Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Want to grab lunch in Pisa?

Phew, I need pizza. Today I rode to Pisa with Mario (my German buddy) then down along the coast to Livorno (beautiful) and we parted ways and I went generally east (I had had a town in mind but promptly forgot the name as I was leaving Livorno...) I rode southeast for awhile and at like 80k out decided it was about time to start making progress again northwards. Phew. So I started heading generally north, and (after a gelato/coke stop) eventually got myself to a point where I could see on my (featureless except my path on a blank slate) Garmin map that Lucca seemed to be on the other side of these mountains I was staring at. Awesome.

I'd wanted to do some leg-breaking, so though I had finally started picking up "Lucca" signs, I headed away from the Lucca signs and up the mountain. I came to this amazing town, Buti, and as I was climbing through, my path merged with another cyclist (like on a sexy bike and in spandex cyclist) and so I asked him (I think) if Lucca was that way. He seemed to affirm that is was, but that path was molto "salida(sp?)". I figured he meant steep and awful, which was perfect for me.

So 10k and 800m of elevation later we got to the top. It was AMAZING. It was apparently the Monte Serra mountains we crossed, and starting the descent, we could look over the side and see all of the eastern Tuscan plain and then a short while later, look to the west and see to the sea. Unbelievable.

After a terrifying descent, I got down and made my way across to Lucca and now am here, showered, and about to go find pizza and somewhere to wash my clothes. Awesome.

But seriously, 115k of flat/rolling, then a leg-eating 10k climb (that was apparently part of the Giro D'Italia 3 or 4 years ago), then a descent and like 20v into Lucca for a total of like 146km. Holymoly.

4 comments:

LindsayBird said...

woah, salida! sounds like you had a fun bike ride today! -And was this dude really german, Mario? or maybe he affected a name appropriate to the country as he did his tour?
I am keenly jealous of those mountain and mountaintop views (um, but not the corresponding climbs)...I miss the mountains in PA and those are sometimes rudely referred to as hills. Shoot, and you get the seas in the picture, too. nice. Anywho, good updating as always. and dont get over-gelati'd, your discriminating palatte and I are definitely going to have to find some good(ish) place for it in austin when you get back

LindsayBird said...

ps, to ease communication, i know you might not be thinking in english anymore :), i switched to your definition of fun from mine

Yorek said...

Justin, you are my HERO!!! That's some crazy riding you're getting in man. I'm so very excited to be back there with Team Hump. As for myself, there is an "interest" of sorts that I'll have to tell you about later, and I'm running about 70 mpw and riding only about 100 or so miles. Gettin, gross fit though! You are going to kick my ass, when I get back down there on the bike!

justin said...

Yeah, I'm running like 0 mpw, so you'll probably outrun me, Derek. Today was a really short day on the bike of 2.5h.

And Lindsay, I just thought of an awesome plan! You should come to the Team Hump training camp here and get a moped and then motorpace us all around! How fun would that be?!?!? The best, I think.