(It’s worth your time to visit the Tour of Suisse website because I’m that handsome devil leading the pack. Good work ToSuisse webmaster!)

Perhaps you’re now wondering how does one occupy a day off the bike here in Girona. Or maybe you’re not wondering that at all, and if so then just click on this link and watch this highly entertaining video.

The morning routine involves making coffee, some reading, and a vigorous half hour of core, stretching, and getting limber in order to vigorously tackle the day ahead. With that out of the way, I visited the local Red Market. This is among central pillars of town and a magnet for locals, tourists, and everyone in between. I’m all the more entertained when I therefore Google “red market Girona” and find that iamtedking.com provides the first three hits. Internet victory!

Stone fruit is currently KILLING IT. (Translation: stone fruit is very much in season) So these first three days on the Continent have been spent buying and consuming peaches of all varieties, nectarines, apricots, and cherries. Then more peaches.

Interacting with the local old lady vendors is a fun exercise and I generally want to leave every conversation by giving these mujers a high five. But I don’t. Instead I then decide that I want to take a picture of all the heads of animals I see in the market. Just a reminder, this “Red Market” is primarily vending fruit, vegetables, seafood, spices and frutas secas, meat, poultry, and so forth. Each station sticks to what it knows, so there are some veggie only sections, fruit only, fruit and veg, red meat, all meat, dairy, etc. But the local red meat dealer isn’t going to be selling fresh figs just as the spice lady isn’t going to sell lamb. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but now you know.

Back in America with the exception of lobster, we pretty much never see the heads of the protein we’re eating. In fact, lobster is a two-fer since we virtually never see the animal alive so close to consumption time and even more rarely do we kill the animals themselves. To me (and presumably most of the world) there’s something off-puttingly sterile about that. If you’re going to eat an animal, you may as well be at least mildly invested in it. You should know that it was once a living, breathing creature, and is contributing – voluntarily or otherwise – to the circle of life. To YOUR circle of life no less. Anyway, here are a collection of heads from today.

Returning home and having eaten most of the fruit in my satchel en route, I then gave myself a hair cut. Heading to a bike race with recently shortened hair is my psychological advantage. Having not won a race in a while, maybe I need to up the ante and shave my head or look for a new psychological advantage. More reading ensued and then it was time to venture back into town for a few more checks on the To-Do list. Two postcards written and one cappuccino later (why my cappuccino says “ONE” is beyond me)…

…I then went to the Vodafone store and recharged my Spanish cell phone with twenty Euros worth of pre-paid-goodness. What normally should have taken 45 seconds turned into a 45 minute trip because there’s something wanky with my phone. Forgive me, but it’s a Blackberry so wankiness is the least of what I would expect. That said, considering this entire interaction took place in Spanish AND the fact that it was ultimately resolved makes this a successful trip.

It’s funny, if this were an example of my day in America I surely would consider it frustratingly slow. The relative inefficiency of the European market as compared to the simple and ginormous American supermarket, and the near hour it took to resolve the issue at Vodafone would drive me bonkers if the Atlantic were to my east. But there’s something charming about it in Europe. Or maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic entirely too proud of my rudimentary dozen-years-removed-from-high-school-level Spanish.

On the trip home for lunch, I went to the clothes store. I can’t tell you how badly I wanted this hat. Actually I can: I wanted it, but not badly enough to buy it. Plus I’m not very good at cricket.

Lunch time! With altogether too much pasta on the horizon at a week-long bike race, I decided that a protein and iron rich lunch was in store. Below you will find a nice cut of steak (fairly central), a pair of petite livers — one rabbit and one chicken (resting on the fork and to the right and hidden underneath), beets two ways (chopped to the left and that shredded pickled kind in the foreground), mushrooms (central and far away), black tomatoes (right). T’was divine.

Not much else to report. I’ve written about 45 emails today, researched real estate back stateside, did laundry, Skyped with some friends, considered starting to pack, watched the tail end of a bike race, watched the end of Argo, and thought long and hard about the avocado and banana recipes as found here. Post Tour of Suisse recovery food? I think so. It’s nearly 4pm, so this being Spain I still have half the day ahead of me.

Best news of the day is that I found maple syrup here in Girona in my first attempt looking for it on this return trip. Canadian. Sure it’s not New England’s liquid gold, but it’s extracted exclusively from a tree and therefore entirely worthy. Better yet, it’s C-grade, which I’m yet to have ever seen in America. Coincidentally it’s also arguably the best since it’s thick like warm molasses and the color of used motor oil. Ironically C-grade is dirt cheap by American standards while in America. Yet probably ten times the price it would be in America when you buy it here in Spain. It reasons as much since it surely costs a lot to ship thick motor oil across the Atlantic.

If this doesn’t make you happy or hungry or want to visit Spain… then dang, I don’t think we can be friends.

Adios amigos!

Here’s the nutshell visual summary of the TK Tour of the Homeland:

It included an all too typically brief swing through my favorite home state of New Hampshire, then onto Colorado for two weeks of glorious altitude/friends/family/focus/…and just a little bit of Kim and Jake’s Glacier ice cream to maintain sanity and adequate blood sugar before setting off to California and the Tour of aforementioned state. A week of racing, my best Tour of California to date, and two stage wins later I then stuck around NorCal for a few more days since I had the hospitably from amazing friends happily putting me up. How do I know they were happy to host? Because upon arrival, this massive and culinarily eclectic gift basket awaited me, full of both my obvious and more obscure favorites. Sure sure, everyone likes corn salsa plus Quinoa & Black Bean Tortilla Chips, but only a few people know that I like garlic pickles, canned salmon (…don’t hate it until you’ve tried it. You eat canned tuna, right? Wild Alaskan salmon is delish, healthier, more omega-3s, less mercury, and is clearly twice as interesting), and roasted honey sesame almonds among other treats.

As if that basket wasn’t enough — and let’s be honest, it has avocados and organic black beans so it’s clearly plenty — I also had the distinct privilege to dine at The French Laundry. I’ve found it difficult to put this meal to words when describing it ex post facto. So I won’t even bother doing it here now, besides saying it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and simply ethereal.

One week later and a new venue for the USPro championships found me in Chattanooga, TN. I’ve spent more than my share of time in the majority of very cool American cities and towns and am happy to report that I adore Chattanooga. I’ve swung through during a 2006 Priority Health training camp — coincidentally, the same time and place when I started this here website — I loved it then, and the town has only improved the past half dozen years. It’s a very forward thinking city with fiber optic cable intertwined all throughout town, has a collection of superb restaurants and pubs, is environmentally conscious, is drawing some major corporate players to town as exhibited by the new VW plant, plus it has southern manners and charm in spades.

All that plus a beautiful skyline… which would mean even more if you’ve spent time here. And if not, there exist trio of parallel bridges in town and this is the central of the three that is a converted rail bridge-turned-pedestrian and bicycle lane. Then you can see the sharp angles of the aquarium and then the minor league baseball park to the right. I’m sure my views are slightly skewed with the more mild than average temperatures this late spring weekend. If I was suffering through stifling heat, I might have more colorful words to describe ChattanooOOooOOoooga (oh, plus it’s fun to spell). But as is, I loved it.

Oh, plus there was a bike race. Actually four of them! I didn’t bother racing the women’s time trial, nor women’s road race, neither did I participate in the men’s time trial. But the men’s road race throughout downtown Chattanooga, then up and over Lookout Mountain four times made for a nice afternoon of bicycle racing. I won’t delve into race analysis here, mostly cause I don’t want to. I made the front group that was sprinting for the win. At 17 riders, it was bigger than one might have expected. But this being a national championship race on a brand new course, it’s truly anyone’s guess how it will ultimately unfold. If I had to characterize how the race went into a single word, I’d call it selfish. Again, that’s the nature of national championship racing. And my absolute hat’s off to Alex Hagman. Freddie Rodriguez too, since he won the race, but Alex rode an exceptionally un-selfish race and allowed Fred to take advantage of that opportunity. I hope he bought you a bottle of vino. Or Tennessee whiskey or Dr. Pepper or whatever.

A further thank you goes out to all the fans, the chalk-on-road drawers, the bakers, the feed zone personnel, the mechanics, the friends, the staff, and sponsors who made this event a success. I offer you a heartfelt thank you.

A professional cyclist’s life is some nebulous amalgamation of business and pleasure. (Well, that is assuming said cyclist is not so jaded and far removed from reality that (s)he still enjoy riding a bike. I love riding my bike — as I say, when it’s good, it’s great.) So with the Tour of California and nationals done and dusted and therefore the business end of my trip out of the way, it was time to soak up the last few days in Americana. So from Chattanooga, I was off to Boston’s Ride Studio for the Burrito’s Not Bombs — the Tim Johnson Ride on Washington Reunion and (ahem) better yet, the world freakin’ premier of the 200 Not On 100! You know that there is nothing but good things are in store when Ryan Kelly is signing autographs…

…there’s an Airstream sized/shaped burrito fake driven by the three amigos…

…and Allagash tastily supporting the event for our thirsty friends as well as Richard Fries emceeing the event.

For serious now, if you haven’t seen it, pop a seat and watch it now. Cause she’s a beaut.

And besides ardent procrastination of packing for my mid-season return to Europe, what better way does one wring the full extent of fun out of a trip like this? Naturally, slay the Green Mountains in a mega training day.

This photo below does about one-tenth the justice to the absurd 18% wall we’re climbing in sopping dirt. You’ll find this gem of a road (or slip and slide mud course) around km 80, if you feel like retracing my tracks.

It was right around hour four that we saw a place literally called, “Mom and Pops Maple Sugar Shed”. We first rode by it, but then better judgement set in and we quickly flipped a U-ie. So wonderfully hokey and so maple sugary sweet. One ingredient here folks, maple syrup. Corn Syrup Association of America be damned!

Here’s what $4 buys you: a palm sized, maple syrup’y trip atop Brandon Gap.

And now that you’re up to speed I’m now terribly jet lagged. I’m sleepy. My head aches a little bit and my feet hurt a little bit more. I’ll therefore leave you with a modeling shot inside the Boloco burrito Airstream. Ted, Tim, and Ryan spewing style.

Thanks for reading. If you made it this far, I encourage you to go to Boloco and buy yourself a recovery burrito. And an Allagash Curieux.

After an all too speedy but successful swing through New England after the spring Classics of which you can see the highlights in this brief photo essay, I hopped aboard a plane bound for the crisp, thin air of Colorado.

Tour of California is next on the racing horizon, so an amalgamation of friends, family, and ample New England training in late April provided me the opportunity to press-and-hold what I call the Life Reset button. Thoroughly brought back up to speed on life, backed mail, and bills, plus it brought me here to the Centennial State. The first few days upon Coloradan touchdown, I was with my aunt and uncle, with whom I lived briefly back in 2001 when I had a few months of relaxing, outdoorsy reprieve before starting college. So not exactly parents to me, they’re superb people whom I know and love and like to pretend to call my three-months surrogate parents. Back then in aught-one, I soaked up the mountain life and continued to cement Colorado in my mind as an excellent place to someday call home — that is, when I hang up my bike and move more permanently out of my suitcase. Ahh, someday…

So now thoroughly lost in the time warp that I’ve unfolded to you above, fast forward to last week, the weather was stellar here in Colorado those first few days, the training was stunning as testament to my laser precise tan lines, which had previously long been hidden by the arctic freeze across Europe all spring. Here I am soaking in natural excellence near the very top of Flagstaff.

This being spring in Colorado, they’ve already received their standard alternating snowy dump/beautiful weather/blizzard/stunning weather that’s characteristic of this area the past month or two. Thinking that this was now out of the system — especially with the last storm less than a week ago dropping a foot of snow in Boulder — it came to some as a surprise that there was another big’n in the forecast.

Because it’s been so frigging freezing across Europe the previous six months, I finally had my first hard effort amid 70 degree heat which resulted in acidic sweat burning my eyes. It hurt so good. So that happened one day and then I woke up to this the next day. Please note Timmy front and center out for a morning hunt with Karli:

Let me toss in the reminder that this is Colorado Awesoming, so how does one make limeade from these limes? I hung out with my cousins by road tripping it to Denver to speak to my cousins’ 2nd and 3rd grade class. It’s hilarious speaking to really well versed seven and eight year olds as found here in the fittest state in the nation, Colorado. For example, when one of these adorable kiddos politely raises his hand when I am telling the crew about the “Tour of Colorado” by correctly explaining that it’s the “USA Pro Cycling Challenge”… now that’s a kick.

Cousin Billy, with his radical bleach streaked hair and his ear to ear grin, is just a little bit stoked that he got to bring me to school for Show-and-Tell.

It’s not just fun and games and making excuses when there’s a blizzard spewing outside. Back to Boulder and back to the office.

And, of course amid Colorado Awesoming, one day later we had a bit of this cloudless sky and brisk perfect training weather.

And on a side note, I also met Justin’s of Justin’s Nut Butter fame. He’s the frigging man, so I’m mildly star struck in this photo. The King of Nut Butters meets the King of… iamtedKING. The entire operation at Justin’s is outstanding — their original farmers’ market to going big story, their ethics and ethos, and best yet their FLAVOR. Consider me a fan.

Those translations, all of which read Why Not?, are Italian, next Spanish, and lastly the wild child dialect of Catalan.

I find myself back in Girona, Spain here in 2013 and I’m thrilled to have returned. Having spent the previous two years in Lucca, Italy, I’ve been asked recently why the change. My answer: Per què no?

For a quick back story, when I first jumped the pond to the European peloton in 2009 I spent a very lonely month in the pastoral Swiss countryside before being magnetized to my two-wheeled brethren in Girona. I’m a social dude and hanging with people of my ilk seemed like more fun than hanging with a herd of Swiss cows and aging farm wives named Gertrude (with, of course, all due respect to both Swiss cows and middle aged housewives named Gertrude). Girona has been a cycling hub and destination for decades and in the past few years it really hit its stride. I spent two extremely fun years there through the end of 2010.

I then signed for Liquigas-Cannondale for the 2011 season and without any real roots anywhere, I recognized that transferring to Italy would be an uplifting social experiment as well as a chance to hone my Italian – a wise move as I moved to a team that speaks exclusively Italiano. It is worth pointing out that I went to Italy on my own accord. People often assume that as cyclists we’re living in a bunker as an entire team, but that’s far from the case. I was on my own, as is the case for probably 98% of the pro peloton. Those rare instances where cyclists find themselves at team-owned housing is for a quick weekend escaping bad weather or traveling through out of convenience for an early morning departure to the next race on the team bus located at the service course.

So the past two seasons based in Italy were chalked up as a success. My Italian is now a high level of “functionally fluency” as I call it; I (nearly) always know what’s being said and can (nearly) always say what I want to say. Socially edifying? Absolutely. I made some great friends, learned a thing or two about Chianti Classico, found some outstanding training grounds all throughout the country, and will surely return a dozen years post-cycling with every sight and sound pulling at my heartstrings. Yup, 2011 and ’12 mark two excellent years.

When cyclists are looking for a European cycling HQ, there are a quadruple of requisite bullet point items. I will now bullet point them for you:

• a nearby airport
• a variety of roads – by that I mean, abundant roads and ideally roads with little or no traffic
• ample terrain – pancake flat is nice and all if you’re a farmer, however we want a healthy variety of hills, mountains, and flats… plus everything in between
• amicable weather – by that I mean weather that doesn’t suck

Boom, that’s it. A lot of other secondarily important factors are certainly desired, like friendly people, Michelin starred restaurants, a fun, social atmosphere, nice markets, a lively downtown, and so forth. But in reality the above four bullet points are a magnet for those latter items. Given the first four, you likely find everything you’d ever want in a cycling town.

Towards the end of 2010, a few friends and I did some rough calculations (we call it adding) and came up with about 45 professional cyclists in Girona. Now more than two years later, that number is into the 70s! Clearly, Girona has something people like with Garmin setting up their service course here, as well as lots of GreenEdge, Blanco, UnitedHealthCare, and random smatterings of Sky, Lotto, Saxo, NetApp-Endura, and of course everyone’s favorite, Cannondale.

The first week I back in town in late January and early February, I continually found myself with an ear to ear grin. For whatever reason, Girona has what I was looking for. While Lucca is a phenomenal cycling hotbed and one of the finest places I’ve been lucky enough to call home, I didn’t realize how much I missed Girona until I was back.

A lot of it is simply personal taste; I found that for everything I really liked in Lucca, I found its Catalan partner in Girona. There are some indisputable  differences to go along with the subjective ones. Certainly there is less traffic here in Girona, it takes less time to find yourself on sparsely traffic’d training roads, there are more cyclists (for better or worse – this is actually the chief complaint from a lot of cyclists and surely motorists here in town), the climbs are less steep but longer, the roads are wider and are in generally better condition.

Additionally, the Catalan lifestyle is a bonus in my book, as things here just seem más tranquilo. You want something shipped to you? Then do it and it won’t be banging around in customs for months on end. You want to mail something? Then go to the post office and you won’t wait seven hours to buy a stamp. Care to use your cell phone inside? Then I encourage you to do that (…whereas in Italy, cell reception doesn’t penetrate neither a two-inch piece of dry wall nor a two-foot thick stone wall). You need to go to the store? Well then go any day except Sunday! (…comparatively in Italy, they celebrate an inordinate number of random mid-week holidays, unbeknownst to the American cyclists, so that things are seemingly inexplicably closed on a startlingly regularly basis.)

These examples do show that it’s all relative, though, to the Americans living here in Spain since I’ve found that my cohorts think that things operate at a frustratingly sluggish pace here! Meanwhile, I’m basking being back in a country that seems to operate, how do you say… as it’s supposed to. Again, don’t get me wrong, because there’s something charming and novel about the pace of things in Italy. The energy of life is palpable there, whether you see two dapperly dressed, elderly gentlemen on a street corner arguing about surely something as trivial as cheese, or the Fiat 500 that whizzed by you on the road built for the width of just one and a half cars.

Anyway, it’s time to go to bed. It’s only 11pm, so I’m not quite in sync with the Spanish dining lifestyle. I think I can hear my neighbor waking up from siesta now and are thinking about dinner and a trip to the disco. But to answer the question, why am I back? Why not.

In my humble opinion, the bad idea of the day is to run 50 miles. Off road. In the mud. At 6am. In sub-optimal weather. Over hill and dale and all throughout the Green Mountains of Ascutney, VT for the Vermont 50. Yuck, that sounds miserable.

BUT I’m not a runner. I’m a cyclist, so the idea of mountain biking those 50 miles sounded like an excellent off-season activity. After all, I had a title to defend. Better yet, I had family to see.

My crazy cousin Jay (father to a pair of those children above), his friend Amy (mother to the rest of those children above, myself not included), and about 548 of their good friends took part in the running portion of the Vermont 50. While I think that sounds horribly unpleasant, they both succeeded and had a smashing time in the process.

Backtracking a bit, my cousin’s family and their friend’s family rented a house nearby and made a sweet weekend getaway out of it. The fringe benefit of being their cousin is that I got to tag along. In an awesomely quirky mountain cabin, complete with stuffed dear heads, gazelles, puzzles, and a fire-pit, we had a great time. Plus I got to Vermont in time to see the crew above dominate the mini-run. 1 mile around Ascutney sounds like fun. Multiply that by 50 and that sounds less fun. But that’s just me.

Meanwhile, I woke up at 2:53am so that I could be fully digested and ready to roll at early hour of 6am. Waking up to rumbling thunder and fog and mist so thick that merely driving to the venue seems dangerous was an ominous start to the day. But upon arriving to the race, even before 5am, the energy and excitement of the additional 800 cyclists becomes downright palpable! Or maybe it was just the fog and the two dozen port-o-johns. Either way, people were stoked and so was I! With the ginormous help of the cannon atop my head at the pitch-black hour of 6am under, I was able to take the lead early and carry that momentum to an overall smashing race win… as well as the new course record.

Again, here I am with my adoring familial fans – Anna, Emma, Freddy, Paige, and Luke. (I’m the guy in the middle who is over 5′ tall.)

Oh, well worth the side note: the night before the race before going to bed, these amazing, 3-5 feet tall people performed a talent show. A dancing Luke, the three year old, took the cake in my book.

In addition to that record, I also took home a beautiful glass container of Vermont maple syrup from Top Acres Farm, a block of Vermont’s best known cheese: Cabot Private Stock Cheddar. Plus a pair of Vermont Peanut Butter’s jars of nutty excellence. (Actually that’s an exaggeration; I bought one jar the previous day at race registration – because I think VTPB does great things – but then I won another jar, so that pretty much made my day. If one is good, two are better.)

STRAVA! Plus a handful of well deserved KOMs if you ask me.

Another good idea is to take advantage of the 6am start as it pertains to the rest of your day. Namely, finish up the race a hair after 10am, soak up the limelight of having just won such a massive bike race, bask in the bike cleaning station and warm showers before they become caked in frigid mud, partake in a tasty sponsor beverage, enormous BBQ, and festive music, and STILL have time to drive 3 hours south to eastern Massachusetts and watch the nation’s coolest bike race, GP Gloucester! Take folks, take a page out of my book: you’re not living unless you’re living.

I wisely opted not to double-up and I therefore packed up shop and drove down to MA to watch Gloucester rather than race it. I don’t do well in muddy cross races and this was some of the finest mud America has to offer.

Let the off season adventures continue! Oh speaking of which, I have a really good idea for you…

Therefore when the stars align and the intricate schedules of six very good friends overlap for one special Saturday in July, this not only marks a reason to celebrate, but it serves as excellent reason to go for what amounts to two massive bike rides… in one day. Naturally, a two-for-one is the picture of efficiency.

Or the 200 Not On 100, clearly. Dang, you know it’s a decently large day in the saddle when it doesn’t even fit on this map.

I won’t repeat myself, so the full song and dance (that is, the reason why this ride came about) can be found here. This ride is simply a ride. Getting out with friends, tackling a head-slappingly long route, throw some requisite dirt into the mix, precede that with a road trip followed by late night antics the night before, toss in some of New England’s most scenic and historic roads, and you’ve got yourself a soul-ride. Racing bikes for a career is truly incredible and I’m humbled and blessed to be in that company. Massive soul rides like this, however, are one of the primary reasons why I ride a bike.

The 200NotOn100 gained plenty of regional and then national recognition. The day is characterized by a whole slew of mini stories, which collectively surround this special Saturday building it into what it ultimately became. One of my favorite of these stories is that of a Kathy and her family of four who caught wind of the original 200 on 100 ride and rode it over the course of five days with her husband and two young boys. Staying apprised of our 200 on 100 ride, which became the 200 NOT on 100, this Saturday they flew their plane from Massachusetts, took aerial photos of noteworthy segments of the route, found a landing strip on the course and were out emphatically cheering with posters in hand(!), before it was wheels-up and they flew on to Portland to be part of the “unofficial welcome committee.” Another great story is Rich who found us right after the ride’s high point on the Kancamagus Highway and with a special gift bag delivery of NH maple syrup and Moat Mountain tall boys to help prevent the mid-ride crack. Again with two very young children in arms. I reckon the word is getting out!

Chomping a Fluffernutter, Ryan graciously accepts the maple&Moat gift bag. Thanks Rich.

While not a charity ride, it has enormous potential to go in that direction – as is, in addition to the t-shirts we’re selling, we passed around a hat at the wicked post-ride BBQ and collectively have generated close to $4,000, entirely for the Colorado Red Cross.

Community. That’s what the ride is all about. It’s the cycling community in Colorado to which so many of us are connected. Moreover, the sense of community last Saturday rivals anything I’ve experienced on two wheels. A dozen riders before the sun was even up in Burlington joined us rolling out of Burlington, while plenty of riders latched on for five minutes or fifty miles. The reception upon our arrival at Scratch Baking Co. was phenomenal, including my family, childhood neighbors, my best friend, his wife, and newborn son, the incredible community inherently built around Scratch, the Healthy Kids Happy Kids Me organization, folks I’ve known from my local bike shop for a dozen years, supporters, fans, and a whole bunch of others. Cycling is a community like no other.

Oh, another noteworthy addition to the day was watching Andy and Dave roll into Scratch more than three hours later. These two intrepidly set out with us at 6am from Burlington, were dropped before mile 50, but kept on truckin’ to arrive in Portland at 8pm. Incredible. And now a photo montage.

Some groggy eyes at 5:58am.

Good morning. ilovermont.

VT farm roads veiled in morning fog.

Only time we touched last year’s route all day.

Chandler tucks into the draft to ensure he can make the full 200 miles via scoot’.

Watching Tim drink maple syrup at the 1/2 way point to dig out of the bonk inspires the mega-sammy: speculoos, Fluff, and maple almond butter. White bread, naturally.

Maybe I’m gaining something of a reputation for Fluff? Nearing the top of Bear Notch.

Ryan ain’t hallucinating yet.

Support staff and the 3 riders, 200 Not On 100 complete!

Burgers, brats, beers, and plenty of this. Recovery food, my friends.

Oh right, these guys rolled in three hours later. Andy and Dave, you’re a couple of heroes!

Community. Cycling is community. Thank you. Thank you family, supporters, folks who made the signs on the side of the road, mid-ride delivery crew, our sincere “Friends” at Skratch, Scratch Baking Co., Strava, Allagash, Cutaway, and our friends from Maine to Colorado. Be safe, be well. Thank you.

Epic is a strong word. I believe it should be retired outright, never to be used again. But since that’s not going to happen, I say a hundred-plus mile ride, 75% of which is dirt, over the steep bergs characteristic of the Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont is worthy of such a description.

To backtrack, the Tour of Poland ended amid a black-sky thunderstorm which arrived dramatically in the final kilometer of the seven-day race. It also wrapped up successfully for us as we at Liquigas-Cannondale snatched two stage wins, two second place finishes, and the overall victory. That’s called domination. From there I could be found jetting back to Lucca where my ability to clean a house top to bottom was that of legend. Mr. Clean would have been envious as I swept, vacuumed, scrubbed, dusted, and polished with great vigor. A pair of tasty and authentic goodbye dinners in my 36 hours home in Italy capped off my Italian summer before jetting to the United States where I have the Tour of Utah, the USA Pro Cycling Challenge Which Should Be Named The Tour of Colorado, followed closely by the Canadian WorldTour races, and (fingers crossed) the world championships in mid-September. Giddyup.

So now caught up to speed, returning stateside is always reason to celebrate, and especially so with awesome stuff to do straightaway. A delightful BBQ dinner with my very good friend as well as freshman college roommate plus his newly wedded wife in the Granite State segued perfectly to Saturday’s ride which you see above. The same masochistic genius who created Stoepid Week is also now into version 7.0 of the U(pper)V(alley)Epic – the aforementioned hundred mile ride, thickly laced with steep dirt roads, stunning views, and featured prevalently in this year’s event, flat tires.

Believe it or not, my bike doesn’t have a kickstand. Thankfully chivalrous manners are rife in the spandex clad world of cycling, so rather than plunking my bike down in the dirt, this kind gentleman held it for me while I changed my first of three flats. Ten intrepid souls set out on the UVEpic 7.0 early Saturday morning. Then at hour four and just 48 miles in, I warned folks that I was going to emit more watts (ergo, go faster), at which point the brave peloton was whittled down to five. Soon thereafter a flat tire sadly took out my kickstand-man. One other waited for him while three of us found the elusive Cooler-of-Hope. Now more than five hours into the ride and with hunger pangs coming at us with the same ferocity as sharp stones in the dry conditions, Chris made us very happy with water, Red Bull, sports drink, and, err, some other tasty treats.

A quick glut of calories and unfortunately being on a tight time budget – as well as places to go that evening – I dropped the entire crew and soldiered on solo for the full epoch epic Epic.

And to where was I rushing off that evening? To grill corn with my brother, obviously! Well that and chicken and relax by the lake. I promise you, it’s a tough life.

Mid-season breaks are critical in maintaining peak freshness over the course of a 10-month race season. The way my race schedule was unfolding, I couldn’t find a time to relax after California, nor after nationals the following week, nor Tour of Suisse. So finally after Poland, I had this window of respite and sitting lakeside is a mighty fine way of RnR’ing. (“Bwaa’?! How do you go on a UVEpic and call that rest?” Well friends, sometimes there’s more ways than one to sooth the soul. Letting boys be boys, beating each other up on bikes, riding gnarly dirt roads is certainly one of those ways.)

It’s said that bath salts are a good way to heal the body. I believe that being in Maine is equally therapeutic. There’s something cathartic about the salty sea air that makes me feel like a better person on the other side. But mid-season breaks are always short lived, so I decided to tackle in three days what I would ideally prefer to spread out over three months. In the days of yore, or at least when I was between the ages of zero to twenty, I would come to this magical island in Maine with my family the very day school ended in the summer and would stay there until the dreaded day before school started up again in September. I’m the sixth generation of my family to come to this island and my best friends are here, our neighbors are like family, and my happiest memories on earth are here. The Maine license plate reads Vacationland and the welcome sign driving into this serene state accurately states The Way Life Should Be. As a very wise man once said, “Maine is like heaven. Just with the distinct aroma of fried seafood.”

So my three-months-in-three-days vacation featured swimming daily in the frigid Atlantic, rock hopping, cocktail parties, lobster cruises (seen above), seeing friends and family, tennis, boating (where it has been blowing like stink the entire time – one of the nautical world’s finest expressions, hence the title of this blog), napping, reading, and soaking in the thick sea air. Rest and repeat.

And let’s be honest: beyond Maine, where else can you buy fresh lobsters at the Walgreen’s pharmacy?!

Or so they say.

No one ever asks me how much I sleep. I do, however, receive a nearly equal smattering of questions regarding how much do I ride and what do I eat. Thanks to Strava I post a lot of my races and training rides, but on average only about 4-5 per week. Meanwhile, I use this blog and showcase the more noteworthy meals I eat. That gives an idea of what’s going in and what sort of energy I’m burning, but that obviously doesn’t paint the entire picture because I’ve never combined the two. Well wait no more my curiously analytical cycling friends, because I’m doing that exact thing right here right now! What follows is one of the most rudimentary food/hydration/fuel/training investigation you’ll ever see.

Specifically, I took a photo of nearly everything I ate today; also, photo or not, I logged everything I ate. This being iamtedking dot com, I have a story to two to add to the mix to keep it spicy. In fair warning, I don’t claim to be a nutritionist (…err, actually I do exactly that in my next column for Bicycling), but after years of being part of this professional athlete thing, I’m quite astute when it comes to estimating food sizes, portions, and corresponding nutritional value. For the sake of adding even slightly more legitimacy, I’ve also used FitDay‘s calorie tracker. There, the internet says it, so it’s gotta be true.

Today’s ride, which you see at the top, was a big one. It’s my last big training session before the Tour de France East, which this year is seven days of racing all throughout Poland and curiously is more accurately called the Tour of Poland.

Starting a day without coffee is just foolish. Note the particularly colorful bag of beans from Berti Caffe.

This roaster’y is located just 1km from my Lucca home and I ride by these guys all the time. One day the door was open and out of the corner of my eye as I zoomed by I saw the telltale cycling rainbow colors emblazoned on the back of their shop. I locked up the breaks, flipped a U-ie, ducked my head in the shop, and asked what the colors signified. When the kindly woman told me that her father is a cycling nut, I knew I had a new favorite local coffee roaster! Moreover – and remember this is a very Italian woman in a very Italian town – the woman asked me where I was from; I said New Hampshire to which she replied that NH’s finest Lake Winnipesaukie is one of her favorite places on earth. Wow, small world.

2 cups of black coffee (5 calories) down the hatch.

Again, big ride today means a big hearty breakfast.

I ate a small smattering of this fruit. It’s fresh cantaloupe, white peaches, and apricots. I only ate a few bites of this as I was preparing the rest of breakfast.

1/5 of the melon (37 calories), 1/4 peach (10), 1/2 apricot (9). Now back in the fridge for you!

From there it was breakfast time proper. Throwing an egg into oatmeal and whipping it up quickly gives it the most satisfying, custardy texture in addition to providing a nutritional boost from farm fresh eggs. You saw eww, I saw try it. So in this bowl of oatmeal we have water, oats (310 calories), an egg (60), three cherries (13), one dried fig (37), and three dried apricots (27). This being me, there is also a bit of New Hampshire maple syrup (105), some cinnamon and a dash of salt. In the background, you’ll also see a thingy of banana yogurt (150).

A short while later it was time to kit up and practice the art of bicycle riding. I met a friendly fruit-stand-man riding with Ben King two weeks ago as we rolled back into town from another legendary ride. It turns that he’s a huge cycling fan, being Italian he loves Liquigas, and I therefore wanted to bequeath him some wicked bright green and blue swag. So with a brand new team issue water bottle and cycling cap in hand, I rode 10 minutes to his corner of the globe. Note his right hand – he’s giddy as a school girl after her first kiss in this photo with his new stuff.

It’s around about this time that I should point out that I love figs. Truly I feel sorry for anyone out there who has never had the opportunity to bite into a fresh fig. And by fresh I mean you literally have a mere 12 hour window when it goes from exquisite to rotten. It is divine! (One fig eaten on the spot, 37 calories.)

I was about to ride bid him farewell and ride away when he hollered something, scurried into his barn, grabbed a bunch of fruit and handed it over. I had to laugh since it was literally a handful of fruit. Actually it was two handfuls. First, I received more than is in this photo. He handed me three massive peaches and six of those mini pears. Secondly, no, I did not eat everything in this photo. I pocketed all of it in a show of my grateful thanks, but ended up having to toss what I didn’t eat.

I had somewhere between 5 to 5.5 hours on the training program today with a handful of relatively short bursting intervals. It was hot today too. As we say at home “H-O-double-T, hot!” As you’ll see in the SRM file below, the average temp was 31.5C (88F), but that includes a relatively cool morning. The brunt of the ride was in the 37-40C range (98-104F) with a max of 45C (113F) in one particular valley that radiates heat on a road right next to it’s bone-day river bed. That’s like riding into a hairdryer.

I mention all that because I drink a frigging ton on days like today. Allen Lim is a friend of mine and he knows a thing or two about hydration. I value his opinion and know that staying ahead of dehydration is enormously important especially on longer days like today. At 6’2″ I’m tall and therefore have a lot of surface area to pour sweat. During the harder parts of the the training intervals, in the hotter sections of the ride, I don’t think it’s humanly possible to sweat any more than I was – my flipping calves were sweating at those times.

Sorry to be gross, if you find sweat nasty. My point is that in the course of these 5.38333 hours, I drank at any and every opportunity. Thankfully all throughout Italy – and lots of European for that matter – there are these magical water springs. They’re both in the middle of nowhere like the top of mountain passes or right in the middle of small downtown squares. With the help of a relatively low-calorie/high-electrolyte hydration formula, I reckon that I drank 12 bottles (250 calories).

Over the course of my career I’ve eaten more race food than I care to even picture, so given the option of real food or race food, I choose the former. In general in the real food category, I tend towards sweet over salty. So in today’s hundred-plus mile ride, I ate the following:

I know I’ve mentioned il Re del Cappuccino – the aptly named King of Cappuccino – who’s been serving capp’s for more than 60 years. The man is a legend. Now that I have a signed jersey decorating their shop, I’m basked with their exemplary service. Which is the same as their standard service, since they’re always hospitable. Cappuccino (200 calories) and Nutella laden baked good (250) after 75 minutes is precisely the fuel I want for the rest of the day.

Next, top left: those aaaaaamazing honey waffles, which cost like $2 apiece in America, but are like $0.25 in Belgium. I bagged up and had five of those gems (670 calories).
Bottom: every cafe in Italy has biscotti. Mind you, these are Italian biscotti and not SUPERsized American portions, so they’re about the size of your pinkie. A half dozen of those spread out over the day is about 500 calories.

Oh and remember those peaches and mini pears swimming in my jersey pocket from farm stand man? I ate two peaches (76) and two mini pears (40).

By now you’re saying, “Ted, you ate like a horse.” To which I reply, yes, but look at the SRM file and you’ll see that I burned through a hearty 5,067 calories… and that’s just in the 5:23 ride time, let alone my basal metabolic rate which is running hot so I’m zipping through another ~2,000 calories over the course of the day.

…Good grief, this is a lot of work rehashing everything I ate and it’s not even lunch time. Okay (breathe breathe), let’s keep going.

Famished and thirsty, I got home from my ride and chugged some water and a fairly light recovery drink (150). I also ate a fig- yes, another one (37).

Shower time and 4pm lunch time followed. I made the most amazing risotto that I’ve ever made – admittedly, it’s the first risotto I’ve ever made – the night before and I had ample leftovers. This beauty is a zucca (basically squash/zucchini) and onion risotto (500 calories), topped on a bed of raw arugula (10), three luscious Italian tomatoes (35), a beet and a half (50), all drizzled with truffle balsamic glaze (10). To the left is a rice cracker (15) schmeared with homemade sun-dried tomato hummus (80)… ’cause that’s what I do.

It was nearly time for another fig, but I thought I would take a nap instead. ZZZzzzZZZzzzzzzz Nap: over. Now it’s time to tackle some errands in town, but I decided that I had a hankerin’ for some chocolate peanut butter, which conveniently I had in the form of Dark Chocolate Dreams from Peanut Butter & Co. I had a modest spoonful (170) atop another rice cracker (15). It would likely behoove you to do the same or perhaps try their Mighty Maple.

I did some reading before dinner and they say that your brain consumes a lot of calories when deep in thought. I don’t have the SRM file for this specific reading interval, but I reckon I burned another 5,000 calories by finishing up my latest book… The Hunger Games, curiously enough. Here’s my five-cent book review: an interesting read, but I don’t see what all the hype is about. Yes, it’s very engrossing and despite the post-apocalyptic nature of the plot, the emotions of the book are still something with which we can relate. But without giving away too much, when there are human-meets-wolf creatures sprinting around on their hind legs with 4″ razor sharp claws attacking the protagonists, WTF?! I don’t like science fiction. I’d be hard pressed to read the second of this series.

There, now you owe me a nickel.

Dinner time and I wanted to reward myself for a hard day’s work without laboring in the kitchen. If you’ve ever had pizza in Italy, you know that each person order one pizza. It’s kind of like how in America, if you go to Mexican food, one person is going to order one burrito. Are we now clear with the 1:1 ratio? Good, let’s continue. The pizza is typically 12″ in diameter, incredibly thin with a basic flour/yeast/salt/water crust, and most certainly is not the oil injected, 2″ tall pizzas we’re accustomed to in America. A few toppings decorate the pizzapie and voila, you’ve got yourself dinner. All for 6 euro.

Prosciutto cotto, arugula, tomato pizza (1,000) on a very colorful yet camouflaged plate. A crisp, fruit-foward (whatever that means) glass of Austrian white wine (125) gifted to me by our friend Timmy Duggan perfectly accentuated this entree on a still stifling evening.

And yes, that’s my iamnottedking-stickered wallet.

It’s nearly dinner time, but not first without another pair of figs (74). What?! I issued the warning earlier, I love figs. Succulent, sweet, and literally bursting with flavor, it’s kind of like your food giving you a high five when you take a bite.

Summary:

So what have we learned? Who knows. Like I said, this isn’t a normal example. This was obviously a day of heavy training, so I’m going to ride hard and eat a lot to fuel the fire. On an easy day I eat like a ballerina and crush some salad. So since there isn’t anything more to really do, let’s just summarize.

– By my calculation, I consumed 5,082 calories. All of which were delicious, especially the risotto and the honey waffles
– Calories expended on the ride: 5,067.69
– Ride time: 5:23 and change
– Ride distance: 172.5km (107 miles)
– Average power: a massive 261 watts

Peace out nerds.

Specifically, I’ve just returned from a quasi-cycling vacation to the northern reaches of the Italian Dolomites and then to the postcard perfect center of the country in Chianti. I’d be impressed, however, if you hadn’t yet pick up on that, because I’ve spent no shortage of time nor tweets nor other tweets nor blogs nor other blogs nor even more blogs all hinting at this escape to see some of my best friends, ride some of the finest roads on the planet, plus mangia and bevi in a manner only inGamba can. So if this is news to you, then your ability to ignore me is excellent and I tip my hat to you.

Anyway, it’s back to business (mind you, I spent this little “vacation” training my tail off for Tour of Poland, Utah, Colorado, Canadian races, and hopefully the World Championships among other races still to come) and I sped back into town approximately 12 minutes before the rental car was due at 10am. Mind you, when I rented the car I was told that I should return it “sometime around 10am” and therefore figured that I had this friendly buffer for any sort of Italian adventures that might arise.

My European home base of Lucca is a great city for a bunch of reasons, not least of which is that it doesn’t have the insane traffic issues you’ll experience in Rome or Florence or Milan. 12 minutes to spare is like a lifetime. Therefore, perfectly fittingly, there was a big traffic accident – or an “aggressive fender bender” since everyone appeared angry but perfectly alright in this seven car incident – just 300 meters from where I am due to return the car. 12 minutes pass. Then another 10, and 5, and 3, and 12 more, so that it’s now 10:30. A few more minutes tick by and around about 10:38 I ran into Hertz and tossed them my keys. I explained that I was here on time, or within 300 meters of their front door but was delayed by the accident, to which the woman freaked out thinking that I was in the accident. My response in Italian: “No no no, Lady, I’m late because there was an accident right there” (I point outside at the dozen authoritative police officers). She has no idea there was an accident, breaths a big sigh of relief… and proceeds to charge me the extra day’s car rental.

There are 1440 minutes in one day. Sitting in traffic for 38 of them costs the same as if one used 1439. Whatever.

Oh and don’t you worry, this day gets better. It’s not even 11am.

Most of my adventures in Italy take place on two wheels. Sure, the bicycle is one source of that, but I also have a sweet Vespa scooter, which needless to say is a chick magnet. From Hertz, I make the five minutes stroll to where I parked the scooter and am surprised to see that it’s covered in what appears to be morning dew, which is odd because it’s about 100 degrees and baking in the sun. On closer inspection, it’s pine pitch and it appears as though the scooter has been ridden through a fine mist of pine pitch every day for the past ten days. (sigh)

I find a plastic bag and sit on that so that my bum doesn’t get permanently attached to the seat and then as I throw a leg over this hog to drive home, I see that I have a parking ticket folded neatly in my seat.

My blood pressure was only slightly elevated because of the pine pitch issue, but it’s now doubled when I see the ticket. A quick scan around the scene and I don’t see Italian Candid Camera bursting out of the bushes, so I’m upset. When I parked here sometime last week, I went to a great deal of trouble to find the right spot. As hopefully some of you have experienced, parking in Italy is a comedy of errors since most people just put their car in park, regardless of where they are (middle of the road, middle of the highway, sidewalk, etc) and chuck on the hazard lights. Hazards in Italy translate to “don’t tow me, bro – I’ll be back before sunset.” And it works fine.

The problem being my scooter doesn’t have hazard lights. I therefore sought out what I thought was an excellent spot safely amid a dozen other scooters – although I obviously didn’t see the ominous pine tree looming above.

On closer inspection of the ticket, I noticed it was impossible to inspect the ticket closer! Seriously, click on that photo above and look closely. In the three days of sitting on my scooter, apparently the harsh Tuscan sun has rendered the friendly police officer’s pen entirely useless. Or else (s)he wrote it in invisible ink. You can’t read anything on the ticket except the faint scribbling that the license plate number matches my license plate.

Three letters crossed my mind. Double-u, taye, and ef.

I’ve been through the parking ticket process once before and was baffled to find that paying the ticket took nearly a week. Thinking that I’m now a resident pro, I was therefore less than impressed to flip the ticket over to read that the payment process is entirely different from the last time around – new location, new method, new everything. (sigh… sigh)

I not big on the idea of karma nor do I believe in fate. I do, however, believe that I am the first person in Italian history to pay a parking ticket here, so I have an equally strong belief that there is a crew of Italian officials stealthfully following me around in order to issue me more tickets. Slowly but surely Italy will rise out of the European financial crisis and I’m doing my part to help.

Thankfully friends, there is nothing but good news from here on out, so please issue a celebratory high-five to whomever is nearby.

Have you ever tried to remove pine pitch from a car? I’ve personally never been tarred and feathered, but I bet it’s equally tough to wash out. Yet, in a stunning show of magic, it turns out that Italian pine pitch comes out with mere dish soap and universal household spray cleaner. So from there, with a spiffy clean Vespa, I drove into town with the mind bending job of tackling the mysterious parking ticket issued in invisible ink. Not only did I get the location to pay the ticket correct at the first stab, but I arrived right as the post-lunch doors open and found myself third in line, which in the moments afterwards extended out to about 25 soon-to-be-bored line patrons. Best yet, not having any idea how much it would cost me with the incomprehensible ticket, and this being Italy I’m half expecting to take out a loan for four figures, I was pleased to walk out of this municipal office merely 40 euro poorer. That’s well worth the price of rinsing myself clean of further headache.

Prologue:

There is a moral to every story, so what’s the take home lesson here? I have no frigging idea! Maybe it’s that 40 euro is the price you pay for a clean Vespa? Or that you shouldn’t ever think you’re returning a rental car on time because you will surely run into the gnarliest fender-bender in Italian history? Again, I have no… frigging… idea. Oh, here’s a good lesson: install hazard lights on your scooter with an extra good battery to last 10 days.

Ciao. Happy 4th of July America!

We can all agree that nothings says “Tour de France” like bicycle riding around Belgium for three days and then migrating west to France. I’m therefore going to stay true to myself and hold out on my inaugural Tour de France by waiting until we stick exclusively to France – dabbling in other European countries obviously sullies the authentic Tour experience. (For those of you reading along and completely confused, this year’s Grand Bouche begins in Liege, Belgium before entering France for the rest of the three week race.)

That proclamation of holding out is of course is of course drenched in sarcasm. To be honest, I get sick to my stomach thinking that I won’t be there this year. To call the first half of my 2012 season successful is a gnarly understatement. My fitness is there, my motivation is sky high, and in the past not-quite-six-months I’ve been integrally involved with fifteen wins for Liquigas-Cannondale. Geeze, I don’t think I was involved with fifteen wins in all of 2011. I won’t stew on it any longer, however. I can’t thank you enough for the enormous show of support – especially over the past month – to have me lining up for my first Tour. The messages, the tweets, the emails, the calls, the very entertaining #KingfortheTour, and other signs of support mean a lot to me. More than you can imagine. It just makes me that much hungrier for that first Tour whenever that happens.

Moving on.

In order to clear my head, continue exploring the globe, while still staying true to my job and therefore training extensively I recently made my way from my home in Tuscany up to the Dolomites in north eastern Italy.

Surrounded by some of the biggest, awesomest mountains I’ve ever seen, I once again rejoined my BFF Timmy Duggan who is also up in this neck of the woods soaking up the same Dolomite excellence.

I raced the Giro di Italia in both 2009 and 2010. What’s tattooed in my mind more than anything is the Dolomites. My words here won’t do justice to just how spectacular they are, so I won’t even bother. Click on that panoramic photo above and you’ll get a sliver of our surroundings from high atop Timmy’s porch.

Jumping headlong into things, here’s my first ride. I’m only up here for a few days, so rather than lamely wasting time acclimatizing simply for my departure, I went for a bike ride.

My memory is sometimes sieve-like. So speaking of those 2009 and 2010 Giri d’Italia (the plural of Giro is Giri, not Giros),  I apparently wanted to put the painful specifics out of my mind – that is to say, I raced up the very access road to my hotel, but I didn’t recognize it whatsoever until I bothered to check the Giro route map. Oops. Namely, Stage 5 to Alpe di Suisse. Here is that particular Strava segment, on which I conveniently now have the KOM. In your face, whoever actually won that stage!

Anyway, that first ride was long and arduous and stunning and calorific. So Timmy and I took a moment to rest our weary souls atop some random mountain pass, I think that’s Passo Valparola.

Obviously well fueled, that initial big day was then followed by another big day. Given my thorough one day of acclimatization, I felt like a million and a half bucks the next day. Here she is:

Clearly, another good’n’.

That’s all I got for now. Cycling is a sport of ups and downs, both literal and figurative. Sure, I’d like to be racing the Tour de France in two days, but that’s now out of my control. Putting in the time and effort to get up here to the Dolomites, seeing and training with my very good friend Timmy, and putting in the hours on the bike are a phenomenal alternative. I am lucky and I know it.

I said that’s all, but actually here’s one more panoramic picture for your viewing pleasure. Here I am high atop Passo Sella looking east towards, umm, well towards whatever is east of Passo Sella, which in this case appears to be even more mountains. Again, click on the image for an even better view.

“Aaaaaand go!”