Afternoon all,
I'm recently back from a nearly two week house sitting staying in a little town called Santa Maria del Giudice.
Our friends have moved back to the area, after having lived there for a number of years some ~17 years ago, and we house sat for them then too.
The road up to their house, and then the drive down to their house was narrow, and very steep, the signs said 20%, but on my one ride up, strava called out some of it as 27 & 28% and I can well believe it.
Although we had ridden there some 15 years ago, we were both very green roadies at the time, and didn't experiment with different routes at all really, so just headed out to the coast and back, which was lovely, but I realise now we missed a huge amount.
I found a couple of very useful and recent vids on youtube, which I used to crib some routes and climbs out of:
Top 5 Lucca climbs
5 more climbs, so presumably 6-10....?
It was a family holiday, so I didn't get that much time on the bike, but managed 3 rides.
Two stand out, one recommended to by a Strava follower who had been in the area just weeks before - this involved ascending Monte Serra - this one I carried out with my partner, who struggled a lot at first (The climb was hard to start with, and the heat was high) but she kept on pushing, and we managed to get right to the top, the descent (Not back the way we came up) was pretty good too. I managed to find some free parking in basically a big layby too.
The next one I did solo, and was when the rest of the party wanted a beach day, so I drove them down there, and then having again sussed out some free parking, drove there to unload the bike.
I had a bit of flattish type terrain to warm up, but pretty soon we were into the ~16km climb, this one started easier (50% of the elevation was covered in the first 10km) and ramped up as you can imagine, in the last 6km.
I was a little concerned seeing riders coming down with jackets on, and indeed it was colder at the top, and it was a bit bracing at the beginning of the descent, but once I had descended a bit, the temperature picked up, and all was fine - I think a wind blocker gilet would do the trick for the future.
The descent at the top was steeper, and a rougher road surface (zero issue on the way up of course) so wasn't incredibly enjoyable, plus I was riding a rim brake bike, so stopped a couple of times to check the rim temp, more out of curiosity than anything else, and did find the exalith rims to be fairly warm, not sure if they would dissipate heat better or worse than conventional allow rims though.
Once I was down far enough, and onto the slightly less percentage roads, the tarmac quality improved as well, and the las 10k or so, were an absolute delight - managed to keep up with a Dacia probably for the last 6km as well - no big long straights to really get the speed up, so checked latterly and saw I topped out at 63.9kmh.
I didn't take my best bike with disc brakes, for a couple of reasons. Firstly we had 3 overnight stops in total, where the bikes were left in the van - the van admittedly does have factory tinted windows, and they were covered as much as they could be with a dark double sheet, but I would have been gutted if the best bike had been stolen - still wouldn't have been happy to see this bike go, but it would have been more bearable.
Additionally I thought rubs/scrapes could well happen in transit - I had 3 bikes in the van, all pretty secure, but also lashed to each other, and meshed together if that makes sense - trying to get the bits of frame protected, and pedals in the exact right position is always a game with these things.
It would be preferable to have disc brakes for the ascent admittedly, and that bike is slightly lighter than this one too.
My CR1 also has a bottom gear of 36/28, which was a bit of a challenge up some of the climbs (Though I am happy with a low cadence), a 36/34 would definitely have given me a lot more room for manoeuvre, though good to know being heavier than I should be, and not that fit, it was at least achievable on that gearing.
On the day I did this ride, I wrongly thought the beach trip the rest of the party were on was ending mid afternoon, but they actually ended up staying there until past sunset, so what I would do in the future would have been to have dropped them off, ridden one climb, return home to shower and eat, then head out for one or two additional climbs, before going to meet them for dinner etc.
Riding on Italian roads:
There are cyclists EVERYWHERE, it's brilliant, and although the motorists in general pass closer than they do here, I saw zero animosity, no horn beeps, or overly close passes. It just seems to be the norm, and cyclists and motorists co-exist happily it would seem to me.
In summary, if you are thinking about heading down that way for a cycling holiday, or a holiday with some cycling thrown in, I would not hesitate.
I'm desperately hoping for an invite back next year so I can especially have a proper go at that first climb, and explore some new climbs by driving there first.
P.S Bike does need new bar tape - I fitted newish 25mm (Absolute max that the rear can take) GP5000s just prior to going out, but bottled it and went for butyl rather than TPU tubes because of the rim heat on descents.
If I took the CR1 again, I'm not sure if I would stick with it as is, or attempt to put a bigger cassette on the rear - iirc it is a short cage 6800 on there, so I think I'd be technically limited to a 30, and am not sure it is worth it. If I could get lighter, stronger or both that would solve the issue!
As another aside, we did also drive to Siena one day, and experienced HEAVY thunderstorms/lightning and torrential rain on the way there, by the time we had parked up it was simply raining, but still very warm of course, and once we had finished lunch it was dry and sunny.
Siena is stunning, and as a fan of Strade Bianche to see it up close and personal is up there with walking the streets of Monaco as an F1 fan.
I'm recently back from a nearly two week house sitting staying in a little town called Santa Maria del Giudice.
Our friends have moved back to the area, after having lived there for a number of years some ~17 years ago, and we house sat for them then too.
The road up to their house, and then the drive down to their house was narrow, and very steep, the signs said 20%, but on my one ride up, strava called out some of it as 27 & 28% and I can well believe it.
Although we had ridden there some 15 years ago, we were both very green roadies at the time, and didn't experiment with different routes at all really, so just headed out to the coast and back, which was lovely, but I realise now we missed a huge amount.
I found a couple of very useful and recent vids on youtube, which I used to crib some routes and climbs out of:
Top 5 Lucca climbs
5 more climbs, so presumably 6-10....?
It was a family holiday, so I didn't get that much time on the bike, but managed 3 rides.
Two stand out, one recommended to by a Strava follower who had been in the area just weeks before - this involved ascending Monte Serra - this one I carried out with my partner, who struggled a lot at first (The climb was hard to start with, and the heat was high) but she kept on pushing, and we managed to get right to the top, the descent (Not back the way we came up) was pretty good too. I managed to find some free parking in basically a big layby too.
The next one I did solo, and was when the rest of the party wanted a beach day, so I drove them down there, and then having again sussed out some free parking, drove there to unload the bike.
I had a bit of flattish type terrain to warm up, but pretty soon we were into the ~16km climb, this one started easier (50% of the elevation was covered in the first 10km) and ramped up as you can imagine, in the last 6km.
I was a little concerned seeing riders coming down with jackets on, and indeed it was colder at the top, and it was a bit bracing at the beginning of the descent, but once I had descended a bit, the temperature picked up, and all was fine - I think a wind blocker gilet would do the trick for the future.
The descent at the top was steeper, and a rougher road surface (zero issue on the way up of course) so wasn't incredibly enjoyable, plus I was riding a rim brake bike, so stopped a couple of times to check the rim temp, more out of curiosity than anything else, and did find the exalith rims to be fairly warm, not sure if they would dissipate heat better or worse than conventional allow rims though.
Once I was down far enough, and onto the slightly less percentage roads, the tarmac quality improved as well, and the las 10k or so, were an absolute delight - managed to keep up with a Dacia probably for the last 6km as well - no big long straights to really get the speed up, so checked latterly and saw I topped out at 63.9kmh.
I didn't take my best bike with disc brakes, for a couple of reasons. Firstly we had 3 overnight stops in total, where the bikes were left in the van - the van admittedly does have factory tinted windows, and they were covered as much as they could be with a dark double sheet, but I would have been gutted if the best bike had been stolen - still wouldn't have been happy to see this bike go, but it would have been more bearable.
Additionally I thought rubs/scrapes could well happen in transit - I had 3 bikes in the van, all pretty secure, but also lashed to each other, and meshed together if that makes sense - trying to get the bits of frame protected, and pedals in the exact right position is always a game with these things.
It would be preferable to have disc brakes for the ascent admittedly, and that bike is slightly lighter than this one too.
My CR1 also has a bottom gear of 36/28, which was a bit of a challenge up some of the climbs (Though I am happy with a low cadence), a 36/34 would definitely have given me a lot more room for manoeuvre, though good to know being heavier than I should be, and not that fit, it was at least achievable on that gearing.
On the day I did this ride, I wrongly thought the beach trip the rest of the party were on was ending mid afternoon, but they actually ended up staying there until past sunset, so what I would do in the future would have been to have dropped them off, ridden one climb, return home to shower and eat, then head out for one or two additional climbs, before going to meet them for dinner etc.
Riding on Italian roads:
There are cyclists EVERYWHERE, it's brilliant, and although the motorists in general pass closer than they do here, I saw zero animosity, no horn beeps, or overly close passes. It just seems to be the norm, and cyclists and motorists co-exist happily it would seem to me.
In summary, if you are thinking about heading down that way for a cycling holiday, or a holiday with some cycling thrown in, I would not hesitate.
I'm desperately hoping for an invite back next year so I can especially have a proper go at that first climb, and explore some new climbs by driving there first.
P.S Bike does need new bar tape - I fitted newish 25mm (Absolute max that the rear can take) GP5000s just prior to going out, but bottled it and went for butyl rather than TPU tubes because of the rim heat on descents.
If I took the CR1 again, I'm not sure if I would stick with it as is, or attempt to put a bigger cassette on the rear - iirc it is a short cage 6800 on there, so I think I'd be technically limited to a 30, and am not sure it is worth it. If I could get lighter, stronger or both that would solve the issue!
As another aside, we did also drive to Siena one day, and experienced HEAVY thunderstorms/lightning and torrential rain on the way there, by the time we had parked up it was simply raining, but still very warm of course, and once we had finished lunch it was dry and sunny.
Siena is stunning, and as a fan of Strade Bianche to see it up close and personal is up there with walking the streets of Monaco as an F1 fan.
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