Jeez, what’s with the rain? Has God decided He’s had enough of these filthy, shaven-legged dope fiends flogging 16-pound bikes around His pretty globe? Stage nine of the Giro looked like a triathlon that required participants to swim with their bikes, and stage two of the Amgen Tour was not much drier. Guys were hitting the California asphalt like discarded bidons, and it will be a miracle if the peloton remains intact going into stage three.
I was running the live updates at VeloNews.com and it was a real picnic with no TV and a satellite phone that got hooked up about as often as a nursing-home dick. I nearly typed “Burma!” at one point. It was that bad.
My phone would ring and I’d hear something like, “Yack ninck fzzt Cav’ byinng yoicks Hincapie honk poot squeet Lance.” Shee-yit. As delivery systems go it lacked a certain something. If a guy is gonna deliver a pizza they generally give him the fuckin’ pizza before sending him out the door.
But that’s the way it goes when Captain Video is grounded by evil weather and the reporter at the scene is careening around Northern California in a SRAM neutral-service Volvo, trying to ID riders in the ditch while shouting into an expensive and useless communications device. “Can you hear me now? How about now? Now?”
But we got it done, kinda, sorta, and we get to do it all over again tomorrow. You’re welcome. Right now I’m doing a glass of wine. That I can handle.
Mad Blog Media 
Sheeeeee-it. The Versus (stock symbol: BS) coverage included about eight seconds of the “sprint” at the finish. Lame, lame, lame. They did better last year when there was an actual bona-fide
RAINSTORM going on. And the Velonews live update included some yokel from Santa Rosa who was watching the whole thing from his office while wearing sissy pants! Shame, shame, shame. They’d do better if they hired 10 doped-up monkeys to pound on typewriters for a couple of hours.
We could only afford one doped-up monkey, Mr. Sissypants. Ook ook ook.
Hey, ya get what ya pay fer. We’re lucky we got an actual race goin’ on on dis side ob da pond, ya jamokes. I think it’s the Martinis talkin’ shit again. Where’s them monkeys you guys were jabberin’ about?
I love this place… After any day of racing around the globe, it’s always serene, quiet, full of banter and fabulous insight. Larry T should check in soon with updates with the Italy/Viterbo/porchetta panini happenings. I get all the political/lifestyle info from the Boz man, Khal, Jeff in Petro Metro, Steve-O – it’s the dog’s bollocks I tell ya. Seriously, I love this place… Oh, and that O’Grady guy – he ain’t bad hisself; despite the “white wine with fish tacos” debacle that James brought up.
It’s scary… I keep checking into this site three or four times a day now to see what Patrick and the rest of you bozos have to say. Thank dog I’m headed Larry’s way in late August for my own five weeks in Toscana and I’ll be out of the intertubes reach the entire time.
The wonders of technology eh? I guess Shimano should be happy, providing their fancy electronic shifting stuff worked in the various deluges both here in Italy and over in “sunny” California. I have to take some perverted joy in thinking they moved ToC into conflict with the Giro d’Italia so they could take advantage of better weather! Here we can get more Giro coverage on the digital-terrestrial channel, RAI Sport Piu (today they’ll start two of these) but quite often the darn thing squeeks, pops and has picture breakup that’s annoying–until we remember we’re in ITALY and at that point don’t care so much, especially since it’ll be run again either later that day or the next morning or the highlights will get on the next day’s race coverage. It HAS been raining a LOT here though, the locals are bitching about the worst winter/spring in years…but at least they’re not (yet) blaming US! Today there’s a glowing orb in the sky as I type this so perhaps I can get my fat ass outside on a bike today myself, then relax and watch the boys of La Corsa Rosa cross the boot under sunny skies as well?
The wife made an exemplary Bucatini all’ Amatriciana for dinner last night using some porky bits we picked up on Sunday from a roadside porchetta vendor (the cheap insurance after almost starving on Saturday — pays to take brains with you on these trips)along with our panini. Dined atop Terminillo instead so she used these leftovers for the pasta dish. As they say in Italy—OTTIMO!
Larry-I’m getting hungry just reading your post. A porchetta sandwich is one of my all-time favorites, and lucky for me, there is a couple of great shops her in northern MN that make a pretty good porchetta. My ex-bro-in-law lived in Italy for 15 years while in the Navy, and sez they are pretty close to the real thing. But, he sez the bread and coffee just can’t be duplicated. Thoughts?
So I watched the first stage of AToC on the Amgen webpage. Patrick’s Live Text scrolled down the left-hand side of the Amgen page, but I left the VN page open because, well, I want an original when it’s available.
So I go back the next day for stage 2, and Amgen is showing a replay of stage 1 while providing stage 2 graphic updates and Patrick’s stage 2 live commentary. A little confusing? What about the L____ Seekers who don’t know cycling from golf who tuned in to the Amgen page and were treated to a total mishmash of intertube gibberish?
Nevermind. I just answered my own question.
With races in Cali and Italy, will I go to hell if I’m drinking Spanish reds right now? Huge sale at Total Beverage this weekend. On top of a ton of half-priced bottles of various Rioja and Jumillo varietals, they had a $40 bottle of Cabo Wabo for $19 … plus a $3 mail-in rebate, for those smart enough not to lose their reciept. (Not me, by the way.)
I’m no expert, but I haven’t found a $7 bottle of Spanish red that isn’t pretty darn drinkable if you just decant it and give it 10-15 minutes to breath.
Unfortunately, the better half had an acid flashback when she saw the original recipe Schlitz on the shelf. Turns out that’s the first beer she ever had, or what passes for beer amongst 15 year olds in Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. So she had to grab a 12 for old times sake. I drank one, just to be polite, and too many years in Germany, along with a few of hearty Colorado small batch brews, has overwhelmed my tastebuds, so all I could tell you was it was a slightly chilled glass of water with a slight oily feel to it.
Steve, don’t neglect the Portagees in your wine tour. Vale do Bomfim Douro Valley 2007 has been the wine of the month for two months now at Coaltrain Wine & Liquor, and it’s a very tasty ten-buck bottle.
To honor the Amgen tour we’ve had a couple bottles of Curtis Heritage Series Santa Barbara County Heritage Cuvée 2005 (not unlike a Côte du Rhone). And for the Giro we’re drinking Fattoria di Lvcignano Chianti Colli Fiorentini 2007.
What’s wrong with Spanish reds? I know zero about them but I’ve had a few that were pretty good. I’ll bet Stefano Garzelli drinks them since he lives in Spain, as do a few other pros I can think of. As for porchetta, it’s like anything else Italian…in the zone where it was invented/perfected it’s heavenly but the quality/authenticity goes down the further you get from the “source”. Like pizza — if you enjoy one in or close-by Napoli you can understand why the thing’s popular the world over — but the farther you get from Naples it loses an essential wonderfulness and becomes merely good. ANY pizza in Italy is pretty much better than ANY pizza anywhere else but the real Napoli stuff is better than any found elsewhere in Italy. Same with porchetta, we’re lucky enough to be living in what is more-or-less the world center of porchetta, though it’s pretty good up in Umbria and even over in Le Marche. The spices used differ from region to region.
Caffe? THAT’S a whole ‘nother story! If your friend’s used to the Neopolitan espresso, the KIMBO brand, made in a good machine as a super-ristretto can come close to that taste. We prefer ILLY which is sort of an international taste, loved by Italians all over.
Bread is the REAL problem….Italian bread is something special and I don’t have a clue where you can get anything even close elsewhere. Our favorite is Pane Matera from the town of the same name in Basilicata. Just like pizza the farther away from Matera you go, the less authentic and good the bread is. Here in Viterbo they make a decent copy and we buy a fresh piece each day (yes, you can buy less than the whole loaf–this is a civilized country!) using the leftover bits to make the Tuscan favorite, Pappa al pomodoro which babies in Italy (and yours truly) simply love! The best bread for a panino porchetta is the “rosetta” a small, hollow round roll with cuts in the crust that make it look sorta turtle-like. These can vary in quality, we get ours in a different place than the Matera-like bread…and our pizza bianca in yet another place — we’re VERY spoiled for choice here.
Back home in Iowa we buy bread and rolls from the supermarket made by a place in Minneapolis called “New French” which arrives frozen and par-baked. Their “ciabatta rolls” are the closest we’ve seen to rosette but then we live in Sioux City, IOWA where they know little or nothing about food that’s not a huge pork tenderloin fried to death and plopped onto a cold hamburger bun. I had to pester the supermarket bread guy for six months before they finally got the New French bread!
Nice Giro stage today, FINALLY some sun (for us to, we got out for a nice 50 kms on our own bikes) and it was great to see Farrar win again. Vaughters has got to be loving beating up on the rival HTC team here at the Giro.
I’m not even sure what we have been drinking lately. As long as it has alcohol in it, that’s what I need this month. Pass me the 2005 Chateau Sterno Gran Riserva, please…
Khal, I believe the product from Sterno is called “Pink Lady.” Me? I’m more of a Thunderbird man myself! 🙂
Larry T: Now I get it. This whole bike tour thing is just a ruse. It’s really a gastronomical tour. The bike just keeps the metabolic furnace burning until the next meal. Are you running your tours next summer, too? We may need to talk.
I feel guilty when I make a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich–I’m thinking about the Italian/Mediterranean diet you describe and that I should be eating. Ugh.
Speaking of coffee, my wife spoiled the living shit out of me and bought me a Nespresso Citiz and Milk Espresso Machine for my birthday. To traditionalists and baristas everywhere, I know this is cheating. However, I’ve had nothing but excellent espressos, cappuccinos, and lungos with warm milk (I guess a latte). I used to have a traditional espresso machine, but I just never got good at using it (and I don’t think it was a particularly good machine–I don’t know).
Anyways, it strikes me there are a lot of foodies on Patrick’s blog. Any comments/suggestions regarding the Nespresso machine versus more traditional espresso machines?
Khal–I recommend Tito’s Handmade Vodka out of Austin. I like to think of it as the big pink eraser for the Big Chief tablet that is my kindergarten mind. It goes with everything including Kool-Aid.
I guess I should be happy. I could be U.S. Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal (Liars and Cheaters Party, CT), who while telling the public that he fought in Vietnam, had more deferments than Dick Cheney.
We need to take up a collection and send this guy a set of Pinocchio dolls.
Spanish red: recently tried, and very much liked, a 2006 Montecillo Rioja. Was about $8 or thereabouts and should be available from a good wine merchant. Got my from San Diego Wine Company.
Jeff: you’ve totally nailed Larry T on the bike tour being a complete ruse. I’ve done one of his tours and while the cycling in Tuscany was fantastic, he and his wife simply scorched the whole food and vino aspect of the trip.
david: Yeah, I thought so.
Our slogan from our start back in 1998 has been “pedala forte, mangia bene!” (ride hard, eat well!) as we tried to combine the challenging rides we were used to from the 10+ years we worked with another outfit with our own ideas– high quality lodgings, small groups, and most of all, AUTHENTIC regional food and wine. Ride to eat or eat to ride is a popular discussion topic during our tours and I know from the days when I don’t get to ride how much MORE enjoyable a great meal is when you’ve created that appetite by cycling through gorgeous scenery surrounded by like-minded companions. Since then others have tried to offer similar tours and tried to copy our philosophy, even going so far as to cut-and-paste text from our website into theirs, but I think we remain unique in that we create, design and produce EVERY guided tour personally, keep the groups small (max 12) and have excellent long-term relationships with our hotel and ristorante partners so our clients are treated more like “friends of friends” instead of typical tourists.
We bought a new ILLY iperespresso unit here for the Viterbo apartment. Yes, there are bars all over but the wife likes (and deserves) her cappuccino in bed each morning and getting it “to-go” is a pain. We got the Gaggia for ILLY Plus unit so I can steam the milk. ILLY’s capsules are seriously complicated gizmos, far more sophisticated than the others like Nespresso, Lavazza, etc. You get a perfect espresso every time just by sticking the capsule in and pressing the button! You can vary the amount of water so having a ristretto or lungo is simple. At home we have a Gaggia Classic which takes some skill to use — if/when it finally croaks (not likely soon as they’re built like tanks!) it’ll be replaced by the lazy-man’s answer, another Gaggia for ILLY.