Corniana - Lucca
Ascend: 1375m , Descend 1958m
What a day.
First the good news: I had a lay in until 8:30 am, then breakfast was to be a relaxed affair as Grant wasn't arriving by taxi from Milan airport until 12:30pm.
Thankfully Grant's plane landed on time, so he arrived in Corniana as scheduled. We hastily arranged this arrival shot...
We managed a photo at the top, looking back now, I think we may have peaked a bit too early. 
There were 98 miles to complete and the small matter of the Apennines to cross, so time was extremely limited. Fortunately Grant was nearly bike ready....
After 45 minutes of championship level faffing and the clock ticking on to 1:15pm , we finally set off.
Grant was immediately thrown into the deep end, with a 700m climb over 3 mountains with no respite for the first 2 hours. Once we had reached the top of the Cia pass though, we were all smiles.
We managed a photo at the top, looking back now, I think we may have peaked a bit too early. Following a 30 mile descent at an average speed of 30mph and a top speed of 48.2 mph, we avoided the A12 (these Romans do build a long road) and found ourselves very much at sea level. Literally.
But only half an hour later, with 30 miles to go, we found ourselves cycling in complete darkness with at least one more 300m climb to still to come - A scary and oh so predictable situation to find ourselves in.
With no option but to push on, we weaved our way in darkness through the mountain villages outside of Lucca. 
Neil was delighted with the bike we had sourced for his ride into Florence with us tomorrow . He may feel differently Tom am:
At times, I struggled to see where Grant was. Here he is, only 5 metres ahead with the clock ticking past 8:30pm and 5 miles still to go. We were nearly at Lucca , but it was barely lit under the stars.
We finally arrived outside the hotel at 9pm where we met Louise, Neil, Mum and Dad for dinner. We celebrated with a large bottle of red......
Until then! Brett x
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