{"id":653,"date":"2013-09-14T09:58:20","date_gmt":"2013-09-14T09:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/?p=653"},"modified":"2014-07-27T21:30:42","modified_gmt":"2014-07-27T21:30:42","slug":"day-7-down-the-valley-over-the-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/?p=653","title":{"rendered":"Day 7–Down the Valley, Over the Mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What’s wrong with a bike path? No cars, beautiful scenery, downhill….a stroll in the park.<\/p><\/div>\n

Today was our final cycling day. For the first time, my legs didn’t ache getting out of bed. I think I’ve finally “ridden myself into shape”. The Dolomites have done what my Atlanta training couldn’t do.<\/p>\n

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Yellow daisies, river, bikes…<\/p><\/div>\n

We left the chateau in Trento at promptly 8:30 AM + 4 min. JT (Jim Time) and drove a few km out of town to avoid the narrow, car-choked streets of Trento. We quickly unloaded the bikes and headed down a river valley on another bike trail. This was unlike anything we had done with Andiamo before–24 mi. of flat or slightly downhill bike trail east into the sun on a postcard perfect day. Strangely, we rode 20 mi. in an hour without effort–shouldn’t 20 mi. be a strenuous 3 hour ride??!!<\/p>\n

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We stopped for coffee near the end of the path. Note novel bike stand<\/p><\/div>\n

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After coffee at a cute trail-side stop, it was time to climb again. Of course, we had to climb–it’s what we do. There’s no redemption without a little suffering. But 4 mi. of 5-6% switchbacks was easy, and we speculated that we were now experiencing what a pro experiences on an 8-10% grade–high cadence, moderate heart rate, no burning in the legs. Wow, we’re getting good on our last day!<\/p>\n

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Coffee for me meant liquid dark chocolate in a bicycle cup–as good as it looks!<\/p><\/div>\n

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End of the bike path…it must be time to climb<\/p><\/div>\n

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Enego, 4 mi. and 3,000 ft up to lunch<\/p><\/div>\n

We stopped in the centro of the little town of Enego for lunch, then climbed another 4 miles, this time hitting some double-digit grades as we looked back at the Dolomites in the distance to the north.<\/p>\n

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Arriving in Enego<\/p><\/div>\n

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Does this look right to you?<\/p><\/div>\n

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Lunch at Enego’s central square. Mom served the food, Dad cooked the food and ……<\/p><\/div>\n

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…their two little boys rode bikes<\/p><\/div>\n

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Last view back to the Dolomites–goodby Mighty Dolomiti<\/p><\/div>\n

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Still some scenery left as we ride a ridge toward the Po Valley<\/p><\/div>\n

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A ridge road led us to the town of Asiago, where of course we had to sample the goods. The cheese stood alone, marking our final foray on a bike–dark skies and thunder moved in as we loitered in the shop.<\/p>\n

We loaded up our bikes rather than descend the final 22 mi. of the day’s route in the rain. The rain simply reminded us of the perfect weather we’d had for 7 days in the Dolomites, a place legendary for unpredictable cold and storms. Our day’s totals: 55 mi., 4300 ft. vert.<\/p>\n

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Asiago cheese shop<\/p><\/div>\n

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Mike loading the bikes as thunderstorm hovers<\/p><\/div>\n

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We laughed and told stories all the way to Treviso, our night’s destination near the Venice airport. The Dolomites–grand, steep, rocky–ridden with plenty of groans, grunts, laughs and the support only a group of great guys can offer–now THAT is QUALITISSIMA!<\/p>\n

We had a final dinner in a loggia along a Treviso square, then strolled for gelato. Then it was back to the hotel for a morning transfer to the Venice airport. Until next year’s adventure….<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Almost midnight in Treviso, the final word. GELATO!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Today was our final cycling day. For the first time, my legs didn’t ache getting out of bed. I think I’ve finally “ridden myself into shape”. The Dolomites have done what my Atlanta training couldn’t do. We left the chateau … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycling","tag-dolomiti"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/wpid-Photo-Sep-14-2013-930-AM.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3QqGi-ax","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}