A cycling dreamscape. I ache still for the Tuscan landscape. For the rolling hills and gentle valleys of wild grasses and cypress. Where Medieval towers touch the clouds that hang low on the horizon. Tuscany is a cycling dreamscape, a mind blowing visually arresting wonderland. A playground overflowing with significant historic cycling legend. I long to be back again. -Valenti “Tuscan Red” is the second of three large horizontal landscapes I’ve recently painted. I’ve called this and the others, departures from my usual approach to cycling images. New work that has a feeling of a real place, but also a graphic quality and simplicity aimed at creating an emotional connection with the landscape. I could say this painting is about the classic Strade Bianche, but it’s not. It’s about the place it passes through. It’s about a landscape that has captured the hearts and imaginations of cycling fans for over one hundred years. It is about a place where legends have ridden and will continue to ride for many more years. It is a magical world of cycling purity with white roads and perfect clouds that seem to touch the very land they sit above. Artist Michael Valenti