IBTS14 9/30 EPILOG or EPI-BLOG

Was this a successful tour?

• We rode 13 of the 15 days and covered 571 miles.  Not once did we stop for a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream! So that seems like a failure, but be did have good local ice cream on two occasions.  And plenty of good meals.

We had good lodging, although we don’t quite understand why it was usually at the top of a big hill.  Italy this is not, so why the climbs?

As mentioned several times, the road surfaces were terrible.  We think the ride description should have mentioned this; we might not have gone had we known.

What about the routes? First you have to understand that I hate routes in which all you do is climb one (or two) mountains all day.  Climbing a mountain is too hard on my old, worn out, out of shape body and going down a mountain is too scary.  This was particularly true in New England with it’s bad road surfaces.  Going downhill at 30-40 mph with rough pavement is dangerous; it’s no fun.  And early in the trip we had several of these days.  But I love roads which do not have all-day mountains. Hills, even steep hills are ok just as long as I can spend most of the day riding with a decent cadence.  And the last half of the tour was like this.  In the mountains, I can’t keep up with Brenda so mostly ride alone. (Ahh, the price you pay for a younger wife!) But where the road allows “normal” riding, I can keep up.  So we rode most of the last week together, which I enjoy.

 

BRENDA’s ? BIOS

John McManus & Brenda Cole

Note: When we were riding in France earlier in the year, Brenda interviewed John McCoy and Linda Stewart.  Then John interviewed us; this is his report:

JOHN MCMANUS AND BRENDA COLE (Dallas, TX) Biking Blogger John and his bio-writing-bride Brenda both retired from Mobil Oil Corp in 2000.  John spent his career as a computer geek; Brenda was an accountant and financial analyst.  Since their retirement they have been on 50 BAC tours of which they’ve led 14 (Texas, Ireland and Italy). They’ve also led tandem tours for their club (DATES-Dallas Area Tandem Enthusiasts) in England, Nova Scotia, Italy and Ireland. Brenda is a gourmet cook; John obviously enjoys the fruits of her hobby.  When in Dallas, Brenda works part-time at  THE CONTAINER STORE  and John works part-time as a salesman at the  THE RICHARDSON BIKE MART .  Their new lifestyle includes 2 or more months each summer at 9,000 feet in Frisco, Co; how else to get out of the Texas heat? This photo is from Truckee in July 2010. 

 

The next blog will probably not be until Germany, in September 2015.

 

And, finally, our group picture.