Well, now we're all awake again....

I got some great climbing done in late August. I took a family trip, me
and my wife, and my brother and his wife and daughter to Tuscany. It
wasn't specifically a cyclnig holiday, but me and my brother took our
bikes, and got up early every day for a 2 to 4 hour ride.

By coincidence, we were staying in Artimino, the same hilltop village
that CSC had their snowy training camp at in February:

http://team-csc.com/news.asp?n_id=482&lang=uk

It's a GREAT place for a training camp. It's quiet, good accomodation, a
couple of good restaurants, and a great little ice cream shop. Every
ride finishes with a 2k 10%+ (with ramps of 15%) climb back to the
village. It's on the eastern slopes of Monte Albano which is the climb
the Lamporecchio-Firenze time trial went over in this year's Giro - the
grafitti are still there. We soon figured out the local training roads,
and villages with good cafes for a late ride cake and capuccino. The
climb from Carmignano to Pinone was the start of most rides in that
area. Carmignano has a great restaurant, and Pinone is not so much a
village as one restarant right at the summit of Monte Albano. Highly
recommeneded for a very good evening meal in cooler air above the valley.

Vinci to San Baronto is a superb training climb of lovely even gradient
where you can just go faster and faster up the higher you get - ending
up cranking the 53. We regularly hammered the locals up here. We'd catch
them, and they'd be just chatting, but they'd get on our wheels. The
speaking stopped quickly, then the line became ragged, and then they
were gone. To be fair we were on a training mission with just the
mornings to ride in and they were just out for a cruise with their friends.

The climb up the other side from Cantagrillo is very good too. I did
this side after descending from San Baronto one day. I saw a team car
coming up the hill towards me, and did a U turn to see if I could keep
up with them. I have to tell you, they were wimps, and just dropped off
the pace immediately! This one guy though was incredibly strong. He had
his DS talking in an earpiece and he just hammered it all the way up. I
was way over my limit (and in touring mode with camelback, camera, tools
etc) but I stuck to his wheel until 1k to go. It's the hardest training
I've done this year.

Our best day was a ride to Abetone. We drove to just outside Pistoia,
and crossed the Passo di Oppio down to San Marcello and then straight up
to Abetone. The contrast of riding up from the baking hot Arno valley up
to the Alpine scenery of Abetone was amazing. It was pretty cold up
there. We had a quick pizza, and descended through very detectable
layers of warm air down to Mammiano, and then took the alternative
route back taking in a superb, quiet climb through Piteglio up to
Prunetta which dropped us back on the main Pistoia road at Piastre.

The ridges of the Tuscan hills seem to mainly run north-south, and so
any east-west segment of a ride tends to be very hard. One of our
hardest climbing days was when we "discovered" the town of Certaldo
southwest of Firenze. We crossed the Firenze-Pisa highway at Ginestra,
and headed south through Cerbaia to San Casciano. Then we took a minor
road cutting right across the mountain ridges through San Pancrazio,
Fornacette and Fiano to Certaldo. Certaldo has a beautiful ancient
citadel at it's highest point with a very good cafe where we refreshed
ourselves with cakes and capuccino. We went back the shortest route we
could find, but it was still another hard two hour ride over the ridges
back through Montespertoli back to Ginestra.

All this training stood me in good stead 3 weeks later when I won the
district 25 mile time trial championships by over a minute from on of
the UK's top time triallists, Matt Botrill.

A highly recommended area. I'd like to go back again and explore it some
more. Perhaps the area to the east of Firenze next time.

Nigel

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