9/27/13 2:54 PM

A few months ago, my wife booked a trip for us to Rome and Florence. Who knew that the UCI World Championships would be here in Florence while we were visiting!!! That's what I call a pleasant surprise.

Saw a few of the Elite Men time trial riders. Today was Under 23 men and junior women road race. Unfortunately, we leave tomorrow and won't be able to catch the Elite Women road race or the Elite Men on Sunday. Still pretty cool to see all of the bicycles in town. A lot of the shops have incorporated bicycles into their window displays. When I get back and figure out how to post pictures, I'll put a few of them up.

9/27/13 3:12 PM

Pleasant surprise ineeed, sounds like fun.
Were you able to catch the Elite TT, would have been awesome to see Martin, Wiggo and Spartacus duking it out.

9/27/13 4:47 PM

Way cool...

If she only knew...

9/27/13 6:24 PM

Oh yeah, let's go to Florence, no idea the world are there..

Parkin, I want to come back in my next life as you....

9/29/13 12:20 AM

Well, I've watched all of the races in the champs that are being broadcast here, which is everything except the juniors. They've all been interesting to watch. I suspect that the men's RR tonight won't be as interesting - just like last year's titles when the women's RR was more interesting than the men's.

p.s. I noticed, looking at the result of the junior men's RR, that the winner, Mathieu Van der Poel, is the son of Adri van der Poel and the grandson of Raymond Poulidor. A bit of selective breeding...

9/30/13 6:48 AM

Back in the US and good internet access! I had two Verizon smartphones with me - both worked in Rome but not in Florence or Pisa.

This trip was our son's and daughter-in-law's vacation. We just tagged along for the first of their two weeks in Italy. So the scheduling and planning was all left up to my wife and the kids. And the dates were selected to coincide with our son's birthday and their fourth wedding anniversary (which will be in Venice and from which mother and father were disinvited . . . smart kids!!!).

Our pensione in Florence was right on the race route. I was amazed that the entire route through Florence was barricaded for the entire week with only a few places where cars and pedestrians can cross. I can't imagine any American city agreeing to do that . . . I take that back . . . Long Beach, California, did it for grand prix racing.

Most of our time was spent touring the sights, so we didn't actually catch much of the racing. But the entire city was pretty much turned over to bicycle culture for the whole time, including a great exhibit of historic bicycles in the Galileo science museum right around the corner from the Uffizzi Gallery.

Still need to figure out how to post pictures . . .