Spinning tonight. Somehow I completely forgot about the team meeting last night. At 8:30 I looked in the TV book to see if anything worthwhile was on and the realization hit.

The last couple days I've been looking at a touring company that does bike tours of Italy. They built bike tours around the many Gran Fondo's that take place in Italy. They look like pretty good tours. These things are never cheap but this looks reasonably priced and you stay in 3 and 4 star hotels. Only of the tours is in May (early May), however, so it would be necessary to extend the trip to see any part of the Giro. It would be cool to get over there and ride. There are several mountains over there that are on my list of things to ride.

On the subject of Gran Fondo's. Today I started to consider doing another Gran Fondo like last year's Ste Gen ride. Of course, it's not a true Gran Fondo. Really it is just a century-plus ride. The Ste Gen ride is really nice but it is something of a hassle arranging for transportation back from IL. I mapped a tentative route today that stayed in MO and was 103 miles. Much of the first half is similar to the Ste. Gen ride but then I head back through DeSoto and Hillsboro, etc. The ride would be about 13 miles shorter. Without the flat IL side to finish on, the route could well be more difficult. All this would be subject to road conditions. Those counties down south are still fond of gravel roads y'know.