Day Eleven - Urbino

Holy moley I am tired.  Today was 100k and 4,600 feet of climbing.  It was an exhausting route because most of the climbing comes in three spurts.  We went to Urbino, but by the time we arrived I was too tired to move around much and take pictures.  This is what we saw at the top of the first climb.  Italy out of the cities is just gorgeous.

 

After the 5k climb, there was the 4k descent.  At the bottom, one of the rider's tire sidewall was ballooning out.  It blew out shortly thereafter.  Iris, the ride leader, wanted him to walk 15 minutes up the road to wait for the van at a bar, but he wanted to change the tube and put a dollar bill in the tube so he would not have to walk.  That left us sitting on the side of the road for about half an hour being hot.  Eventually we moved on to the next climb.

 

This is also what we saw while waiting for the tire change.

 

After a bit, we got to the next climb which was 10k.  At the top we regrouped and waited.  Apparently after we left the regrouping site, one of the women had an issue with her cleat.  She hollered at a friend to tell her husband, a fast rider, to come back.  Unfortunately he never got the message, and neither did the ride leader.  It was not until we reached Urbino that Iris was told the woman was not with the group.  At that point, Iris and the woman's husband went back for her.  Did she stay put?  No.  She rode around, eventually finding part of our group, while Iris and hubby searched for her.  No one had a phone that works in Italy, so we could not contact Iris, so we spent at least an hour in Urbino waiting for the search to complete.  The first rule of being left behind on a group ride is to stay put.  The ride leader will come back, do not strike out into the great wide open.  Stay where you can be found.
We had lunch.  These are like quesadillas, but are incredibly salty.  The dough is salty, as is the ham and cheese inside.

 

The church across from the cafe.  I was too tired to go inside.  Sorry about that.

 

This is a terrible picture of Iris.  She's so cute it hurts me. She works here 9 months of the year, and then goes home to Switzerland and works as a secretary in the winter.  She is so strong.  After riding with us from 9 am to 4 pm (it was a really long day) she goes back to work in the hotel office.  The male guides go home.  I hope they're paying her more than the guys.  We like her leading style, she's very calm and does not wick up the pace on the way home.  A couple of Paolo's rides have been pretty dang quick on the way back.

 

We are not riding tomorrow.  I think we'll do some relaxing stuff like laundry, go to the grocery store and down load some more books for the Nooks.  Have you read Gone Girl?  I just finished it.  I was spell bound up until the last 20 pages, I did not like the ending, but for 450 pages (those are Nook pages) I could not put it down. Soon it will be time for dinner so I must go.  I think I am eating dessert tonight.