to return and sponge off the in-laws to enjoy more riding on the California Riviera. So what else could we do to escape the winter in Iowa? We'll be in Italia soon enough so Moab, Utah got the nod. We were able to visit some family in Denver along the way and stop by a Whole Foods for some groceries as well to stock up the condo for the week. Larry picked up some sort of bug in Denver (bad Chinese food?) so today's the first day we got outside -- riding on the new bike trail the nice Moab folks built (including this wonderful bridge over the Colorado River you see Heather posing upon) up towards the turnoff for Dead Horse Point. We got a bit of a workout on the brief (thankfully!) 7% grade before turning back to the condo. We grilled up some marinated mahi-mahi we scored at Whole Foods and enjoyed some fish tacos along with some Dead Horse beer. Larry's feeling better so we hope to play with the MTB's a bit too before the week is over.

CAMPAGNOLO

2011-02-24T19:17:00.003+01:00

Larry was looking for something on the bookshelves in the CycleItalia office and came across a pair of blank hub forgings we received as a gift during a visit to Campagnolo srl in Vicenza many years ago. Charlie Hancock was the marketing guy back then and he kindly also gave us a rare copy of Gianni Brera's "The Giant and the File" a biography of Tullio Campagnolo and his famous company. Also in the photo is our copy of the Campagnolo book issued to commemorate their 75th Anniversary and our last remaining supply of their famous Olio 08-TH which sadly is no longer available. We use this like a REAL Italian balsamic vinegar, the kind that's aged for decades -- VERY SPARINGLY! It's all posed on a pair of CycleItalia coveralls, sort-of copies of the ones sported by Italian team directors back-in-the-day.

(FTC Disclaimer: Campagnolo is an official supplier to CycleItalia)