BAC Green Roads Of Tuscany 2009

I didn’t take any photos on the road today. This doesn’t happen very often, but it did today. I was concentrating on riding. There were some good photo ops, but nothing epic. As John Benson (my brother-in-law) likes to say, “If you’ve seen one (you name it) you’ve seen them all”. Or was that Ronnie Reagan?

It turns out that I was the only one that did the “long” option today. It added some additional climbing past some hilltop villages. One of them was Petrolo which advertised itself as being the original terra cotta village. I’m not sure what that means. It was a picturesque village, though. It was getting pretty warm climbing to it, but once I got past it I rode through some tree-line lanes that gave me lots of shade.

There were lots more ups and downs until I reached Buonconvento, a town we stayed in a few days ago. I had lunch at da Mario where we ate when we stayed there. Spaghetti pomodora tasted good and it was filling enough that I had energy for the next leg of the ride but not too filling to slow me down. Before I ate, I stopped at the Coop and bought bananas and a power drink. I saved the bananas for later, but I chugged the drink. I saw Stacie and Alan there. They were on their way out and confirmed that I was the last rider on the route.

There was a short, wicked climb out of Buonconvento. In general, though, the climbs today were not very steep. They were more like rollers – some of them were long rollers. I saw Neal leaving Vescovado and rode with him for a short time. I caught up with Stacie and Alan who were stopped at a turn trying to find a dirt road to ride on. They were looking for a shortcut.

As I was approaching San Rocco a Pilli, I could see Siena in the distance at the top of its hill. The towers of the churches were very obvious.

Riding into San Rocco a Pilli, I stopped at a gelateria to cool down and to get some instant energy. (I had a 1k downhill to the hotel). I ordered a large cup with mixed citrus, mixed wild berries and lemon. Yummy! It got me all of the way down to the Hotel Castello.

I’m in the same room as before. It’s a small but adequate single. There was a mix up of reservations here so some of our group were staying at a nearby villa with a swimming pool. I could hardly wait to hear the stories. (The villa is not that great. Or maybe that is the story to make the rest of us feel better).

Pizza Party

After cleaning up, I took my laptop to a room off of the lobby where Dave bought me a beer and I let him check his email. This was a wonderful trade off for me.

After Happy Hour on the terrace, we had a pizza party in the dining room. We split up into tables of six and ordered four pizzas per table. I was in the anchovy group. We had to look very closely to see any anchovies on our pizza. The pizza was OK. It was nothing like pizza in Naples or in Sicily.