Cycling in Asia

I have very few pictures from today's ride as it was our fastest paced ride with Leopoldo, the owner of the local bike shop in Borso del Grappa.  Leopoldo is super fast and he guided four of us around the entire MonteGrappa.  Check out the ride here http://connect.garmin.com/activity/233215

As you can see the pace was 7km per hour faster than our other rides at the ICC.  The ride started like one of the first rides we had done upon arriving on the cycling trip.    It was funny at one point when Cary was trying to recall the name of the ride.

Cary:  I think they call this the Lake Ride

John:  I think we should call this the No Break Ride!

John's remarks reflected the fact that despite the fast pace, Leopoldo never wanted to stop.  Leopoldo was a former racer and his skills were still very much in tact as he dragged the four of us around like mad.

Cary and John powering up Monte Grappa

Since I have no pictures from this ride I thought I would throw in a few random shots.

Nice climbs of Italy

This is where the ride started...I thought I would be able to take pictures all along this ride but had to focus on keeping up instead.  Kim managed to go on another No Crying Ride which focused more on touring and exploring rather than pounding the pedals.

I am not really sure why we did this but we decided to climb the first 3km of MonteGrappa after Leopoldo dropped us off for lunch.  We had an hour to spare so Sheldon and Cary were keen to get some more riding in and we all rode the first three kilometers of Montegrappa.  The switchbacks on this side of the mountain were very long so we had to pedal a long time before being given a reprieve by a turn in the switchback.  With probably and average gradient of 10.5% for the first 3km I am still wondering why we did this...however it was fun when we descended.

On a completely different ride, when we were climbing the Asiago Plateau, we decided to stop for a quick cherry break...it is cherry season in Italy and they were awesome.

The cherries had provided the energy boost to help us climb faster