Updates From Home

Well, I'm back at home. Back to the routine of going to work, paying the bills, and riding what now seem to be very flat roads in and around Hunterdon County, New Jersey, USA. It is lovely here at this time of year. For the first time in years it seems like the weather is working out for a really nice changing of the leaves. Oranges, reds, yellows, and light browns stand out amongst the grayer skies of autumn. If I didn't get many falling leaves in Lombardia, I've certainly got them here. Despite that, I do miss the Italian terrain, the long climbs and consequently long descents. And, I find myself missing arugula in every grocery store, fresh tomatoes, and most of all, porcini. Things are different here and although I was only gone a month, those things seem even more noticeable now. Even the roads beneath my tires feel somehow different, despite the fact that these are the roads that I know best.
On Sunday it's the "season end" ride for my club, the Covered Bridges Ride. The metric century covers a lot of the beautiful bucolic countryside in Bucks Country, Pennsylvania, just across the a River from my house. It's a great ride, passing through a handful of preserved covered bridges along the way, and it'll be nice to run into a lot of familiar faces that I haven't seen since before my trip. While I rue riding at 8am at this time of year, when I'd rather be riding in the warmer mid-day, it's still a classic in this area that for me signals the end of the "fast" season... time to bundle up and go slow on the heavy bike with fenders is fast approaching. We can only hope that the weather will stay decent this winter and the first World Tour race (Tour Down Under) can't come soon enough.
Today I checked my results and photos for the two Gran Fondos (Gran Fondi) that I rode in Italy. The results are calculated by this company Mysdam which sells or leases timing chips for events all over Italy. They give you time splits on the climbs as well as categorical ranking and overall ranking. For the Gran Fondo Mondiale Franco Ballerini I placed 81st with an average speed of 33.32km/hr over 130km (900 riders in that event). In the Campagnolo Roma Gran Fondo I placed 475th with an average speed of 33.62km/hr over 104km (5000 riders in that event). In both events I came in a bit over 30 minutes after the winner. I am more than happy with that.

The Mondiale Gran Fondo was photographed but the site that they posted the pictures on doesn't seem to work. However, I was able to get the photos from Roma Gran Fond very easily, albeit for a bit of a fee. Just like the event itself, I'm a bit disappointed with the photos. Granted that I am sure it's quite a difficult task to photograph an event of this magnitude, I don't think they hired the most talented photographers. Even the general photos of the event were nothing special. I've posted here my favorite personal photo as well as a group shot of the start. I have a feeling that the start shot was nothing special so they Photoshopped the hell out of it to make it look artsy. Whenever I take a bad photo, I mess with it in Photoshop and sometimes you can make something cool. And, yes, this photo is cool, but I can't help but think that the photography leaves a bit to be desired. I don't mean to rag on the event, but I was generally disappointed and I wouldn't recommend it to a friend.