9:15a Wake up. This in itself is out of the realm of normal for me – not quite “surreal” but since I typically wake up in the 7am +/- 15 minutes range, this is out of the ordinary. Must be the fresh Swiss alpine air.

After two stunning days in Switzerland, I also woke up to a righteous clap of thunder booming through the valley and impossibly hard rain that completely changed the landscape. It was like I slept in and woke up in an entirely new place.

10:50a depart for race. All things normal.

11:30a Arrive at race. Hurry up and wait was the order of the day. This town of Quinto was supposed to be the start of a 160km race with an HC climb right out of the gate. Which is a terrible idea, but they didn’t consult me on the matter. But given the gnarly weather still causing havoc among European races, the opening climb was removed entirely. So Quinto was the ceremonial start complete with the typical song-and-dance sign-in, amid fans clutching umbrellas and cyclists poorly dodging raindrops as we hustled between our team cars and the stage.

With time to kill before the caravan trek to the next destination, I have a sixth sense for coffee and spotted an espresso machine in the VIP tent. I escorted the team to painfully small espresso. It was sparsely occupied, the VIP tent, so everyone meandering around was psyched to see us. A vast array of tasty finger foods was there, but since crustini con lardo was one of the most appetizing looking bits, we all abstained for the sake of an impending bicycle race. There was also a thorough selection of wines, after all there’s a well recognized winery sponsoring this race. I was miffed, however, when I asked for a courtesy bottle as a gift to a friend (yes, that’s a lie; I wanted it for myself). Sure, I would wait until the end of the race, but I like souvenirs and what better kind than a nice Italian red. The cases upon cases of wine behind the servers, in tandem with a virtually empty VIP room didn’t leave me with the impression there was going to be a shortage of wine in the next hour. Nor 10,000 hours. Regardless, they chuckled as if I were kidding and said no.

12:15p Begin police escorted caravan drive to the next stop. This entails driving over one of the more sinuous roads I’ve experienced in recent decades. With walls of snow at the summit dwarfing all cars (as well as big snow removal trucks parked at the peak) I reckon it’s been a snowy spring. Temperatures were hovering around zero Celsius amid a cloud bank the size of Manhattan and it was pouring rain up here at 2,200 meters. Optimal race conditions.

After a lengthy descent ripping around blind corners trusting the lights of the team car in front of us just feet ahead, when we finally dropped below the fog a scenic descent followed. Continue to drive drive drive.

1:30p Arrive at a train station. Not just any train station, though. We have arrived in a petite mountain town with cliffs on all sides besides from whence we came. And since it’s obvious that this isn’t the actual start town, we wait a lengthy while before driving our cars onto a train car. Continue to wait, then we are shuttled through the mountain. Mind you, I have absolutely no clue where we are and I have only a 2% understanding of what’s going on. It’s around this time that I decide to read since that’s one of the few things I can control right now.

I’m just guessing it’s about 2:30 when we arrive at the start, but I really feel like I’m in the twilight zone. The “start” is a rudimentary runway; it’s very militaristic with buildings actually built as bunkers half-way in the ground and grassy lawns for roofs. Both fans in attendance seem chipper hunched under their umbrellas. Mountains surrounds us on all sides (again — it is Switzerland afterall), it’s pouring rain, it can’t be more than 8 degrees Celsius, and we’re told we have 15 minutes to kit up and race. Also, the race begins with a 35km descent, so get ready for a speedy start.

2:45p til who knows when: The race profile resembles a cartoonish mouth in the shape of a smug grin. We descend a long ways, race flat for twice that length, then stretch our legs up a 17km category 1 summit. With a tailwind up the entire valley, we covered the 105km leading into the climb in under two hours. And clearly not very stressfully since I did that with about 185 watts average.

So that’s my day. Yeah, nothing too weird. Just the waking up in a new strange land, traveling who knows where for three-plus hours including a train trip while in the comfort of our car through a mountain in who-knows-where, racing in torrential rain down a mountain pass, then a ferociously fast yet ridiculously easy two hours, followed by an easy cruise up a category 1 climb.

Adding to the surreal nature of the entire day is that the humid Swiss spring  — and probably other times of the year as well — is like viewing the world through Instagram. Everywhere you look resembles some caricature of a scene from the Lord of the Rings. Except that it’s right in front of you in living color! Stunning vistas, sky scraping mountains draped in breathtaking clouds, waterfalls and impossibly clear rivers and lakes. Plus no trash. There’s simply no litter in Switzerland. That’s the law.

Sent from my phone

And with that having been said, I wouldn’t be a cyclist worth my salt if I didn’t talk about the weather. It seems anyone upwards of a pack-fodder category 2 racer can speak with at least some degree of proficiency about the meteorological trends of his or her geographical area. Reading a Doppler radar map and knowing what a forecasted 45% chance of precipitation really means is their M.O.

Most teams stick around the cobbled and blustery northern European front this week between Flanders and Roubaix, but we at Cannondale Pro Cycling are given the chance to press and hold the reset button and therefore briefly head home. It’s an opportune way to clear one’s mind, find some semblance of normalcy in life, catch up on missed internet, eat a non-hotel meal, get a few days of proper training in rather than the all too typical-canal-lap-and-coffee-shop-stop, and overall just rest up before bone jarring Paris-Roubaix on Sunday. Reconnaissance be damned(!), I’m perfectly happy sleeping in my own bed.

Embracing these few days of freedom, I did this ride yesterday, which much like Belgium was also horrifically windy, but extremely soul cleansing.

After having nary any skin exposed for the past, ooh, three months and having been particularly bundled up these past two weeks, I set out with both arm and leg warmers yesterday, but soon after removed them and boldly exposed my arms and legs throughout the day – if nothing else to absorb some succulent solar vitamin D. According to the SRM, the average temperature was 15C with a high of 18C, which is about 59 average and a high of 65 for you Fahrenheit fans. Brisk, but relatively balmy and warm. Worth noting for subsequent analysis, I also had a t-shirt length undershirt, thin wool gloves, a thin vest, and a cycling cap.

With a Strava ride title such as it is regarding clothing choice, waking up today I was heartily entertained by the detailed dialogue going on in the comments section of that ride pertaining to said clothing choice. The talk of what to wear, when to wear it, where one’s from, what are one’s standards for weather conditions, and blah blah blah, the comments section of this ride became a forum for cycling clothing nerdery. And therefore needs my input.

My first piece of advice is that it’s all relative. There I was at four in the afternoon, four and a half hours into my five hour day wearing a mere jersey (and aforementioned vest and cap) and shorts when I rode by a friend and cycling colleague. He was five hours into his ride with an hour to go clad in everything I would typically be wearing this past week in Belgium. That is, leg-warmers, a thermal jacket, gloves, and shoe covers. He’s a hearty Canadian and therefore knows cold weather. This is an example of PRO behavior and is certainly acceptable, but harkens back to traditional cyclists’ thinking that if you’re cold, you’re going to get sick. To which I say Boo!

There’s this and this and this and a litany of other results upon searching, “can you get sick by being cold” that scream no. Which is not to say that it is a bad idea to stay warm on rides. Heck, I hate being cold. But to each his (or her) own. Moreover, everyone has an internal furnace and thermostat, so to tell someone that they’re under-dressed or overdressed when whatever it is they’re wearing fits into the realm of mildly reasonable clothing is quite frankly uniformed and naive.

I digress. So what is “correct”? Per the above paragraph, there’s clearly a range of acceptable. And per the paragraph where I had an encounter with my Canadian cycling brethren, there’s a wide range of acceptable clothing options.

After the rave reviews of my last homemade chart, let’s create another one. Although this one will be more congruent and easier to read plus color coordinated, since we all know that red means hot and blue means cold… and apparently yellowy-orange means something in the middle. This chart breaks down what percentage of your current riding attire should consist of each of the following clothing types – Frigid, Medium, and just plain Jersey & Shorts – based on the temperature which is found in the Y-axis. This is pure science so pay attention.

Frigid Weather Gear means as much Gore-Tex, windproof, and thermal clothing as you can afford. Oh, your big bad self is sponsored and therefore can “afford” everything? Super. Put it all on cause it’s cold out. The rubbery’est of thick, rubbery shoe-covers are a must, mittens are mandatory over gloves, and a balaclava face mask is highly recommended. Undershirts should resemble long-underwear as if you’re going skiing or ice climbing; that is, thick and long sleeve. Function over fashion here; you’ll likely look like a bloated oaf with all this gear, but it’s better than hypothermia and losing a few digits to frostbite.

Medium Weather Gear means it’s time to sub out your thermal/windproof/water resistant tights from above for mere bib shorts and leg-warmers. Conveniently you may now stow away your thermal jacket when arm-warmers and a jersey will do. Alternatively long-sleeved jerseys are a superb item. Vests fit snugly into this category, both the ambiguously titled “wind” vests and the much sturdier thermal vest. I don’t use the word gilet because I think it’s dumb. Furthermore, if you use the word gilet, then you likely fit into the category of person who might wear this sort of gilet. In which case… I’m very sorry. Undershirts consist of all sleeve lengths depending on your preference: long, t-shirt, or sleeveless. Hand garments are still generally long fingered, but considerably thinner than Frigid Gear. Furthermore, mittens are not in this category. Shoe covers are frequently over-socks. Stylish and functional although not so much when it’s raining out. Wearing time trial specific shoe covers is generally pretty lame, unless you have a shoe sponsor conflict and you’re therefore covering up your own errors. Then I’ll let it slide. An iamnotTedKing neckgaiter is arguably the most functional item in this category and cycling caps are pretty darn handy too.

Jersey & Shorts means just that. Short fingered gloves are acceptable if you are racing, motorpacing, or if you have sketchy bike handling skills and might crash yourself in training and you value your hands. But otherwise, please consider going sans gloves. I met a kid once who told me that he always wore a cycling cap because that that was his thing. It was about 99 degrees outside and you couldn’t stand in the sun without breaking into a ferocious sweat. But he was my competition at the time and if overheating and sweating unnecessarily is his thing, then his detriment is my benefit and I let him go on his merry way.

You will notice that there is no category above titled Just Bibs. Even when it’s stiflingly hot out and you want to work off your farmer’s tan you should never ride without a jersey. Rules are rules, my friends. Furthermore I don’t care if it’s your thing.

So that’s a wrap for today. Stay warm, stay cool, stay well dressed, and have a super day.

As soon as a stage finishes, we’re quickly trying to escape the barrage of people pouncing on us for a bidon (that is, in France, they want a bidon, in Italy it’s boracha, in Belgium… well I guess they ask for bottles since they dabble in English there). With all due respect, we’re seeing cross-eyed after the day’s effort so smiling for cameras and being picked apart like indefensible meat from vultures to satisfy someone’s appetite free cycling swag doesn’t rate highly on our to-do list. Sorry to be crass. We’re tired.

Onto the bus and usually you’ll either chug a recovery shake or jump right into the shower, depending on if there’s a line. Some folks make their drink mix with soy milk or regular “white gold” from a tried and true cow udder, but I opt for water since I do a whey based protein recovery drink. It’s delicious, and especially sates my wary muscles.

A shower is a magical thing coming so quickly on the heals of a hard effort. To rinse the road grime off your wary body, out of your ears and eyes and nose is euphoric. Shower: done.

Soon the bus is rolling and we’re sorting our day’s laundry into bags. Soigneurs are a wonderful asset and will have these bags whisked away and into the laundry in no-time-flat upon arrival at the hotel. Their ability to remove a lot of the mindless chores that would otherwise take away from our time is invaluable. Thank you swannies! That goes on their laundry list (yes, pun intended) of things to do to pamper us as much as possible throughout the day/week(s).

There’s usually  (…hopefully) a bowl of some type of carbohydrate rich food waiting for us as the bus rolls towards the evening’s hotel. This being an Italian centric team, you can safely guess pasta will be available. Olive oil and salt make for great accompaniment. Thankfully they’ve been mixing it up this week, so potatoes and rice are also occasional options. We even had some rice intermixed with corn, peas, plus diced ham and cheese one day. T’was delightful if for nothing else than the variety.

The fridge has yogurt, all the water you could ever want, Coke, Fanta, and, well that’s it. Oh, one day I saw some iced tea. Actually there’s usually a quarter wheel of Parmesan cheese but taking a bite of that doesn’t sounds terribly appetizing. Fruit is usually bouncing around somewhere too.

Here’s a shot taken from the back of the bus, looking forward out the front window which captures a lot. You can see a teammate gnoshing a plate of food, we’re watching the end of Tirreno-Adriatico on TV, and we’re stuck in the maze of traffic as the exodus of cars winds out of the city center. Dirty laundry, towels, and anything else that looks misplaced is on account of us being treated like babies and the soigneurs will soon clean up after our mess. Have I said thank you yet? Grazie mille rigazzi!

Upon arrival, we’re immediately given our room assignments, by, you guessed it, a soigneur patiently waiting for us. I’ve been rooming with Argentinian awesome guy, Sebastian Haedo, new to the team this year. He’s always happy, forever smiling, and brings some good vibes to our room. Suitcases are waiting in each room – again, thanks to the swannies – and we’re given a massage right away or are second (or third) in line for a good rub. There’s an order of operations what pros prefer: massage, stretching, or a visit from the chiro. Massage is always available, stretching you can obviously do on your solo, and a chiro is occasionally available. I’m a massage-first kind of guy, with stretching and the super visit from a chiro in a dead heat. Unless there’s something clearly not right with my body, perhaps after a recent visit with the pavement. Then I’ll feel well tweaked and a good chiro session is in order.

There’s a food room belonging to one of the sougneurs. I can surely guess with about 98% accuracy which team is which based just on their food room. And surely with 100% accuracy the national origin of the team. Abundant (or absent) peanut butters, maple syrup, certain cereals, are all giveaways. The importance (ergo, cost) of olive oil is a serious indicator. And speculoos means the team is has a generous swanny or else the director hasn’t recently visited the food room to confiscate  (read: eat) it.

If I have any energy whatsoever, I’ll do some stretching and then it’s off to dinner, typically at 8pm. I’m not kidding about that; staying in bed often sounds luxurious as compared to standing up and stretching for three minutes.

Back to the room right around internet o’clock. Write a blog about recovery, go pass out for the evening because breakfast is at 8am.

And before I bid you farewell, I will note that I could talk about breakfast at length, but it’s now 10:07 and I’m amply exhausted. I did want to include a picture of breakfast though, because to this day, I still find it fascinating. Pasta for breakfast:

Some folks can do it, but I fervently try to avoid it. Which is why you see an empty bowl of oatmeal, previously occupied by oatmeal, yogurt, a banana, a few nuts, a spoonful of rice, and some raisins in the foreground. Yes that is mine and yes, that’s my Starbucks cup and empty Starbucks Via. Who else would I happily pay $1 for a cup of delicious, instant coffee? Funny enough, I would pay a lot of people that kind of money for such a product! But currently only Starbucks is pulling it off. Any other takers out there in the coffee world, I would pay you 10% over Starbucks to make a similar product! In the meantime, thanks SBUX. And the aforementioned main point of this photo: a heaping plate of pasta, olive oil, and a few scoops of Philadelphia cream cheese for my teammate, right. Breakfast!

I’m beat. See you tomorrow.

My hypothesis on the matter is that this country is simply so accustomed to hosting bike races, that they have since learned all the corners available to cut and therefore take full advantage of them. Let me explain.

I wouldn’t be a cyclist if I didn’t have a reason to complain (It’s too hot, it’s too cold, the transfers are too long, the blah blah blah is blah blah blah…), but I ask you to please try to empathize and understand that I’m not exaggerating; ask any European cyclist and they’ll give you the same story. French hotel race food is known for its overcooked pasta and undercooked chicken. After countless plates of cold pasta arrived night after night, it all made sense with my favorite water-logged anecdote: we once asked for another plate of tepid, starchy, gummy pasta – simply for the sake of ingesting calories – and were apologetically turned down. Why, we asked, couldn’t they throw another bag of pasta on the stove for another seven minutes for the perfect al dente bite? Because, they replied, they cook pasta the night before for the following day’s race meal. (Ergo, we also learned that the pasta remains in the pot for many hours while cooling to room temperature, to give it the ideal, French texture of slime.) Seven minutes of cooking, seven seconds of straining, and three seconds of plating… or make it an all day event. Whatever.

And undercooked chicken? That’s their specialty. Gross? Dangerous? I won’t disagree. Meanwhile, I love a good rare steak. It frightens my teammates to be anything besides grizzly, charred gray both inside and out, but a delicately cooked, pink in the middle steak is just what the Doctor Ted King ordered! (I also enjoy a well prepared steak tartare, but central France at a one or two star hotel is not the place to request this from the menu.) Last night’s serving beef, however, was both bloody and cold. Asking for 4 more minutes on the grill was like asking if they would kindly donate to me their annual salary on a silver platter. Begrudgingly, the steak went back.

And since I don’t have any photos today, I’ll insert a Strava file instead:

And now examining beyond fine dining: Picture the smallest room in your house. Perhaps its a closet or maybe a half-bath? Yes, well now put two cyclists and their suitcases in there. Sleep tight fellas!

The year is 2013. Al Gore invented the internet a long time ago. So why can’t we learn that the best way to keep cyclists entertained is with hotels with even mildly functioning internet. The number of skinny, shorn-legged men in the hotel lobby cursing the wifi right now is comical.

And in related news, Paris-Nice has begun here in France, which marks my return to European racing in 2013. I kicked the season into gear back in January and then had a pleasant month free from racing in February, before jumping into the thick of things now in the Race to the Sun. It’s amazing how fast, how hard, and how full bore this race is. In my third go at it, I’ve decided that’s because this is the first
big BIG race on the global race calendar, and everyone wants to be guns-a-blazin’. You know it’s a big event on the race calendar if someone voluntarily gave up charcuterie for it.

That’ll do. Au revoir.

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.

People frequently pick my brain on the full spectrum of topics regarding life on two wheels. Ranging from tire pressure to how to dress, I’m always more than happy to oblige with a response. So when Martin posted a question on the last blog entry I figured that rather than answering on a one-off basis, why not make it a regular thing? Without delay, let’s kickstart the Tips from Ted campaign. (…actually, the KoS has partaken in at least one TfT. That’s style, this is function.)

Martin astutely asked, “Any tricks to keep your feet warm Ted?”

Boy do I ever! Mind you Martin, I’m born and raised in bucolic New Hampshire, home of the world’s highest recorded wind speed; I got into cycling in Middlebury, VT during my collegiate days and during one particularly snowy winter, I proudly only rode the trainer inside three times – those other days I just put on enough neoprene and Goretex to scuba dive or row a boat around the Antarctic, if that sounds like a fun weekend adventure. Moreover, I’m also the creative director of TUSB: versions 1.0, 2.0, as well as 3.0. Plus some other iterations thrown in for good measure.

Anywho, cold weather and winter conditions are rapidly approaching and Martin needs a response on how to keep his feet from freezing off and crashing into a snowbank. Probably more the former but whatever. Let’s go.

Hey Martin!

I’m glad to hear you’re sucking it up and going for a ride when it’s cold. Of course this all depends where you live; if you’re worried about your cold feet and you live in Phoenix, AZ then I’m sorry to be the first to tell you, but you’re a wuss. If, however, you’re inquiring about managing cold feet in the heart of winter in Anchorage, AK, well now you’re drinking my sake, Kimosabe!

Resolving cold feet will involve an investment, but frigid tootsies are a fast road to a miserable ride so I think you’ll find the purchase to be worth it.

First, you need to find as thick, wool (or similar synthetic) socks that you can fit into your cycling shoes without having your feet go numb due to the fact that there is now so little room in your shoes. One pair of socks is totally affordable, but shopping around for a dozen pairs to find the right ones will set you back into the triple digits. So shop wisely, feel how thick they are (as in, don’t buy 1/2 inch thick snowboard socks), and hopefully try some one before you buy.

Actually, let’s backtrack one more step: make sure your shoes fit with regular socks first. If your shoes are uncomfortable for any reason, maybe you’re strangling your feet and they’re freezing cause you have no blood flow in the first place. Just trying to cover all grounds here.

Depending on where you live, investing in some winter mountain bike shoes is likely a stellar idea, a la these. They are usually slightly larger to allow those warmer socks plus you gain the benefit of traction and studs if you’re a winter, snowy-conditions rider. As a fringe benefit, mountain bike cleats engage with the pedals easier if you’re fighting through snow, sleet, ice, and slush. But 9.9 out of 10 times you can work your road cleats/pedals with mountain bike shoes just fine as well.

Next, the thickest, ugliest, biggest pair of neoprene booties will soon become your best friend. They’re a brash effrontery to style, but looking extremely good on a bike when it’s 17F takes less precedence than not loosing your digits to frostbite. Usually in the sub-$100 range, this might be your best purchase yet.

Meanwhile, “waterproof” shoe covers are a moot point when it’s actually raining. Sure it’s a good way to keep your white shoes white(r), but with water coming down from above and up from below (the road and your tires), your feet are going to get WET, hence the use of quotes. Again, this means big, thick, ugly neoprene booties trump thin waterproof ones.

If it’s dry and it’s absolutely frigid, consider yourself lucky. In said scenario, I often slap one of those chemical toe warmer/hand warmer packs on top of your shoes and under the neoprene shoe covers. Heck, your toes might actually sweat with this genius set-up. I suggest a box of 20 or whatever, since they’re a buck each when you buy in bulk, versus maybe $4 a pop otherwise.

Lastly, as for mere “tricks” like you ask, try to cover up any secret holes in the bottom of your shoes. Often there are more cleat screw holes in the soles of your shoes than are necessary to accommodate all the cleats options out there. So either plug them somehow or make sure you have a durable, non-breathable insole to prevent cold wind from venting in and freezing your feet.

I wish you the best Martin. Warm feet are happy feet and Happy Feet is a movie… which I’ve never seen.

And that draws to a close the first ever Tips from Ted. Feel free to keep the questions coming, cause I answer them as long as they’re not dumb.

Happy weekend y’all,

Ted

I am riding parallel to a busy road, so I find myself on a bike path. Very few patrons in sight; in fact, I haven’t seen anyone for a good five minutes. I am approaching what is obviously an elderly lady, who is very well kitted-up on a fancy European bike complete with Euro-stylish riding clothes. That is, she looks both smart and ridiculous.

I slow considerably and upon noticing that she is resplendent with a helmet mirror, I spend a fair amount of time behind her so that she’ll observe that I’m there. I even make some noises and shift and so forth so that she’ll really notice me. I then slowly come back up to speed and approach to her left to initiate the pass. I’m now decently close to her and call out, “On your left”.

It was around about this time that I immediately recognized that she had NO idea I was ever there. She absolutely freaks out, clearly nearly has a heart attack, and cries “Great Jiminy Cricket!” …which just might go down as the best curse word ever. When I’m scared out of my wits I tend towards uttering four-letter words; apparently the elderly crowd in this town happen to be considerable fans of Pinocchio.

Oh and best yet, as she was crying out to Mr. Cricket, she also pulled one of these moves (that is, the awesome shimmying that takes place at 0:13). Thank goodness she stayed upright.

I apologized and she proceeded to scream that “…young man, I am a 75 year old woman! How dare you frighten me like that!” No harm, no crash, no heart attack, no foul. That’s what I always say.

(End of scene. Exit right. Look at trees in the town in which I was just visiting.)

The off-season adventures continue to chug along in high gear. I was easily convinced to go to Interbike for the unveiling of the Cannondale Pro Cycling team. This is enormous news and no better place to tell the world than in SinCity. So that was excellent. Rather than making Vegas a mere 12 hour adventure, I also opted for my first attempts at CrossVegas. My optimism ran high since I had just completed two UCI races the previous weekend, thereby completing 66.667% of my cross season in just two day, and therefore my cross skills were adept and honed. I also still had 10 UCI points from the fall of 2011 at my disposal for an awesome start position.

Wrong. I found out that at a stacked race like CrossVegas – where the beer, credibility, and ego run high – 10 UCI points plants you prominently in row 6. Out of 10.

From Vegas to Boston Criterium. Reaaaaady, and go!

I present unto you Boston’s TD Bank Mayor’s Cup Criterium. I haven’t raced a criterium since I did this one two years ago. So much like the stop-start of a cross race, this isn’t my bag. But it’s oooooh so much fun. If every criterium were run as smoothly and well as this, if every race took place in a major metropolitan city, if every race were thoroughly endorsed by it’s mayor and therefore were able to be run prominently through it’s central city streets, then cycling would gain an enormous foothold in America and everything would be perfect. If only…

So while we wait for that utopia, we graciously accept this amazing race in the meantime.

And then onto more adventures like 2 days in the Rocky Mountains

Followed by a wedding this Friday evening for two great friends, either watch GP Gloucester or attend this once in a lifetime (or once per year, I’m guessing) event on Saturday, and then defend my title in the Vermont 50 marathon mountain bike race on Sunday.

And lest we forget, we are now down to just three weeks and three days until the Krempels King of the Road Challenge. We’re thrilled to announce that Cannondale has generously upped the ante and will give away Cannondale EVO 2 complete with SRAM Red to folks who surpass the $5k mark in fund-raising. So that’s massive. So I encourage you to sign up today and start towards that goal (you have until November 30 to reach that mark, so bonus 1 month+10 days).

And if you can’t make it to NH then you can always participate in the very generous opening of your wallet and helping me reach my goal. A sincere please and thank you.

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.

Be either really excited or completely confused, faithful readers, because this is one of those once annual iamtedking race reports.

Easter Sunday 2012 marked my second Paris-Roubaix. The first time around one year prior I was coming back from a mind-bending few weeks of knee tendonitis. Steeped in heavy frustration, Roubaix was my fifth race in 2011 after a month off the bike followed by a few weeks of very easy spinning. Take it from me that there’s nothing quite like jumping into the biggest Classics of the year, where everyone around you is chomping at the bit like a pack of two-hundred rabid wolves, and you’re the sheepish rookie popping up in the middle, unbeknownst just how gnarly these races are. Ready… aaaaand go!

So fast forward to yesterday – every chocolatier’s favorite spring holiday – and I’m in an entire different league. The fitness is there, the focus is there, and my hands are getting that calloused, “Belgian chap” from riding three weeks of cobbles. That said, I’m still hesitant to call my spring campaign experienced having now completed just one full spring of northern cobbled Classics, but the learning curve is steep, and slowly but surely it’s coming.

Also worth noting, we don’t do what many other teams do: recon. We don’t stay the weeks between races and scope the courses. We don’t blast through pave to test different tire pressures, which lines to try, where to tape your fingers to prevent the blisters. It’s six in one and a half-dozen in the other, because while half the peloton is stuck in the same dank hotel in overcast Belgium, I’m home reaping sun and glassy smooth pavement while at home in Tuscany. But remember that aforementioned learned curve? Turns out you gotta study in order to ace the test. Sooo maybe it’s more like eight in one and half-dozen in the other.

First section of pave? Flat tire. Crud. We’re now 100km and a hair over two hours into Paris-Roubaix. Heads up fellas, the boys are now coming out to play. Riding cobbles with a front flat is a similar sensation to hydroplaning your car over those WAKE UP rumble-strips on the side of a highway. With your eyes closed. While getting punched in the junk.

Anyway, fresh new wheel installed, I speedily jumped back in the caravan around car number 25 out of 25 and proceeded the slow and steady chase. While catching up to the peloton is obviously a priority, blowing my wad sits low on my to-do list at this point in the day. 160km to go, which of course is a proper race unto itself, my stunning experienced showed in this slow and steady return to the pack of wolves.

Zoom zoom zoom, I make my welcome return to the peloton complete with fanfare, cars celebrating by bottoming out aggressively, and having ingested ample dust kicked up from the cars to kill a lesser man. Around this time, one of the most memorable and horrific anecdotes of the race occurred. Out of the corner of my eye on a cobbled descent (yeaaup, there’s ample up and down in P-Rx), I caught sight of a rider hit a bump awkwardly, have his rear wheel pop up as he slowly rotated forward while his front wheel still rotated normally along the pavement – his bike is just at a 45 degree angle with rear wheel half-way to vertical. Maybe two seconds after lift off and with very few options left, he hit the eject button causing him to Superman off his bike from a full six feet in the air… at 40kph… onto cobbles. That’ll scare you straight: Focus Ted, focus, focus, focus, dammit!

More crashes ensued. Heck, this is Paris-Roubaix after all. Wind, gutters, cobbles, flats, mechanicals, and at this point we’re no longer 195 dudes who started back in Compiegne, we’re maybe 80 guys chugging along in the front group. Remember when I talked about recon? Meticulously learning the ins and outs of the race? Something to the effect of, “When you enter the town of So-and-So, you will go through one roundabout and then about 250 meters later you will see two white houses with brown trim on the right. Be absolutely sure to be in the top twenty spots in the peloton there or your Arenberg will be hell.”…? Yeah, it’s around this point that those lessons turn out to be crucial.

As a related aside, this reminds me of something our very seasoned Italian bus driver said to me when he picked me up at the airport for Paris-Roubaix less than 48 hours before the start of the race. To win in the north, you must live in the north. Sage words Luigino. You all can all stew on that for a while.

Anyway, when you’ve never even heard of the town of So-and-So, let alone know that there’s a roundabout, least of all have any idea where these white houses with brown trim are, you’re at the mercy of whoever is driving the peloton at this ferocious pace. Politely asking for them to slow down a touch so that you can prepare yourself for Arenberg just doesn’t work. ‘scuse me fellas, but I’ve never actually ridden Arenberg before. Never even seen it either, in fact.  Mind if we stop at this bar ahead, I’ll pay for a round of coffee, and then slowly group ride it all together?

Apparently they didn’t hear me.

So zooming through So-and-So, zipping through the roundabout, I was soon presented with a dilemma: go left and crash, go right and crash, or proceed straight and do not crash but stop entirely. To the delight of both my skin and bones, but to the chagrin of my speed and momentum I opted for straight. Thankfully a mighty sprint caught me back up to the peloton just as I caught sight of a whole bunch of trees, an enormous throng of people, and a banner that read, “Sector 16 – Arenberg”. Cripes, if only I’d known.

The anxiety is palpable as we hit Arenberg forest. It’s what I call the square peg, round hole syndrome. Even with what’s left of the decimated peloton, everyone wants to be at the front of the race. Simple physics on small, French farm roads prevent this from being a possibility. But darn it, you may as well try.

My aforementioned stop-start at this very inopportune time resulted in a crazy first ever trip through Arenberg. The crowds are deafening, the pace is maddening, and the cobbles are about fifty times more absurd than you could ever imagine. In retrospect, the word that strikes me as most fitting is unnatural. These roads are made for four wheel drive farming equipment – not for bicycles. Again, square peg, round hole.

Exiting Arenberg, the racers riding in ones and twos around me naturally melded together to form a groupetto. Still amid a caravan of cars and with the peloton still in sight, we optimistically chased. And chased. And chased. And twenty kilometers later, with now only a helicopter hovering in the distance and dust swirling somewhere up the road to show where the peloton was consistently riding away from us, we settled into the silent rhythm of a groupetto just riding to the finish. Our jobs complete at this point of the day. Protect a rider, offer assistance with mechanicals, maybe have ridden and been shelled from the breakaway. From here, just finishing the race and a shower is our day’s main goal.

The remaining pave sections ticked down into the single digits. The crowds still cheered with (nearly) the enthusiasm as the lead group. Bells ringing, shouts and whistling with the vigor of… err of proper, well-lubricated European cycling fans.

Then among one of the few pave sections left to pass, a cobble deflated both my tire and me. Psssshhhhht. I rode the rim for a while as I waved goodbye to my groupetto. Hoping a support car or team vehicle would come along and offer their services, it was not to be. A few kilometers later and still no support in sight, the only car that came along was a family of three generations of Belgian fans who were here for the race. Fine tuning the radio to catch news of their native hero Boonen riding to victory, grandpop, father, and son meticulously studied maps and GPS to get us precisely to the velodrome. Warmed up by a thermos of coffee brewed that morning but still piping hot, they were just the friends I needed to sooth the soul. And give me a lift home.

Paris-Roubaix. Simply awesome. Enough said.

Joao is a friend and former teammate of mine on Bissell, then two years later alongside me at the Cervelo Test Team. I’ve been practicing my trans-Atlantic jet setting, so in the midst of changing apartments in Italy this past week I had the chance to make my way down to Siena and partake in a few days of the eponymous Fat Man Tours.

As a very good friend of Joao’s, I actually knew very little of what exactly lay in store for my time with FMT, but I knew vehemently that whatever adventures I would stumble upon would inevitably tip the enjoyment scale towards the positive. So with only the mildest bit of apprehension I gassed up the jet and headed to Siena!

Allow the title to marinate for a minute, Fat Man Tours. And certainly be sure to marinate it in plenty of freshly pressed olive oil, some crushed vine ripened local tomatoes, rich and fragrant rosemary, and a healthy pinch of salt. And maybe a side of lardo. (In no particular order, a smattering of comestibles and experiences over the past few days for you to absorb while you marinate that title a bit longer…)

Like I said, I know Joao well. I know his naturally smooth gait on a bicycle is only paralleled by his naturally magnetic pull towards rich, delicious Italian food. And wine. Don’t kid yourself, this isn’t a bike tour throughout Italy. Rather it leans much more closely to a food and wine tour with a dash of cycling tossed across the Tuscan countryside. The true mystique of Joao, however, is that he doesn’t introduce you to tasty local dinner at a corner restaurant – rather he first introduces you to la Nona, the grandmother, who warmly welcomes you to her multigenerational osteria, before ducking behind the kitchen doors to prepare the simple yet exquisite masterpiece that just took your breath away. This is certainly not your cookie cutter bike tour; this is as authentic as it gets.

And you’re not just riding with a bunch of Joeys and Freds. Allow myself to brag… about myself. In addition to food worthy of a king, pun intended, the FMT also allows you the privilege to ride with such exemplary professionals as myself and my friend and the cycling Jesus lookalike, Laurens Ten Dam of Rabobank.

Although in truth, some of us are still chasing the healthy greens of a salad bowl rather than the luscious aforementioned lardo. Note the San Pellegrino water in the background. Wine was abundant at lunch, although I abstemiously declined (to save room for dinner).

No matter who is pushing the pace, myself, Laurens, Joao, Colin, Grahamo, Bruce, or others, cafe stops are necessary which fulfilled the need for healthy banter and playful razzing – in case anyone gets lost on the trip. A rarity, but always a possibility.

Yes, we do go for bike rides now and again, and it’s actually no wonder people get lost since all signs, beautiful as they are in Chianti, point to the right.

Additionally we ripped some stradi bianchi, white roads of l’Eroica fame, complete with postcard worthy view and a flat tire. Narrow clinchers aren’t exactly in their native habitat in this stuff, but the corresponding scenery and general experience of the adventure more than made up for it.

I’m particularly fond of this photo below since it shows my handsome and awesome Cannondale SuperSix EVO decked out in American regalia hugged by an envious Italian groupset, left and an overpriced Italian frame, right.

I did find time to buy my brother a birthday present… umm, I suppose this blog post might damper the surprise depending on when Robbie reads this. Although his birthday was in March and since we haven’t gone out to the previously planned birthday dinner these past six months, I think these authentic and extraordinary tastes from Chianti may suffice.

Meanwhile, others boarded the Chinese made, vastly underpowered, yet astutely titled HOVER craft and went shopping at Gucci. I was entertained and educated by the this shopping expedition, but was truthfully a bit upset that I couldn’t find a Gucci bag shiny nor sequined enough for my liking.

So now not quite a half dozen days later, I’ve escaped the Fat Man Tours mysteriously more svelte than I arrived. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire escape from reality, the riding, the dining, the remarkable company, and the entire experience. Thanks FMT, that was a blast.