Recovery day... or not.

Today I woke up with the plan of it being a recovery day. I know, strange that Saturday would be a recovery day, but when you're on vacation every day is Saturday, right?! I had a lazy start to the day. I went to the bakery, stocked up because they're closed tomorrow, and finally around 1PM I got out on the bike. I rolled along slowly to Intra and decided to ride around town.

Within a few feet I found myself in the market. Market day in Intra is big. I'd say it's typical of every market I've been to in Italy, but just bigger. Intra is the main town of Verbania and it's filled with tourists, so there was a lot to cater to them. Lots of leather goods, shoes, linens, etc and then the food. I am still blown away by how entire cheese and meat shops are packed into a truck and unfold like a transformer once or twice a week. It's remarkable. Unfortunately, being on my bike, I wasn't able to stock up on cheeses (plus I already had) but I was able to grab a roll filled with Sicilian green olives and a ciambella (giant donut). I ate that walked around for a half hour or so, then decided to just roll along the lake.

This is how to do a bike lane.

So, back to the bike riding, huh? As I was riding along in the little ring taking in the scenery, a big group of ten riders or so came by. I couldn't resist the temptation so I jumped on a wheel and we went flying down the road at 26mph. At some point, two riders kind of broke away and a bunch of the guys were grappling about who was going to chase. I don't understand that much Italian, but I can understand the logistics of race-type riding anywhere, and that's what they were on about. Finally one guy took it up, I followed and after I took a big pull up near 30mph (the road must have been downhill) we caught them. Then there were four. And lots of waiting. It was like I was back at home on the club rides. Some things never change, no matter where in the world you are.
We decided to push on as a quartet and climbed a little bit up to via Panormica. You get the idea, the view was nice and luckily as the strongest climber I had a lot of time to look over my shoulder back down at Verbania. I don't know what it is, but just like most riders at home, they can go on the flats, but they don't do the big climbs. And there are so many here! But lots of riders flying along on the flat roads. I'll admit though, riding a paceline in the high 20's is lots of fun. And even though it was faster than my planned recovery ride, considering that the ride had no major climbs, it was actually perfect. Thirty miles went by like that!
Now I'm ready for tomorrow's adventure. I have a metric century planned, lots of flat roads, one major climb, one long descent and then the flat roads home. Should be a nice look and I'll be keeping to the main roads so hopefully nothing too steep. We'll see. The only thing keeping me from that is if I run into an interesting group to ride with it. There are tons of cyclists around here. It's really a cyclist's paradise. No wonder why the Australian Institute of Sport has their HQ in nearby Varese. I haven't run into any pro men or Orica AIS women yet, but maybe. They probably keep to the other side of the lake. Maybe I'll get over there on Monday or Tuesday.

To many of you reading who don't know, I am actually a musician, but ironically every time I come to Italy, I don't do anything music related. Tonight I saw a sign for a concert of Bach selections that was free so I decided to check it out. It was at this very beautiful old cathedral that was seeking donations to go towards restorations. There were beautiful frescos, a nice organ, but definitely needed some work. The concert was packed actually and the selections were pretty good. The performers were pretty decent, nothing great but it was an enjoyable way to spend the evening - minus having to sit on those horrible pews for an hour and a half! It was nice to hear the organ, but I have no ass padding for hardwood pews.

Anyway, I gotta go. They're turning the lights off and the disco that I can har from down the street is playing the Doobie Brothers at a level audible for miles. I'm out!

Not the nicest house on the lake anymore, but it has so much character!