First Gruppo 1 Verona Ride for 2009

Friend, and President of Gruppo 1 in Verona, Beppe, sent these photos along of the first club ride in 2009 on January 6th. Oops, SNOW in Verona! Very unusual.

I'm always amazed by "Pero", in the blue jacket. He's 75 years+ old and obviously was not going to miss the first ride of the season. In fact, he rarely misses a ride. The other photos, taken at the old US Army airbase at Boscomantico which has a small restaurant, are of Beppe and his wife Daniela, both very strong riders.

Meanwhile, Damiano Cunego has had enough of the bad weather in Verona as reported by http://www.cyclingnews.com/:

Cold weather in Northern Italy has driven some of Lampre-NGC's riders further south to train. Giro di Lombardia winner Damiano Cunego relocated to San Vincenzo, near Livorno, along with teammates Marco Marzano and Mirco Lorenzetto to train without snow in preparation for the 2009 season. The three cyclists and Lampre's team director Brent Copeland were scheduled to reach their destination in Tuscany on Wednesday evening.

"I've been training for many weeks after a break, but this winter is too cold," Cunego said. "Now it's snowing, too, so it's hard to train in a proper way. I thought it would be better to move to a place where I can keep my training going in a good way."

"Damiano told us about his idea and we received it positively," said Copeland. "I'll be with Cunego, Marzano and Lorenzetto for some days to follow them training and to give assistance. Maybe some other teammates will join the group."

Note: Cunego and his teammates Marco Marzano, Mirco Lorenzetto, Massimiliano Mori and Manuele Mori and Daniele Righi are also training on fixed gear bikes.