Coffee shop ride

Today the first order of business was to get a little spin in and even though i just barely rolled out of bed I shammied up quickly to get in on the coffee shop ride with Alison and Lisa Christiansen (she is a now retired Danish ex pro that works for SRM) and Jim. The four of us set off for a nearby township that's on the way to Pisa...about 35ish minutes in the reward was a coffee stop. I son't mind admitting that it was a little rough for me ...no coffee to begin with meant that I wasn't the most talkative......but all was right with the universe again once we hit this little gem of a caffeine place. The people are really friendly, helpful with the proper pronunciation of my horrendous Italian and serve a great coffee. So, this pastry that has a rather phallic look to it now that I've uploaded it , is worthy of mention as it inspired a sort of childlike gleefulness in my teammate Alison that I had never before witnessed. She has this reputation for being extremely disciplined and to see her get so excited and let herself go in the experience of this pastry tasting was, well.....that's what its all about isn't it sometimes, after all.



We stopped to refill our bottles at this marble lion heady fountain (as you do, natch).... on our way back home.


The others (Tina, Chris, Andrea, Peter and Sarah) did a ride that involved a little castle viewing near to Lucca.

On arrival back to the house, there are a few people in town, the USA under 23 program manager and his wife and 2 daughters are visiting for some shop talk with Jim Miller and a little vacation before the next round of competitions set up for the USA boys back at their Belgium base.
Sarah, Ali, Rachel, post ride hangin' at our digs





ha! I said...strike a pose...and by gosh...didn't she do it! This is Abigail. How's that for some attitude!