Italy, you sure are growing on me! The drivers are aggressive, but much more predictable than the French (the Spanish are still the best!). The roads are nice with quite a few bike paths and lanes. There are tons of people on bicycles in the cities, from 10 year olds to 90 year olds; it’s awesome. People are very friendly and helpful; the food is consistently good; and the weather has been amazing! I feel the most comfortable here of any of the countries so far, and that’s despite knowing Italian the least of any language; I was lazy and didn’t even practice Italian until the 3rd or 4th day. But Italians have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome.
Today we rode out from Florence, east 35km to the top of the first climb of the Giro d’Italia bike race and watched the spread-out racers suffer up the climb. We had a great vantage point, and at one point, someone from Team Sky stopped to prepare some water bottles to hand out to the racers, so we got to hear a bit of team gossip.
Since we are heading for Eastern Europe, where we expect the roads to be a bit more rough, we are swapping out our stock tires for the famous Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires, known to last tens of thousands of kilometers. They are a bit heavier but have more tread and much better puncture resistance, so they will be better for gravel riding and on poor surfaces.
