Ted King

With the finish of our mid-season altitude camp in late July, I had the options of returning to my home in Spain for the better part of one week or I jetting off to explore one region of Italy that I know virtually nothing about, Tuscany.

(Two important things to toss into the consideration bucket before going forward:

One, I have been to Italy three times in my life. The first trip allowed me approximately thirty eight seconds of time to explore the region – it was also the heart of winter – while the second and third trips were for the Giro d’Italia. Ever heard of it? It’s a pretty big bike race. The Giro is a fairly magnificent tour of Italy, however, one is not afforded the luxury of a proper sight seeing tour. More accurately, I often found myself staring disgruntled either at the wheel in front of me or my ever increasing powermeter. So when I say that Tuscany is one region of Italy I don’t know much about… I know virtually nothing about any and all regions of Italy.

Two, life is an adventure, so why would I go back to Spain when I could go explore a part of the world I’ve never seen before? Boom, bam, done, easy choice, I’m off to Tuscany!)

Among the things dawned on me about Italy over the course of my few days here is that it’s quintessentially Italian. In much the same way that you’ll see pickup trucks, McDonalds, and strip malls in America I saw aqueducts, a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a dozen or more Vespas, and a ratio of 5:1 Fiats to people (it’s a relatively unpopulous region where I’ve been staying). I saw historic, antiquated buildings, gregariously friendly Italian people, German tourists by the dozen, impossibly narrow roads, and a cornucopia of edible roadside shrubbery. In fact, this was exciting for me as a self-proclaimed-non-snobby-and-completely-open minded foodie, with the minor blip being that I’m unfortunately departing Italy about a week too early. Figs are going to hit their prime in a matter of days and you can’t ride more than thirty seconds before seeing a few thousand figs. Black and blue berries are hitting their stride right now, while local gardens alongside the road boast tomatoes, onions, squash, plum and cherry trees, and enough rosemary and basil to last a few lifetimes. Furthermore, I ate pizza, sampled olive oil – in moderation of course, burned my fair skin in the Tuscan sun, saw vineyard upon vineyard upon vineyard upon oil grove, and basically just had an amazing time.

Here are a few photos to give you an idea of what my four days in Italy entailed. If you have any interest in seeing more, click on over HERE and you’ll see the full iamtedking-Tuscan portfolio.

Blackberry camera does not do this pizza justice.

Peace out. I’m off to Tour of Poland.

“A bad day on the bike is better than a good day at work.”

“Not a bad day at the office”. (Insert HERE a photo of stunning scenery from recent training ride, with gratuitous handlebars in photo.)

“I’ll quit racing as soon as this becomes a *job*.”

Yhep, I’ll readily and happily admit I love my job. This bike racing gig is effectively all I’ve know since racing bikes professionally was the first “job” I had directly out of college. Priority Health segued to Bissell before making the leap across the Atlantic onto the Cervelo TestTeam. I know I’m supremely lucky to be paid to live the dream, but don’t fret, readers, this job did not come without its hardships.

For everyone’s best interest, however, this entry isn’t one for griping so I won’t delve into the physical and mental anguish cast upon professional athletes. Rather I’m here to post what fun activities I’ve been up to of late.

This entry comes to you from outside of St. Moritz, Switzerland where the air is thin and the altimiter (and an inscription on the wall outside of our hotel) reads 2309 meters above sea level. I arrived here directly from Tour of Austria, which was a pleasant race, especially as compared to the 2009 edition, which was overshadowed (literally) by rain and frigid crummy weather for the entire eight days of action. Adding insult to injury – or injury to insult perhaps – I crashed twice last year smacking my hip so horribly badly that I thought it was broken for a brief while.

Conversely 2010 brought 7.5 days of great weather with just a nasty bit of rain to which we bid adieu after riding through a seven kilometer tunnel borrowed deep through the Alps; rain and dreary fog on one side, sun and ear to ear smiles from the peloton on the other. We finished relatively well with Stefan continually in the hunt for stage wins in the arduous early mountain stages. He also collected seven coffee makers for being the best Austrian from start to finish, and we had a respectable number of top-5 finishes throughout the week, which was good considering the fierce competition and notoriously steep alpine terrain. The Kitzbuhel Horn, for example, finishes an otherwise painless day by going uphill to the finish at 14% average for nearly nine-kilometers, and a progressively steep three-kilometer section that tops out around 24%. Ouch. That’s steep with a capital kick-to-the-face.

So from Austria directly to altitude where I am for two weeks. Days here are straightforward since there is painfully slow wifi and just one TV. Wake up at 8, coffee, read for a bit, oatmeal for breakidoodles (that’s long for “breakfast” where I’m from), rest briefly before a half hour of core work. Next kit up and ride for a variety of hours, ranging from two to six, return to hotel, eat lunch, massage, watch some bicycle racing from France, nap, stare at the wall or read a book or twiddle your thumbs until dinner. Watch a movie on the computer, then bed. Rest and repeat.

From here I’ll head to Tuscany with @Joaoisme for four days with a bit of RnR before the Tour of Poland, which sounds like a really fun week. Seriously. I elicit some chuckles when I say I’m headed to Poland, but I’ve heard nothing but great things about this race from last year’s race roster, so I’m really looking forward to it.

In the meantime, enjoy this photo montage from the past two days of training, or “adapting” I should say since each ride has been capped at 2.5 hours max. But that’s bound to change with 4.5 hours on the docket tomorrow. Plus two photos from Tour of Aaaaaaustria! (“Well then, G’day mate…”)

…Quite literally.

This post comes to you at about 100kph and somewhere in the middle of Austria. Specifically, or as specifically as I can be, I’m bumping along in the back of the team camper – thanks to not placidly smooth asphalt in combination with what feels to me like shot struts – en route to stage 5 of the Tour of Austria. This is no standard pre-race commute; unlike the previous 3km-40km transfers from days one through four, today offers 210km from hotel to race start. However, everyone seems to be in a pleasantly chipper mood, despite the early morning, most likely because of the vividly blue, cloudless sky overhead. It is simply amazing how the peloton’s collective mood is heightened when the sun’s shining – as opposed to everyone being white-knucked and on edge while navigating knife-edge cliffs on slick wet roads at 80kph (a la Tour of Austria 2009, or the first half of 2010 stage two).

The photo above is from our hotel for the past two days. Doubling up on hotels is a rarity at this race, but last night was excellent since the accommodations were exquisite – right on par with the view. Check out that building up on the right. Talk about isolated. That was one of the chalets we passed while summiting yesterday’s stage four 20km finishing climb, along with our hotel, thousands of people, a few mountain goats, and Heidi singing away in the bucolic alpine countryside.

We have Austrian native Stefan Denifl leading the best Austrian classification and holding down a top-10 overall. Best Austrian is rewarded with a coffee maker every day and a handsome white and blue jersey, although I think a cow bell and some nice clogs with cleat adapters would be more apt. I guess that’s why I’m not a race organizer… yet. The lame part of the coffee maker prize is that they only work with specific pods found only in Austria. I suppose that’s to lure the Best Austrian awardee into staying at home and not to be lured into ex-pat status while training outside of Austrian boundaries. Or not.

The next few days drop to “normal” altitudes (unlike yesterdays’ 2500+m summit), which will open up opportunities for the rest of the team who enjoy breathing and don’t share lineage with billy goats. But for sure moving Stefan up on GC is a high priority with four stages remaining.

That’s right, the first weekend of July means only one thing to cycling fans world ’round: the Tour of Austria!

I must be back racing since my thumbs are again getting their full workout with a Blackberry pecked blog post here and now – my first since May. After a restful June where I spent the first eight days enjoying the cumulative lactic acid buildup drain from my legs, I find myself again in Austria for the Tour thereof.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder, it’s said, and I’m now 51 weeks removed from the 2009 Tour of Austria. I didn’t have a great race there last year, in fact if I may be so frank, relatively speaking I did not enjoy it. But that’s thanks to more visits to the pavement than are generally welcome to a racer in addition to poor weather throughout the eight-day race. Yet as another saying goes, a bad day (or week+1day) on the bike is better than a good day at work probably holds true here, even if being on my bike IS a day at work for me.

After a spin around the start town today, my spirits are sky high. That’s thanks in large part to the sun shining brightly, casting a warm glow across the entire country; or even greater part in thanks to the virtually brand new bike I had the privilege of pedaling around. We’re spoiled on the Cervelo TestTeam with -among other things – a mint S3, speedy and aero Zipps, a very smart Joule from PowerTap, awesomely stiff bars from 3T, a unique and very cool crank and BB from Rotor, a buttery smooth drivetrain from SRAM, and simplistic yet sublime pedals from Speedplay. Riding around on my race bike just now with an entirely new set of components since the brutality of the Giro, amidst the Austrian Alps borders on surreal.

Normally I’d say pinch me, but having done this race just 51 weeks ago, I know just how rugged the terrain can be and how rapidly the recently TdF-snubbed riders with a chip on their shoulders’ want to race – namely supa’fast! In any event bring on the second part of the season!

…and if coverage of the Tour of Austria is slower than average, you can always switch over to that other race going on somewhere in Holland or France or whatever.

PEACE!