La Palina…(The Scoop, of gelato of course).

Back in February we decided that we would love to try and go to Italy again this summer. A helpful United Airlines ticket agent managed to get us free tickets on miles and the deal was clinched. Our last bike trip to Italy was completely self-supported, a point-to-point journey from Rome to Florence; this go-round we decided to try something different. It still needed to be biking related but maybe more racing related. Pat Carroll of VeloVeneto had helped some with our planning of our first trip and his camp near the foothills of the Dolomites fit our needs perfectly.

At the camp we train during the week AND race the local UDACE races on the weekends. In order to get a license for the UDACE races you need to be a member of a local, Italian team. While here, the dots and Spidy kits have been are closeted and we’ll be racing for VeloVeneto.

So here we are, enjoying the Italian countryside from a bicycle, getting in good training miles and looking forward to racing both days this weekend.

Our typical weekdays are: breakfast, ride, gelato, lunch, nap or x-word puzzles or read, dinner, sleep. We’re almost over the jet lag so we may get out in the afternoon and explore some of the cute towns we’ve blasted through on our bikes.

In our first three days here we’ve ridden about 150 miles. Monday was a flattish spin through a couple of local towns, the ‘canal’ ride to locals. Tuesday was the Vineyard ride along beautiful single lane roads up and down through the Proseco vineyards outside of town. Many teams train in this region and we have been blown away by the number of off the beaten track backcountry roads.

Today, we did the climb to Foza. We started with a 25 K cruise out of town over to the small town of Valstagna which is the start of the climb up to Foza. The road winds through 21 hairpin turns up steep granite hills gaining 900 meters over 12 Km and ends in some beautiful alpine valleys. At the top we traversed the hilltop and descended another twisty road back to the Fume Brenta (river). Riding along the river for a while brought us back to Valstagna and we made our way home. Total ride distance 105 K which we completed in just under 4 hours of riding time. The climb was similar in profile to Mt. Diablo. As we neared the top, Paul, a longtime racer who has raced in several continents reminded us that this ride is on his top-10 lists of rides ‘in the world’ (and he meant that). Our respect has become even deeper for Pro-Tour racers (and even for age-grouper Joe (or shall we say Gilberto) -Schmoe) as he commented that the climb we did today is one of the easiest of climbs you find in local road races. Today we were barely in the foothills of the Dolomites and it was an awesome climb. Next week we hit the real-deal.

For the rest of the week we’ll be doing a little race prep—speedwork and leadouts on Thursday and the local coffee-shop ride on Friday. I guess Friday’s ride goes something like Cole to Danville Peets, with the addition of gelato and stronger espresso. When we first arrived, we looked around this tiny town stoplight-less town, and wondered whether riding and recovering would be enough to keep us busy. After only 3 days of hard riding, the afternoons spent napping, doing the Daily Herald’s x-word, and updating the blog seem like just enough excitement to ready us for another meal and its obligatory bottle of Vino Rosso. And that’s where we’re off to now…

More Photos here.