Hey everyone, another adventure is about to begin... this time a family bike tour to Italy! We'll send updates to our favorite website mudandcowbells.com and maybe it will inspire some fresh adventures for you readers!

The packing is almost complete and we're headed to the airport in a few hours. We'll fly Denver-Frankfurt-Florence and then comes the fun part: ride town-to-town for 8-days thru the bicycling nirvana of central Tuscany!!

Our plan is to make a loop south of Florence.  We don't have a specific route or towns picked out, but we have a good list of recommendations and plenty of guidebook info. Tuscany is a huge tourist destination, and perhaps the most touted bike touring place in the world, so there is plenty of info available.

We are going super-light, with a credit card and one change of clothes. After a bunch of tours over the past 15 years, we've got a system pretty dialed. Travelling light allows us to ride normal bikes, cover some miles, and not suffer too much with extra-heavy loads. If you choose the right gear, you really don't need much. Our packing list is pretty short: one set of riding kit, one set of casual clothes, and various nic-nacs, toiletries, maps, and of course a bottle opener. All our stuff, for 3 people, will fit in just one set of panniers and one rear trunk. I think it is like 15 or 20 pounds total.

Our last big tour was 2008, two years ago, in the Netherlands. We did 12 days, hitting some cool places and enjoying the fantastic bike trail systems. In that tour, I rode my cross bike with Ella on the tag-a-long behind me, and Sally on her road bike. Ella was only 6, so being on mostly flat bike paths away from busy roads was perfect. We saw the height of spring flowers, the North Sea, plenty of canals, and even took in the Amstel Gold classic and sportive ride.

Ella is now 8 years old, and she'll be riding on the back of our tandem road bike with me up front. She's too short to reach the cranks, so I installed a "kid back" or "kiddie cranks". This is an additional set of cranks mounted on the stoker seat tube, above the normal cranks, with a chain linking them together. I also installed a kid's saddle and handlebars, so it is pretty comfortable and easy to ride. Using a tandem is much more stable and easier than a tag-a-long. It is lighter, faster, and we can actually work as a team. The downside is that it is kinda tricky to set up, and travelling with a tandem is difficult.

That's all I've got time for now, gotta catch a plane!

Pete, Sally & Ella

Hello Cyclocross Fans!

Colorado Front Range Cyclocross from Celin Serbo on Vimeo.

Fruita is the ‘high desert’ as they say. Dry, typically sunny. Not so much for Webber and I as we made the 5 hour drive from Boulder to the 16th annual Fruita Fat Tire Festival p/b New Belgium Brewery. Snow spitting, wind howling, gray skies clouding what should have been epic April bluebird days. There were races to be raced this weekend both in Boulder as well as Fruita…but Webber and I thought it best to find some Zen without numbers pinned and just flow. We packed tents with the best intent to sleep outside, only to succumb to hotel camping. We’re getting old I guess.

The weekend menu was: Lunch Loops in Grand Junction Friday for some openers and to see the Free Lunch trail Webber helped design. Saturday was Monument/South I70 Classics and Sunday would be some delectable 18 Road singletrack.  Of course I Strava-ized everything so you can get a sense of the trails and rides…

Friday - Grand Junction/Lunch Loops

We literally jumped out  of the car after the long drive, chamoised up and rode for a bit in between snow/wind squalls. The trails were epic in GJ and if you are a big hit junkie, you should experience the Free Lunch trail. Webber and I did it on our cross country bikes and walked the big hucks, but it was insanely fun.

Saturday - Colorado National Monument Trails (Kokopelli, Horse Thief. Mary’s, etc, etc)

We decided on a long one today, so we linked up pretty much everything we could into a massive loop. The trails are marked super well and by now, we are pretty intimate with the trail system in Fruita. Webber was like a ‘returning son’ with all the old timers happy to see him. And yes, beers were had…especially the Fat Tire 1554. Yum.

Sunday - 18 Road Trails

I broke out the 1x1 today and had so much fun on the 18 Road trails. I ran a 32x18 which was OK…a 32x19 or better yet a 20 would have been perfect to ensure I could nail the climbs. We hooked up with our good friends Josh Harrod and a recovering Alison Powers (who was hiking for the day) and a free riding, wheelie popping Greg Frozely from SRM. He rides like me kicking just about anything with a lip…and that was fun.

We also hooked up with our good friend Steve “Seve” Bobusch who indicated he’s got a lot going on…including his new “29NSNGL” underground team. He also did what I should have done…and that was GoPro’d the favorite haunts on 18 Road:

THE OPENER from Rob Doerre on Vimeo.

Somehow, I cased a rock while ‘flowing’ on Kessel Run. Webber said I was riding like a bag of rocks…funny as he was behind me on his full suspension getting dropped while I was on a steel rigid 1 gear (Get some, Pete! I have to get it in somehow as you drop my ass regulalry…). I completely dented a Stans ZTR 255 which I am running with rim brakes. Amazing that not one ounce of air burped. The seal is still strong as hell between the rim and my WTB ExiWolf beads.

Phenomenal weekend. Phenomenal friends. Phenomenal trails. More MTB on the menu, please.