going to italy

tour of ireland is over the last night in dublin was really fun although I called it a night early as I had to get up at 5 in the morning to get to the airport.
flew to italy, got on a bus then a train.







rob coppolillo picked me up in the town of Belluno and drove me to where I am now
this is alleghe I am pretty sure a stage of this years giro went through here.




the ride we went on today was EPIC! despite the fact that I actually did the same ride 4 years ago when I worked for Connie and Davis Phinney. still just as steep, still just as stunning



Everyone seems to care in Italy, the garbage men tuck in there shirts, they iron there clothes. every house no matter how big or small is clean and neat and this time of year they all have flowers coming out of every nook.

the drivers always make room for cyclists and everyone is happy to see us. we even get the "di' Pantani" references as we all slog up the super steep passes. today we did the Fedaia and the passo Pordoi. out mechanic whom I've known for years thought it would be funny to only put a 25 on my bike instead of a 27

yes it is that steep, uh bobby your dropped I have been secret training. I have made up this whole trip as a cover for secret training so I can drop you in cross. this road said 15% , but there was also another stretch of road that said 15% that was not nearly as steep...




there are little villages on every buildable piece of land, I have no idea how much climbing you have to do, or how tough you have to be to actually get to some of these places as they seem to be perched on the side of 45 degree slopes...










the pictures don't do this place justice the views are incredible



this is for the car people, the same car james dean died in. there was also a 50's mercedes gullwing cruising around too.



ok I have to run and get ready for today's ride.

ciao

Jonathan

tour of ireland

here it goes!

let's see where this takes me.
tour of ireland 07

travel to get here was insane not very interesting but it included a total of 12 hours of layover time in different airports.

I haven't figured out how to post multiple pictures on this thing in a good way so bare with me
yeah and I know the pic is blurry but after 28 hours of travel this is the bar at the first hotel and the sight of my first irish guinness

this is the way everything looks in ireland!




two guesses at who this guy is...Sean Kelly is really cool and we talked for about 20 minutes about cycling, ireland, the race. etc


hey look theres some grass in the road... that's pretty cool
and the road is only 8 ft wide









oh look now there is 2 2 ft patches of pavement
yes... a field of 100+ riders raced down this and it was really fast. not to mention it was "misting" by the time the race came through here. that means raining to you and me.

so what I did everyday was to leave before the race and go to the feed zone, and after everyone came through I was driving the second car in the race. which worked out great a few days as if there was a break I was the car to go up and support our guys that were in it.

that in itself was pretty crazy as trying to get by the group on roads that were on average half as wide or less as the ones were used to in the US.




this was a particularly wide portion of road, where passing cars was pretty easy.










this was a place where passing was not easy, but shortly after I took this photo I HAD to pass the mavic car and all the motorcycles to get to my guy. and somehow I managed to fit believe it or not :)



ok I think I may not even be able to load this thing up as I put too many photos but I will try and write more later.

tomorrow I am going to italy, to the dolomites to work with Andy. ciao

Jon