Father Dan takes the podium at stage 19 of the 2016 Vuelta a España after pushing teammate off the stage.
How could I NOT squeeze out a blog entry after riding around our third and final grand tour? This marked completion of a crucial bucket list entry: Experience the Tour (2010), the Giro (2009), and (finally) la Vuelta! Here are photos from our short, fun trip to Costa Blanca on our way to Prague. The highest-placed American in the race was Andrew Talansky (in 5th place, right behind Alberto Contador), and our small tour group happened to include Andrew's dad, Alan.
The Tour de France is the bike race everyone knows about, but I love the greater accessibility of the Giro and the Vuelta. As you can see in the photos, we were able to ride the entire individual time trial route while the pros did their warmup/reconnaissance lap of 37 km. How fun to be passed on the course by Alejandro Valverde & ultimate race winner Nairo Quintana at around the 9 km mark giving us time to yell encouragement in our stunted español.
We felt blessed to be touring with such a nice, small group of people. (The caption above is wrong. There was never any pushing or arguing.) This brief trip, economically made possible by Sports Tours International of the UK, was a true vacation packed into just a few days in a part of Spain I'd never been to before. Even after a week off the bike, those climbing days in Spain seemed to add pep to my ride, based on how strong I felt during yesterday's club ride.
Where to next???
The Tour de France is the bike race everyone knows about, but I love the greater accessibility of the Giro and the Vuelta. As you can see in the photos, we were able to ride the entire individual time trial route while the pros did their warmup/reconnaissance lap of 37 km. How fun to be passed on the course by Alejandro Valverde & ultimate race winner Nairo Quintana at around the 9 km mark giving us time to yell encouragement in our stunted español.
We felt blessed to be touring with such a nice, small group of people. (The caption above is wrong. There was never any pushing or arguing.) This brief trip, economically made possible by Sports Tours International of the UK, was a true vacation packed into just a few days in a part of Spain I'd never been to before. Even after a week off the bike, those climbing days in Spain seemed to add pep to my ride, based on how strong I felt during yesterday's club ride.
Where to next???
RSS Feed
