Italy

Well folks, sorry to be so tardy on the blog here, I have been a bit busy. We finished our stage race down in Spain late Saturday night and hit the road immediately making it to the Spanish/French border. Unfortunately we lost the yellow jersey and Andrew Talansky finished the race in 2nd place, but we were still delighted to have 2 stage wins and a great GC result. My teammate Carter Jones put on an impressive display of power by winning the last day solo. For the night we stayed in a neat little town named Girona, which is the hotbed for American cyclists living in Europe. We did manage to have an amazing dinner which consisted of hands down the best paella I have ever eaten in my life. Unfortunately we did not have too much time there to check it out as we were all excited about our final destination-Lucca, Italy. Yes, I am here for a 9 day mini camp to get some climbing in and gain some fitness for my last race with the National team up in France. While sitting in a car for a whole day can really drag, the thought of starting out in 1 country, going across another and finishing my day in a 3rd country was pretty neat. However, the best part of it all was driving along the southern coast of France, also known as the French Riviera. I saw Monaco, Cote d Azur, Nice, probably drove through over 100 tunnels through the mountains and never had a straight road longer than a couple hundred meters. As our vicinity got closer to Monaco I have never seen so many lamborghinis, Ferraris, BMW's, and Porsche's in my life.

But, back to Italy. I am in love! I will be doing many climbs this week, enjoying many cappuccinos, gelato and trying to get as fit as I can be. I am really looking forward to the next race and hoping that I can do something there, maybe its my turn to have a great race? Will get some photos up in a few days so that you can appreciated how amazing Lucca really is.