68 Miles, 6,500'
First, a shot of Etna last evening:
Starting raining during breakfast; looked bleak. Decided a day off sounded good, so I put on the street clothes and packed up. Went outside and the sun was out, and it started clearing. So, we decided to give it a try. Went down the coast, then headed inland, and of course a half hour into the ride we got hit with a squall. Rode through it, and continued for a while with mostly sunny skies and gusty winds. Looking back down the hill:
Yep, Etna always looms. As we continued climbing to nearly 4,000', the wind got worse and was howling, pushing us in all different directions. A couple more rain spells on the ascent, but they moved on fairly quickly. We stopped part way down the decent for hot drinks and pastries (the wind chill was brutal), and when we pushed off it started raining again, most of the way down to the sea on the northen coast.
From there it cleared again for a bit, and we finally picked up a tailwind for the last 20 miles, although with another couple squalls along the way. At the very end we were treated with another 600' climb, 10-20% grade, with some rain and hail. Nice!
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