I’m almost back to where I started, sitting in an airport waiting to leave. I’ve had a few days in London, catching up with one of my sisters and her boy, and my liver has been catching up on a little bit of abuse as well. I flew from sunny skies in Italy to torrential rain when I landed in London, I was not looking forward to spending a few days on the bike in the rain, but I was heading home and may as well get used to it. My bike had survived another flight, which is always surprising, but for the super packing and protection around it, I kind of knew that it would be safe. I unpacked my raincoat for the first time since I had left home and hit the busy London streets for a bit of a ride. My Achilles was still giving me hell, but in good cyclists fashion I was going to ride through the pain, and hope to hell that it would sort it self out.
The traffic was not too bad, think with all the extra charges they have for cars in the centre keeps most of the scum off the streets. Well once again, I could not believe how courteous the traffic was, hey they weren’t moving too fast, but still, they were certainly aware of me, stoping and giving way. Once again riding in a city with a shit load of cars I felt safe, seen, and respected instead of being scared of my skin and run off the road.. My dodgy knee was getting better, but the Achilles was still causing me a few problems. It’s such a good way to sightsee around a new town, sitting on a bike, trying to get in shape, seeing all the good stuff without sitting in traffic or on a tube. The rain came and went throughout the ride, but most of the time is was pretty sweet. Some of the streets were pretty empty and it was such a good feeling to be spinning my legs with out too much pain, and those double deckers buses, an icon of London were the sweetest things I have ever drafted behind.
Nice to see a few couriers around town, all with their fixed singlespeed roadies, ah now I’m starting to thing about all my machines at home just waiting for me to thrash them again. They have been sitting waiting, tyres flat ready for some loving. I can’t wait to get on to the forest, get some dirt on my bike and not have to clean it right afterwards. I’m hanging out to head screaming down a good hill on the fixie, and see people on the road that I actually know for a change. Can’t wait to go and get lost in the bush for a few hours in the middle of nowhere, get some peace and quiet after the hustle and bustle of Europe
I am sitting on the plane half way into the flight, dead awake and trying not to sleep as I get of this 12hr flight and head right into another 10 hr flight, which I want to sleep on. Last time I took this flight we were supposed have a stopover of 4 hours but the plane was late and I was running for the connection. This time I have 45 mins, probably just enough time for a quick sprint as well, good for the legs, and got to keep that tendon moving. The cool thing is that I am about to upload this article while we are in the air. I think this rocks, it’s a trail for Boeing so they saw me writing on my laptop before the flight and gave me a couple of free hours surfing. If this is the future of flying, surfing the web while sailing in the sky, I’m all ready for it. Just got onto the Skype.com thing, it rocks, free phone calls, laptop to laptop, can’t wait until all the little screaming kids fall off to sleep then I might ring a few people up, and give them a bit of fun. If they don’t sleep soon I might go and have a little word in their ears seen their loving parents can’t seem to do it.
I’m looking forward to all the new bikes for the season, at this stage I know anything about it them so will have a lot of learning to do when I get back to work. Should take a day or two to run my hands over them, admiring their new shapes and all the new shiny bits hanging off them. I saw a few new models of specialized roadies in London, they looked pretty cool, but I’ll wait until I get home.
I’m having cravings of some of my favourite meals, something with a little bit of taste to it and something that I’m familiar with. Spicy fried chicken wings from my favourite Thai lady, oh and the rice, so fresh. Sushi, with nice fresh fish, and Yakitori from Ken’s around the corner, their squid is wicked. Wandering through the supermarket and being able to read the labels, for a change. I’ll stop with the food, I’m starting to get hungry.
22 October 2005
18 October 2005
Ah ha, Italy
Looking at the traffic, and some of the roads here in Italy, I thought that it was going to be an experience closer to riding in Auckland than anywhere else I had seen in the last few months. Some of the streets here are so small you wondered how two cars were going to pass each other let alone a truck or two. Well, I’m very surprised after riding around for a while how much care and attention they take of cyclists here. Not one single time have I felt unsafe or in a position that I may have had to take action to save my ass. Riding through small mountain roads in a bunch of ten or so the trucks just seem to sit and wait to pass, sometimes it takes them ten minutes to find the right place, then they make sure they leave you a few meters between you and themselves. Most of these guys are sitting about t a bike or two away from the edge of the road to start with. Not once did I hear a horn, person yelling ‘get off the road’ or even an angry accelerator as they passed us finally. It makes me wonder why we have to put up with it at home every single day on the road. I would not have a single day where there wasn’t a horn beeping in anger or a path I had to take to stop me getting hit again. Where did we go so wrong… why does it have to be this way, don’t they realise we are saving the world from pollution and are one less car on the road, hey the rest of the world knows this..
Riding on the right side of the road has been an easy transformation for me, must have something to do with being left handed or something, because it feels normal. I have more trouble when I’m walking across the street than when I’m riding for hours on end. I get a bit freaked out when I look up and see a car heading straight for me on my side of the road, I hesitate for a split second thinking I’m wrong to see that it is only passing a slower car coming into my lane for a few seconds. This one has got me about twenty times so far, but it keeps you thinking, and keeps your heart rate up to max.
Italian bike shops don’t exist from what I can see, they are a myth. I’ve looked and searched all over the place and can’t seem to find anything that resembles anything even close. After a week of looking I found one, in the oldest city, it’s been there since 1934, and by the looks its got the same bikes that it opened with. It did have some cool photos on the wall that’s about it. It makes Adventure Cycles in the bottom of town look like a Megastore in comparison. For the population of the cities and the bikes that I’ve seen on the road, I can only guess that they buy over the Internet or though some underground network of Mafia owned stores that aren’t visible to the common tourist.
Riding with a helmet made me look like the mental kid at school with the stack hat his mum made him wear. It has been quite refreshing not having to wear one for a change (sorry kids), at least I blend in with all the pro’s now and don’t look like the new kid on the block. As much as I like wearing a helmet, there’s nothing like peer pressure to change a good habit. There is also nothing like descending a mountain pass at 80km/hr with the breeze blowing through what’s left of your hair, knowing that if you crash at that speed, the damage that results is not going to be as bad as the earbashing I will get from Jesse when I finally get back to the shop.
For once in my life I have found a new sense of respect for the Police force. There nothing like a couple of huge machine guns hanging off their shoulders for me to sit up and take notice. Just ask me once to get off my bike and walk through the street instead of riding, and I did it, instead of giving them lip and riding off. When they are standing on the side of the road for a random check, machine gun in hand, I would also stop, just in case they were waving me down and I didn’t hear. And no they don’t like their photos taken on those roadblocks, even if you think they are cool and said yes…
As much as you think English will get you by most places in the world, think again. It’s all the tourist spots you may be thinking of, because as soon as you get to the smaller cities away from the main areas, they don’t know what the hell you are talking about, even if you thought you had some understanding of the language, you don’t.
Yeah the older parts of Italy are pretty cool, but there is also a lot of rubbish around as well. Some of the streets have the most dilapidated houses and sections I have seen throughout the whole of Europe. It’s easy to forget about the bad when you see so much good, but it’s there if you look around. Like the rest of the world, they have the tourist spots looking good, but shift out of town a little and you will see the real world, with its underbelly exposed.
Being in a country that loves cycling so much is a nice change, especially when you get a choice of three channels with cycling on at any one time. Soccer is still number one, but cycling is right up there, even some of the smallest local races are featured once or twice a night on TV. The best thing is that I have not seen a single mention of Rugby anywhere, newspaper, TV, etc, maybe that’s a sign of a well-cultured country, I live in hope.
Any more resting and I’m going to get really cynical, lets hope the ride tomorrow is more successful.
Riding on the right side of the road has been an easy transformation for me, must have something to do with being left handed or something, because it feels normal. I have more trouble when I’m walking across the street than when I’m riding for hours on end. I get a bit freaked out when I look up and see a car heading straight for me on my side of the road, I hesitate for a split second thinking I’m wrong to see that it is only passing a slower car coming into my lane for a few seconds. This one has got me about twenty times so far, but it keeps you thinking, and keeps your heart rate up to max.
Italian bike shops don’t exist from what I can see, they are a myth. I’ve looked and searched all over the place and can’t seem to find anything that resembles anything even close. After a week of looking I found one, in the oldest city, it’s been there since 1934, and by the looks its got the same bikes that it opened with. It did have some cool photos on the wall that’s about it. It makes Adventure Cycles in the bottom of town look like a Megastore in comparison. For the population of the cities and the bikes that I’ve seen on the road, I can only guess that they buy over the Internet or though some underground network of Mafia owned stores that aren’t visible to the common tourist.
Riding with a helmet made me look like the mental kid at school with the stack hat his mum made him wear. It has been quite refreshing not having to wear one for a change (sorry kids), at least I blend in with all the pro’s now and don’t look like the new kid on the block. As much as I like wearing a helmet, there’s nothing like peer pressure to change a good habit. There is also nothing like descending a mountain pass at 80km/hr with the breeze blowing through what’s left of your hair, knowing that if you crash at that speed, the damage that results is not going to be as bad as the earbashing I will get from Jesse when I finally get back to the shop.
For once in my life I have found a new sense of respect for the Police force. There nothing like a couple of huge machine guns hanging off their shoulders for me to sit up and take notice. Just ask me once to get off my bike and walk through the street instead of riding, and I did it, instead of giving them lip and riding off. When they are standing on the side of the road for a random check, machine gun in hand, I would also stop, just in case they were waving me down and I didn’t hear. And no they don’t like their photos taken on those roadblocks, even if you think they are cool and said yes…
As much as you think English will get you by most places in the world, think again. It’s all the tourist spots you may be thinking of, because as soon as you get to the smaller cities away from the main areas, they don’t know what the hell you are talking about, even if you thought you had some understanding of the language, you don’t.
Yeah the older parts of Italy are pretty cool, but there is also a lot of rubbish around as well. Some of the streets have the most dilapidated houses and sections I have seen throughout the whole of Europe. It’s easy to forget about the bad when you see so much good, but it’s there if you look around. Like the rest of the world, they have the tourist spots looking good, but shift out of town a little and you will see the real world, with its underbelly exposed.
Being in a country that loves cycling so much is a nice change, especially when you get a choice of three channels with cycling on at any one time. Soccer is still number one, but cycling is right up there, even some of the smallest local races are featured once or twice a night on TV. The best thing is that I have not seen a single mention of Rugby anywhere, newspaper, TV, etc, maybe that’s a sign of a well-cultured country, I live in hope.
Any more resting and I’m going to get really cynical, lets hope the ride tomorrow is more successful.
Arrggh Italy
After a week in Italy, I was starting to get on track for my K2 training, things were starting to fall into place. I had managed to do some pretty long rides, some pretty long steep climbs, and things were looking good, I felt good on the bike, training is a lot easier when you can recover all day instead of working on your feet (you office jockeys get it real easy). I had managed to even put in some sightseeing rides as well, with a few more mountain top cities, a trip to the leaning Tower of Pisa, Lucca, the coolest old city I have seen yet. And a few other towns that most tourists would not even get to see as they are in the middle of nowhere but seem like they used to be really important at one stage. The sun was up every day and there was no sight of rain for the next week that was good. The bike was going well, brakes working fine. I managed to hook up with a few bunch rides with one of the guys I know here, quite cool really as there was at least five pro’s riding everyday, as to their names, who knows, they sounded Italian, I do know what bike they were on though. I was keeping up with them right until we hit the biggest of climbs, then they showed their true calling in life, I pretended not to notice their speed.
The difference with cramming training in for a 200km race and cramming for an exam is that your head won’t explode from too much forced study, on the other hand your body my blow from too much training…. My accelerated training program was going sweet, I was up to 140km in the hills with no real problems, until that is, my legs realised what was going on and retaliated, and they got me good. Exactly ten days into the training, one of my knees, which has been giving me no real problems, started to make some pretty good attempts at trying to make me stop. I had not experienced pain like this before and it seemed to be getting worse with every pedal stroke. By the time that it was warm, it seemed to be fine, so as usual I tested it out by increasing the load on the way home and was happy with it’s apparent miracle repair. The next day it felt sweet under load as long as I was keeping my ankle fluid with every stroke. I found a couple of mountains to climb, they were sweet, but on the way home, the route on the map looked lame enough, through a cool little valley. Looks were deceiving, as within a short distance the climbs in this valley ended up being longer and harder than the hill work that I had done earlier. I climbed for 23km, up to a height of 950m (the cyclists reading will know what this feels like, the rest of you just pick up the broom and beat your legs hard for twenty minutes to emulate the pain), this was supposed to be a recovery ride home. Well 140km later I got home feeling pretty sweet, after 23kms of climbing it was the sweetest 45mins descent that I have ever had, it kind of made things right after the climbing
I took a day off, just for the hell of it, but the next day things kind of caught up with me, I got less than 5km down the road when I had to make the horrible call of turning around (very tough decision for any cyclist). My knee was killing me, not only that my achillis tendon felt like someone had jammed a fork in there, I looked to check, don’t worry. I grovelled home, took as many drugs as my body would allow and rested the rest of the day. That night I searched the internet for the right pages that would not be telling me to get off my bike and rest the achillis for 7-10 days, I could’nt find any. Ice, elevate it and rest, doh.. that’s not what I need to hear, but I listened, they were also saying light cycling would be a great recovery for the tendon, the knee will sort itself out I had hoped, as this was not a normal thing for my knees (it was to come but not this early in life, I told myself). I rested the day and got very bored watching reruns of old programs badly dubbed in Italian, my Italian is not that good yet, so they all seemed to sound the same. The next day the achillis ice therapy seemed to be working, so I though I would give it a run on the bike, I was less than 5 km into it and both injuries were starting to scream at me, not as loud as the other day, so I turned the ipod up louder and continued. I got a little bit further, only 25km before I had to turn around, it’s quite interesting with two injuries as you can play them off against each other…. When one is killing you, just think of how little pain the other injury is giving you, but as that pain increases you always have the other injury to think of and so on. Normally I’m not so lucky as I only have one injury to concentrate on the pain, hey things are looking up.
I’ve got the day off the bike again today, yes resting, but I’m over it already. I resisted the urge to pack my bike up today, as I leave tomorrow for a few days in London. So I’ll give it one more try tomorrow for the last ride here in Italy, if the injuries are still giving me gip, the bike gets packed away until I get home on Saturday. Never to see the streets of London, and probably never to see K2 this year as well, that will teach it a good lesson, I hope.
And for the fist time this blog is up to date, watch out London, I may be off the training when I see you. This could be dangerous…mind you a quick search on Google found 106 bike shops in the confines of London, including a Cycle City, Psycho, Cycle Surgery, Planet Cycles, and you thought they were only in NZ. Also some really cool names like Bob’s Bikes, Bike Shop, Moose Cycles and Two Wheels Good all worth a good look because the shops here in Italy suck…
The difference with cramming training in for a 200km race and cramming for an exam is that your head won’t explode from too much forced study, on the other hand your body my blow from too much training…. My accelerated training program was going sweet, I was up to 140km in the hills with no real problems, until that is, my legs realised what was going on and retaliated, and they got me good. Exactly ten days into the training, one of my knees, which has been giving me no real problems, started to make some pretty good attempts at trying to make me stop. I had not experienced pain like this before and it seemed to be getting worse with every pedal stroke. By the time that it was warm, it seemed to be fine, so as usual I tested it out by increasing the load on the way home and was happy with it’s apparent miracle repair. The next day it felt sweet under load as long as I was keeping my ankle fluid with every stroke. I found a couple of mountains to climb, they were sweet, but on the way home, the route on the map looked lame enough, through a cool little valley. Looks were deceiving, as within a short distance the climbs in this valley ended up being longer and harder than the hill work that I had done earlier. I climbed for 23km, up to a height of 950m (the cyclists reading will know what this feels like, the rest of you just pick up the broom and beat your legs hard for twenty minutes to emulate the pain), this was supposed to be a recovery ride home. Well 140km later I got home feeling pretty sweet, after 23kms of climbing it was the sweetest 45mins descent that I have ever had, it kind of made things right after the climbing
I took a day off, just for the hell of it, but the next day things kind of caught up with me, I got less than 5km down the road when I had to make the horrible call of turning around (very tough decision for any cyclist). My knee was killing me, not only that my achillis tendon felt like someone had jammed a fork in there, I looked to check, don’t worry. I grovelled home, took as many drugs as my body would allow and rested the rest of the day. That night I searched the internet for the right pages that would not be telling me to get off my bike and rest the achillis for 7-10 days, I could’nt find any. Ice, elevate it and rest, doh.. that’s not what I need to hear, but I listened, they were also saying light cycling would be a great recovery for the tendon, the knee will sort itself out I had hoped, as this was not a normal thing for my knees (it was to come but not this early in life, I told myself). I rested the day and got very bored watching reruns of old programs badly dubbed in Italian, my Italian is not that good yet, so they all seemed to sound the same. The next day the achillis ice therapy seemed to be working, so I though I would give it a run on the bike, I was less than 5 km into it and both injuries were starting to scream at me, not as loud as the other day, so I turned the ipod up louder and continued. I got a little bit further, only 25km before I had to turn around, it’s quite interesting with two injuries as you can play them off against each other…. When one is killing you, just think of how little pain the other injury is giving you, but as that pain increases you always have the other injury to think of and so on. Normally I’m not so lucky as I only have one injury to concentrate on the pain, hey things are looking up.
I’ve got the day off the bike again today, yes resting, but I’m over it already. I resisted the urge to pack my bike up today, as I leave tomorrow for a few days in London. So I’ll give it one more try tomorrow for the last ride here in Italy, if the injuries are still giving me gip, the bike gets packed away until I get home on Saturday. Never to see the streets of London, and probably never to see K2 this year as well, that will teach it a good lesson, I hope.
And for the fist time this blog is up to date, watch out London, I may be off the training when I see you. This could be dangerous…mind you a quick search on Google found 106 bike shops in the confines of London, including a Cycle City, Psycho, Cycle Surgery, Planet Cycles, and you thought they were only in NZ. Also some really cool names like Bob’s Bikes, Bike Shop, Moose Cycles and Two Wheels Good all worth a good look because the shops here in Italy suck…
Ahhh Italy
After leaving the advancing winter of the Netherlands, my secret plan of chasing the sunshine failed badly. I arrived in Italy to a full blown storm, rain, wind and cold weather, but hey, I was here to train, and train I would. I had heard that the Italians did not train in the rain, hell if they came and lived in Auckland they wouldn’t even ride for 85% of the year. The teams apartment is in a small town called Pontedera, right in the middle of the Tuscany region, close to some pretty good mountain ranges, close to the beach and not too much traffic around. Most of the team use it to build up for particular races throughout the year so upon arrival, all the maps of the area were drawn with rides of varying difficulty or length. Now I was starting to get excited, no work, two weeks with nothing better to do but to ride my bike, a great way to sightsee as well.
The weather for the next few days was looking like shit, so I had already made the decision that rain would not be stopping any training, I was behind enough already. Hey if living in NZ teaches you one thing, it’s how to ride in the rain, commuting hardens you up very quickly, especially in those winter months when you are putting on wet clothes from the mornings ride to ride the rain home. I had my trusty GPS on the bike so I was not going to get lost in a hurry, where I was going was not a concern. With in an hour, I had figured out why the locals don’t ride in the rain, not only was it very wet, but there seemed to be some sort of black oil like substance oozing from the road surface. This I figured was some sort of Diesel residue, as that’s what most of the cars run on. This black stuff got everywhere, on your clothes, face, eyes, sunnies, brakes, braking surfaces, tyres, things were starting to get interesting. What little braking I already had on the Ritchey, with one of my great modifications that looked good but didn’t work (You never hear of the worlds greatest inventors failures, only their successes) turned into no brakes very quickly. This I didn’t figure out until I was descending a rather steep mountain I had just grovelled up, things got very interesting to say the least on the way down. It must have looked funny from the tour bus coming around the corner as I was directly in their path, wrong side of the road, foot down on the inside trying to pull up just before a very large cliff was heading right for me, thank god the barriers are a little bit higher here, otherwise things might not have been so funny. I wasn’t too worried about stopping, it was mostly under control, what I was worried about was my new riding kit which was completely shredded from the barrier, doh, I don’t think I would have got it very clean afterwards anyway.
I took it easy for the rest of the ride, I even stopped to see if I could get the brakes any better, I was like someone had greased my rims there was so much oil on them. In the shower afterwards, what looked like a great tan, took about ten minutes each leg to get clean, so much black stuff everywhere I could now understand the locals. That night I spent ages cleaning the crap off my bike and managed to get a little more brakes out of my trusty steed, she was ready for another onslaught tomorrow. The forecast looked like rain from what I could tell off the weather report, crazy country, news at any time during the day you could think of, I could work it out no matter how hard I tried. Not a single English program anywhere to be found, lots of old seventies shows dubbed in Italian, you could still work out whet they were saying or make it up as it went. It was great to see old shows like Charlies Angels, with the original line-up, Colombo, Starsky and Hutch, it was killing me, man they watch some shit here. Good to see some of the old movies I saw when I was a kid every night as well, Airport 75, Airport 76, and so on, think last night was Airport 80, they are getting very bad so it must be the eighties.
Two more days of rain, but I had managed to get my brakes working enough to stay on the flat safely, but the mountains would have to wait. The hard thing about new countries working out from where the bad weather is coming, for three days I headed into what seemed to be areas where it looked like it was clearing, but upon arrival it was worse than where I had come from. Making judgements in the morning as to the best direction or time to go was futile, as I have no idea what’s going to happen anyway. By the time the sun arrived, I was ready for her, I had all my mountains picked out and ready to knock off. We had raced with the girls through a mountain town called Volterra (search it on Google, it’s way cool), during the Toscana Tour, from the few minutes I saw it I had to go back. It was only a climb of 550m so didn’t seem that bad for starters, and being only 50km away seem like a good warm up. Well, on the way out to Volterra, I thought that I had adjusted my brakes way to tight, I felt flat, tired and was thinking of turning around every few minutes, something was up. Getting closer and closer to Volterra, I thought there was no way I would be climbing it today, but I was keen to give it a shot. Before I had left NZ, I was in deliberation with myself (we get on well together) as to the size of the cassette on the back was going to be, I can’t remember what I choose in the end but I thought it was a 25t as the easiest. 25t is about as big as I have ever gone, so it seemed good enough for today, hell if the Girls can climb it in 25, I sure can. Well, half way up I had to stop, I was nailed, completely empty, something had to be up. I did the all time classic male things and blamed the bike, it had to be the problem, I checked the brakes, nah they were sweet, the wheels were moving fine, run the cranks, they were sweet. I had a look at the cassette and that looked pretty small, hey that was no 25 on there, I counted, even with blurred vision and a pounding heart I only counted 21, I forgot to change it, that made me feel so much better. I had been grovelling the last few days up some pretty steep climbs with a 21, I got back on the bike and climbed that mountain like my ass was on fire, I was so happy, I had a reason for feeling so bad, climbing never felt so good.
So nice to finish a good climb off with a very old mountain top city, sure beats nothing on top. This city has been there so many centuries, I felt in awe as I was finishing my climb on roman cobbles and buildings that have stood here for hundreds of years unchanged, even photos can’t capture the age and beauty of this place. If the streets could talk, oh the stories they would tell, it was great to be sweating all over them, like Roman soldiers years earlier did after marching to the top in full armour. I felt as though I had done just as much work as them. I brought some lunch from a shop that had been their since 1099, so the old lady was telling me, yeah, some of the fruit she was selling looked like it had been there that long as well.
The weather for the next few days was looking like shit, so I had already made the decision that rain would not be stopping any training, I was behind enough already. Hey if living in NZ teaches you one thing, it’s how to ride in the rain, commuting hardens you up very quickly, especially in those winter months when you are putting on wet clothes from the mornings ride to ride the rain home. I had my trusty GPS on the bike so I was not going to get lost in a hurry, where I was going was not a concern. With in an hour, I had figured out why the locals don’t ride in the rain, not only was it very wet, but there seemed to be some sort of black oil like substance oozing from the road surface. This I figured was some sort of Diesel residue, as that’s what most of the cars run on. This black stuff got everywhere, on your clothes, face, eyes, sunnies, brakes, braking surfaces, tyres, things were starting to get interesting. What little braking I already had on the Ritchey, with one of my great modifications that looked good but didn’t work (You never hear of the worlds greatest inventors failures, only their successes) turned into no brakes very quickly. This I didn’t figure out until I was descending a rather steep mountain I had just grovelled up, things got very interesting to say the least on the way down. It must have looked funny from the tour bus coming around the corner as I was directly in their path, wrong side of the road, foot down on the inside trying to pull up just before a very large cliff was heading right for me, thank god the barriers are a little bit higher here, otherwise things might not have been so funny. I wasn’t too worried about stopping, it was mostly under control, what I was worried about was my new riding kit which was completely shredded from the barrier, doh, I don’t think I would have got it very clean afterwards anyway.
I took it easy for the rest of the ride, I even stopped to see if I could get the brakes any better, I was like someone had greased my rims there was so much oil on them. In the shower afterwards, what looked like a great tan, took about ten minutes each leg to get clean, so much black stuff everywhere I could now understand the locals. That night I spent ages cleaning the crap off my bike and managed to get a little more brakes out of my trusty steed, she was ready for another onslaught tomorrow. The forecast looked like rain from what I could tell off the weather report, crazy country, news at any time during the day you could think of, I could work it out no matter how hard I tried. Not a single English program anywhere to be found, lots of old seventies shows dubbed in Italian, you could still work out whet they were saying or make it up as it went. It was great to see old shows like Charlies Angels, with the original line-up, Colombo, Starsky and Hutch, it was killing me, man they watch some shit here. Good to see some of the old movies I saw when I was a kid every night as well, Airport 75, Airport 76, and so on, think last night was Airport 80, they are getting very bad so it must be the eighties.
Two more days of rain, but I had managed to get my brakes working enough to stay on the flat safely, but the mountains would have to wait. The hard thing about new countries working out from where the bad weather is coming, for three days I headed into what seemed to be areas where it looked like it was clearing, but upon arrival it was worse than where I had come from. Making judgements in the morning as to the best direction or time to go was futile, as I have no idea what’s going to happen anyway. By the time the sun arrived, I was ready for her, I had all my mountains picked out and ready to knock off. We had raced with the girls through a mountain town called Volterra (search it on Google, it’s way cool), during the Toscana Tour, from the few minutes I saw it I had to go back. It was only a climb of 550m so didn’t seem that bad for starters, and being only 50km away seem like a good warm up. Well, on the way out to Volterra, I thought that I had adjusted my brakes way to tight, I felt flat, tired and was thinking of turning around every few minutes, something was up. Getting closer and closer to Volterra, I thought there was no way I would be climbing it today, but I was keen to give it a shot. Before I had left NZ, I was in deliberation with myself (we get on well together) as to the size of the cassette on the back was going to be, I can’t remember what I choose in the end but I thought it was a 25t as the easiest. 25t is about as big as I have ever gone, so it seemed good enough for today, hell if the Girls can climb it in 25, I sure can. Well, half way up I had to stop, I was nailed, completely empty, something had to be up. I did the all time classic male things and blamed the bike, it had to be the problem, I checked the brakes, nah they were sweet, the wheels were moving fine, run the cranks, they were sweet. I had a look at the cassette and that looked pretty small, hey that was no 25 on there, I counted, even with blurred vision and a pounding heart I only counted 21, I forgot to change it, that made me feel so much better. I had been grovelling the last few days up some pretty steep climbs with a 21, I got back on the bike and climbed that mountain like my ass was on fire, I was so happy, I had a reason for feeling so bad, climbing never felt so good.
So nice to finish a good climb off with a very old mountain top city, sure beats nothing on top. This city has been there so many centuries, I felt in awe as I was finishing my climb on roman cobbles and buildings that have stood here for hundreds of years unchanged, even photos can’t capture the age and beauty of this place. If the streets could talk, oh the stories they would tell, it was great to be sweating all over them, like Roman soldiers years earlier did after marching to the top in full armour. I felt as though I had done just as much work as them. I brought some lunch from a shop that had been their since 1099, so the old lady was telling me, yeah, some of the fruit she was selling looked like it had been there that long as well.
14 October 2005
Almost done...
After not being back at base for the last three weeks, things had cooled down a fair bit. The Netherlands was heading into winter, and it was coming a little too soon for me. After a week in Madrid, we had left with a temperature of 32’C, with hardly any humidity, it was very nice in the shade, even better in the sun. My first night back at base, I put long pants on for the first time all year, and went to bed shivering. Of course it was not normal for that time of the year (they keep saying that to me, and when ever we left for racing, it was awesome of course). All the girls would have been back in their own countries by now, settling into some off-season fun. All I had to do was unpack the mess in the team truck, decommissioning it for the season, wash a few bikes and make sure all the parts we raided from various bikes were returned to where they belonged, then I was done. Then time for some off-season fun.
I had to get back on my bike as it had been over a month since I had been on it, think I managed one small ride, in an hour or so I had spare. Kind of got a little bit busy for looking after my self, it hurts, but you got to do it sometimes. But that was going to change. The few days work I thought I had turned into one, time to ride and start thinking about heading back home to NZ, and back to work, by the sound of things they are busy. The bummer about having summer back to back is the unfortunate consequence of working three busy seasons in one year. I’ll just have to take it easy over the Christmas period to make up for it , yeah right..
I had, in my haste in leaving for the last two tours, sent a box or two of stuff home as I was drastically over my baggage allowance and was not in habit of paying excess baggage fees. Last time I left Europe they tried to sting me for almost $900 extra for my Singlespeed MTB, we were a little late with our transfer from another flight, but it was their problem not ours. They thought we would just cough up the cash to get on the plane as it was getting ready to leave for NZ, but no, our bikes were booked on, paid as part of the ticket, no way were they getting any cash from me. In the end the big time manager was called in, as the woman on the counter was not going to let us leave with out paying. One minute with the big guy, showing him the paper work and he had us on our way, a little late but other wise on time. Found out later she had already sold our seats, overbooked the plane and was trying to stall so the plane would leave without us, problem solved. The stuff that I sent home was all my warm riding gear, arm warmers, rain jackets, long gloves, and all my warm walking round clothes, doh.. Well I had been carrying them around for a while and had not taken them out of my bag, they had to go. After a couple of rides in the district, I’m sure that I was going to run into snow on the roads sooner or later it was so cold. I had to go.
So after a small decision which took me about a minute, I had to get the hell outta town and I decided to head to Italy for a week or two training and a bit of sightseeing. The team conveniently has a house there for training purposes, it was empty, free and was calling my name out. We had passed by the town that it was in, during the Toscana Tour so I was almost familiar with the area, there was big mountains, that was good. A town full of Italian girls, that was good. Tuscany is the food capital of Italy, that was good. Being Wheat and Gluten intolerant meant that pasta and bread was off the menu, that was not good, but three out of four isn’t bad. I had exactly one month to get in shape for K2, 200kms of the best climbs that Coromandel can dish out (www.k2cycle.co.nz). After a month off the bike, I had to get some serious miles in the legs, especially some hills or that race is going to hurt, even when you are in shape it hurts. Normally I would have trained for at least four months for this race, you need to have a bit of respect for this race as it’s not the sort of thing you can just pull out of the hat. Really looking forward to it this year as it’s the fourth year of a four year cycle. Being one of only 32 people that have done the last three in a row, it will be pretty cool seeing how many make it out of that for the fourth time (and the free T shirt). There is some really good statistics on Andy and Keith’s site regarding this race if your interested, I don’t know why more people don’t come back for more every year, it’s not that demanding on the body, just for the mind. And from what I had heard from the Girls there is some pretty good climbs near the apartment to train on, should keep me out of trouble, and out of the town at night.
Europe is the home of cheap flights and within a short time I had secured some pretty sweet deals. I have to fly out of London for home on the 21oct, so got a sweet price of $26 from Pisa to London, makes our local airlines seem pitiful as to what you pay for a similar distance. Even with all the hidden charges it still works out to under $65, I love this place. A flight from Amsterdam to Italy, $68, less than an hour, that sure beats driving for two days solid. Two and bit weeks training in Italy in the mountains, four days in London working on the speed work through the traffic (hope to get some riding in as the weather has turned to shit there as well). A little flight home, then a week in Auckland, working full days and training with jet lag, I should be sweet. Oh, got to sort out a new bike and dial it in, acclimatise to the weather, and unpack my room (as I thought we may be shifting when I was away), and try and beat six hours for the first time. Should be no problem… Now, if only there was two of me (god help the world, and my mother), I should be fine…
I had to get back on my bike as it had been over a month since I had been on it, think I managed one small ride, in an hour or so I had spare. Kind of got a little bit busy for looking after my self, it hurts, but you got to do it sometimes. But that was going to change. The few days work I thought I had turned into one, time to ride and start thinking about heading back home to NZ, and back to work, by the sound of things they are busy. The bummer about having summer back to back is the unfortunate consequence of working three busy seasons in one year. I’ll just have to take it easy over the Christmas period to make up for it , yeah right..
I had, in my haste in leaving for the last two tours, sent a box or two of stuff home as I was drastically over my baggage allowance and was not in habit of paying excess baggage fees. Last time I left Europe they tried to sting me for almost $900 extra for my Singlespeed MTB, we were a little late with our transfer from another flight, but it was their problem not ours. They thought we would just cough up the cash to get on the plane as it was getting ready to leave for NZ, but no, our bikes were booked on, paid as part of the ticket, no way were they getting any cash from me. In the end the big time manager was called in, as the woman on the counter was not going to let us leave with out paying. One minute with the big guy, showing him the paper work and he had us on our way, a little late but other wise on time. Found out later she had already sold our seats, overbooked the plane and was trying to stall so the plane would leave without us, problem solved. The stuff that I sent home was all my warm riding gear, arm warmers, rain jackets, long gloves, and all my warm walking round clothes, doh.. Well I had been carrying them around for a while and had not taken them out of my bag, they had to go. After a couple of rides in the district, I’m sure that I was going to run into snow on the roads sooner or later it was so cold. I had to go.
So after a small decision which took me about a minute, I had to get the hell outta town and I decided to head to Italy for a week or two training and a bit of sightseeing. The team conveniently has a house there for training purposes, it was empty, free and was calling my name out. We had passed by the town that it was in, during the Toscana Tour so I was almost familiar with the area, there was big mountains, that was good. A town full of Italian girls, that was good. Tuscany is the food capital of Italy, that was good. Being Wheat and Gluten intolerant meant that pasta and bread was off the menu, that was not good, but three out of four isn’t bad. I had exactly one month to get in shape for K2, 200kms of the best climbs that Coromandel can dish out (www.k2cycle.co.nz). After a month off the bike, I had to get some serious miles in the legs, especially some hills or that race is going to hurt, even when you are in shape it hurts. Normally I would have trained for at least four months for this race, you need to have a bit of respect for this race as it’s not the sort of thing you can just pull out of the hat. Really looking forward to it this year as it’s the fourth year of a four year cycle. Being one of only 32 people that have done the last three in a row, it will be pretty cool seeing how many make it out of that for the fourth time (and the free T shirt). There is some really good statistics on Andy and Keith’s site regarding this race if your interested, I don’t know why more people don’t come back for more every year, it’s not that demanding on the body, just for the mind. And from what I had heard from the Girls there is some pretty good climbs near the apartment to train on, should keep me out of trouble, and out of the town at night.
Europe is the home of cheap flights and within a short time I had secured some pretty sweet deals. I have to fly out of London for home on the 21oct, so got a sweet price of $26 from Pisa to London, makes our local airlines seem pitiful as to what you pay for a similar distance. Even with all the hidden charges it still works out to under $65, I love this place. A flight from Amsterdam to Italy, $68, less than an hour, that sure beats driving for two days solid. Two and bit weeks training in Italy in the mountains, four days in London working on the speed work through the traffic (hope to get some riding in as the weather has turned to shit there as well). A little flight home, then a week in Auckland, working full days and training with jet lag, I should be sweet. Oh, got to sort out a new bike and dial it in, acclimatise to the weather, and unpack my room (as I thought we may be shifting when I was away), and try and beat six hours for the first time. Should be no problem… Now, if only there was two of me (god help the world, and my mother), I should be fine…
11 October 2005
Even more worlds
The night before the Pro Men’s race and things were starting to settle down a little. Most of the pressure of the last few months seem to be coming to a slow grinding halt. This was the last race of my tour in Europe, with three riders to go, the most important race of the year for them and for me. The sweetest bikes to work on, the sweetest wheels to tune in, the nicest gear to work with, and the most unassuming riders, thank god. What a great way to finish.
The frame swap went well, not a single problem, and also a comment that it was working better than when the team had worked on it put a smile to my face. We had three riders for Sweden, six sweet bikes, and a pile of wheels that would keep Steve Parker off the streets for weeks. After working until midnight I was happy with the state of the bikes, believe me as much love and attention goes into the pros bikes as yours. The difference was all these guys were a lot bigger than me, and a good bashing was going to hurt. We packed the car, which looked pale in comparison, the booty that we were carrying on the roof. We left an hour earlier than the riders as we had to take our team truck to the race, as we had to leave directly after the race, even early on a Sunday morning there is a shit load of traffic to deal with. The riders arrived an hour later, looking ready for six hours in the sunshine. We had also found out that we had to share a team car with Denmark, and Norway, servicing nine riders during the race. There was no shortage of mechanics keen for a 260 km jaunt round and round Madrid, so I was off the hook again. Time to relax, get some photos, give some people some grief, say some goodbyes to some of the others I had meet over the last few weeks, and buy some cheesy souvenirs.
There was so much bullshit required to get accredited for the race for all the staff and riders, I was wondering what it was all for. We had hundreds of punters off the street wandering through the pits, which was hard as I was trying to make sure all our bikes and wheels were safe as crime here was really bad. All the riders were getting hassled for autographs and photo’s, it was a real zoo when they were trying to get themselves sorted. When the race come through from the start, there was three or four hundred deep in the pits, I thought there was going to be a pile up for sure, that’s all we need after all our work. It was good to see them off, finally, now for some racing.
Rubbing shoulders with all the pros was pretty sweet, some of them are a lot smaller than I thought, joking as much as we do on the starting line, some things never change in this sport I thought. Every country had the same size tent with a TV playing the race live, it was pretty cool seeing them come past the first few times. Feeding was a great sight as the group of 150 or so came through the pits, I was sure there was going to be some carnage, but no, damn it. It was good to see the boys in black though, at least we had a team, bad colour to be wearing with 30’c in the shade though.
They raced round and round the circuit (for more gripping reports look at cyclingnews.com) late in to the afternoon. About two laps to go, half the TV’s decided to blow out, which was great as three or four nations were crowded into the various boxes still going. You could see some tension as complete enemies were sharing the same screen, the organization was sweating to get the problem solved. I roamed around hoping there was going to be a fight, but no, damn it. One thing for sure, cycling is one of those sports where complete strangers from warring countries can sit shoulder to shoulder together all for the love of the sport, with smiles on their faces. When the TV’s were sorted the last lap was on, the bunch was almost together after breaks all day. Watching the kiwi sprinting up the last hill was pretty exciting, I didn’t quite know whom to support at this stage. They came all together, just past the back of the pits doing about 80k, the sprint was on. The boxes were full of excitement as every nation was out to win. One of our Swedish guys were looking good in the last few hundred meters, but with a few meters of the line he blew, but we did get a fourth, by a bike length to third, that was pretty cool. I almost got a medal for one of the bikes I worked on, fourth will do this year, but give me gold next year for sure..
Righto, only a 2100km drive home to go, and then I’m almost done. A few hundred km’s into the trip, we decided to drive through the night because traffic was pretty thick through France on a Monday we heard. As usual, the storm we encountered on the way to Madrid followed us through to Spain. Through the back of the Pyrenes the lightening was like nothing that I have ever seen before. Huge forks of lightening spread across the sky in the most amazing patterns, my co driver kept on waking as he thought that I was taking pictures of him sleeping with the flash in his eyes. The storm followed us all the way into France, at least it kept me awake into the early morning. We arrived in Holland the next day about lunchtime, not bad for the distance we had travelled, and a long sleep was waiting for me. The bikes and the mess in the truck can wait.
The frame swap went well, not a single problem, and also a comment that it was working better than when the team had worked on it put a smile to my face. We had three riders for Sweden, six sweet bikes, and a pile of wheels that would keep Steve Parker off the streets for weeks. After working until midnight I was happy with the state of the bikes, believe me as much love and attention goes into the pros bikes as yours. The difference was all these guys were a lot bigger than me, and a good bashing was going to hurt. We packed the car, which looked pale in comparison, the booty that we were carrying on the roof. We left an hour earlier than the riders as we had to take our team truck to the race, as we had to leave directly after the race, even early on a Sunday morning there is a shit load of traffic to deal with. The riders arrived an hour later, looking ready for six hours in the sunshine. We had also found out that we had to share a team car with Denmark, and Norway, servicing nine riders during the race. There was no shortage of mechanics keen for a 260 km jaunt round and round Madrid, so I was off the hook again. Time to relax, get some photos, give some people some grief, say some goodbyes to some of the others I had meet over the last few weeks, and buy some cheesy souvenirs.
There was so much bullshit required to get accredited for the race for all the staff and riders, I was wondering what it was all for. We had hundreds of punters off the street wandering through the pits, which was hard as I was trying to make sure all our bikes and wheels were safe as crime here was really bad. All the riders were getting hassled for autographs and photo’s, it was a real zoo when they were trying to get themselves sorted. When the race come through from the start, there was three or four hundred deep in the pits, I thought there was going to be a pile up for sure, that’s all we need after all our work. It was good to see them off, finally, now for some racing.
Rubbing shoulders with all the pros was pretty sweet, some of them are a lot smaller than I thought, joking as much as we do on the starting line, some things never change in this sport I thought. Every country had the same size tent with a TV playing the race live, it was pretty cool seeing them come past the first few times. Feeding was a great sight as the group of 150 or so came through the pits, I was sure there was going to be some carnage, but no, damn it. It was good to see the boys in black though, at least we had a team, bad colour to be wearing with 30’c in the shade though.
They raced round and round the circuit (for more gripping reports look at cyclingnews.com) late in to the afternoon. About two laps to go, half the TV’s decided to blow out, which was great as three or four nations were crowded into the various boxes still going. You could see some tension as complete enemies were sharing the same screen, the organization was sweating to get the problem solved. I roamed around hoping there was going to be a fight, but no, damn it. One thing for sure, cycling is one of those sports where complete strangers from warring countries can sit shoulder to shoulder together all for the love of the sport, with smiles on their faces. When the TV’s were sorted the last lap was on, the bunch was almost together after breaks all day. Watching the kiwi sprinting up the last hill was pretty exciting, I didn’t quite know whom to support at this stage. They came all together, just past the back of the pits doing about 80k, the sprint was on. The boxes were full of excitement as every nation was out to win. One of our Swedish guys were looking good in the last few hundred meters, but with a few meters of the line he blew, but we did get a fourth, by a bike length to third, that was pretty cool. I almost got a medal for one of the bikes I worked on, fourth will do this year, but give me gold next year for sure..
Righto, only a 2100km drive home to go, and then I’m almost done. A few hundred km’s into the trip, we decided to drive through the night because traffic was pretty thick through France on a Monday we heard. As usual, the storm we encountered on the way to Madrid followed us through to Spain. Through the back of the Pyrenes the lightening was like nothing that I have ever seen before. Huge forks of lightening spread across the sky in the most amazing patterns, my co driver kept on waking as he thought that I was taking pictures of him sleeping with the flash in his eyes. The storm followed us all the way into France, at least it kept me awake into the early morning. We arrived in Holland the next day about lunchtime, not bad for the distance we had travelled, and a long sleep was waiting for me. The bikes and the mess in the truck can wait.
More worlds
Well we left for the Women’s race early, the last thing we needed to do was get stuck in traffic. They were starting at 9am, travelling through the streets we see most of the cafes full of people left over from the night before, ah in another life, that used to be me, how things have changed. One thing has remained though, my love of bikes, the one stable thing that has kept me going all these years, may it roll on. We had five women racing today, most of the other countries had six, so we had car number 22 in the caravan, guess we won’t be seeing much of the race today. After car number one or two for the last few months, it was interesting to see how the rest of the teams watch the racing. Lucky we had the race radio, because you had to have bionic eyesight to see any of the races from way back there.
Susanne was our hot favourite for the win, two previous World Champs wins were testament to that, the press bothering before the race also thought that she was the favourite as well. Well the race started with a bang, they were off and right away we hear Sweden to the back of the bunch, one of the girls had flatted already, doh! We race up through all the cars, which were still jostling for position, three abreast the course. Trying to look for our smallest rider through all the shit, plus race nerves for Klas who was driving, I was looking as hard as I could, but we managed to drive right past her, about 300m. Other team cars were yelling to us that we had passed her, to make it worse, it was right in front of all the boxes where all the countries were hanging out. They were telling us as well. I leapt out of the car, sprinted as fast as I can (longest run I’ve had all year), past all the other boxes to our girl, who had seen us scream past seconds before. All those years of changing wheels paid off as I made the fastest rear wheel change that was humanly possible, I even scared myself. And she was off, chasing the bunch, which had put the hammer down, must be all that built up tension of the World Champs as they had one hell of a speed up. We tried our best to pull Monica up to the bunch, but there is only so much motor pacing we can do before we get busted by the commissionaire. The lap finished, and it was fast, Monica was still hanging out the back of the caravan, we thought she was close to joining it, but the speed of lap one was too much for her, she was about to blow.
With all the nations present, we had to share cars with some of the countries with few or one riders. We had Ireland riding with us, they had one in the race, the mechanic introduced himself, he had just started with road racing. With the small talk before the race, he was telling us that he had done all the courses regarding racing, but this was his first race. I was laughing to myself, and a little out loud as well, thinking that he thought that I was the hardened professional, working for the worlds best Female Pro Team, with a two times world champ and multiple Olympians in my stable. With the driver, Klas, an ex pro driving and with most of our team was racing for their consecutive countries, we must have looked like the shit. I didn’t tell him that I was about to leave to work on $50 bikes from Foodtown, for people who try and screw you for a full rebuild on their piece of junk, for sake of saving $30 on a good machine. We kept on asking him, is his girl any good, all he could come up with was, ‘well she was national champ’, we were waiting for more info when the fist rider out of the race was his, halfway around the first lap. He decided to stay in the car for a few more laps, thinking he came this far, he may as well get his money’s worth. Maybe someone should tell him his job is to look after hid rider, we thought it was pretty funny all the same.
Well to cut a very long story short, Sweden sucked, all the team blew before the end, all of them except Susanne failed to finish. Susanne rocked as usual, getting seventh in the bunch sprint. A German won the sprint, helped by two of our new team mates, Madeline and Luise. Miriam was in the top 12 for Holland, Linda lead the bunch for two laps flying the flag for Denmark, Amber almost got away on the last climb for USA. All in all it was a pretty good race for team, but not so good for anyone particular.
The U23 had neutral service for the race so I was off the hook, after 13 laps for the women, another 20 or so did not seem too much like fun for the afternoon. I was on hand in the boxes in case of any major problems, more like time to sleep in the sun and skive off for 26 mins until they came through the pits and then look busy for a few minutes. I managed to find some wireless so I was happy catching up on mail. Both of our guys had a good race but were out of the running for a podium finish. Next up the pro men, 260km in 30’c, should be fun.
Susanne was our hot favourite for the win, two previous World Champs wins were testament to that, the press bothering before the race also thought that she was the favourite as well. Well the race started with a bang, they were off and right away we hear Sweden to the back of the bunch, one of the girls had flatted already, doh! We race up through all the cars, which were still jostling for position, three abreast the course. Trying to look for our smallest rider through all the shit, plus race nerves for Klas who was driving, I was looking as hard as I could, but we managed to drive right past her, about 300m. Other team cars were yelling to us that we had passed her, to make it worse, it was right in front of all the boxes where all the countries were hanging out. They were telling us as well. I leapt out of the car, sprinted as fast as I can (longest run I’ve had all year), past all the other boxes to our girl, who had seen us scream past seconds before. All those years of changing wheels paid off as I made the fastest rear wheel change that was humanly possible, I even scared myself. And she was off, chasing the bunch, which had put the hammer down, must be all that built up tension of the World Champs as they had one hell of a speed up. We tried our best to pull Monica up to the bunch, but there is only so much motor pacing we can do before we get busted by the commissionaire. The lap finished, and it was fast, Monica was still hanging out the back of the caravan, we thought she was close to joining it, but the speed of lap one was too much for her, she was about to blow.
With all the nations present, we had to share cars with some of the countries with few or one riders. We had Ireland riding with us, they had one in the race, the mechanic introduced himself, he had just started with road racing. With the small talk before the race, he was telling us that he had done all the courses regarding racing, but this was his first race. I was laughing to myself, and a little out loud as well, thinking that he thought that I was the hardened professional, working for the worlds best Female Pro Team, with a two times world champ and multiple Olympians in my stable. With the driver, Klas, an ex pro driving and with most of our team was racing for their consecutive countries, we must have looked like the shit. I didn’t tell him that I was about to leave to work on $50 bikes from Foodtown, for people who try and screw you for a full rebuild on their piece of junk, for sake of saving $30 on a good machine. We kept on asking him, is his girl any good, all he could come up with was, ‘well she was national champ’, we were waiting for more info when the fist rider out of the race was his, halfway around the first lap. He decided to stay in the car for a few more laps, thinking he came this far, he may as well get his money’s worth. Maybe someone should tell him his job is to look after hid rider, we thought it was pretty funny all the same.
Well to cut a very long story short, Sweden sucked, all the team blew before the end, all of them except Susanne failed to finish. Susanne rocked as usual, getting seventh in the bunch sprint. A German won the sprint, helped by two of our new team mates, Madeline and Luise. Miriam was in the top 12 for Holland, Linda lead the bunch for two laps flying the flag for Denmark, Amber almost got away on the last climb for USA. All in all it was a pretty good race for team, but not so good for anyone particular.
The U23 had neutral service for the race so I was off the hook, after 13 laps for the women, another 20 or so did not seem too much like fun for the afternoon. I was on hand in the boxes in case of any major problems, more like time to sleep in the sun and skive off for 26 mins until they came through the pits and then look busy for a few minutes. I managed to find some wireless so I was happy catching up on mail. Both of our guys had a good race but were out of the running for a podium finish. Next up the pro men, 260km in 30’c, should be fun.
Worlds Part 2
The road races were looming as we moved into Friday, the Women were racing 138km on Saturday morning, U23 Men were racing 180km Saturday midday, with the Elite men racing 260km Sunday morning. I had my work cut out for me as that was quite few bikes to sort out, plus don’t forget the spare bikes that most of them had as well.
The course was in the middle of the city, so pre riding it was a nightmare, we took the car around a day earlier, almost two and a half hours to drive around it, at 28km or so, gives you an idea of the traffic present. The organization decided to do a rolling blockade, with about thirty police cars and about as many bikes about midday, so the competitors could get a good look at the course. What a nightmare in this town, with no traffic rules to speak of, nose to tail traffic everywhere, cars sporting multiple dings, this was going to be fun. All competitors lined up to pre-ride the course, I worked it out at about 375ish riders, what a sight. Fortunately I got to hang out at the start finish as there was a load of people wanting to drive in the team car, sweet an hour off for the week. I slept on a park bench in the sun, for an hour and a half, I will sightsee in the car the next day with a few laps, think I will be doing about 32 for the day…
After the pre-ride, I started work on the five girls bikes, and the boys U23, only about 10, sweet, there was still a few hours daylight, and the nights were pleasant, not so hot. All things went well, most of the bikes we had sorted out during the week so it was looking like it was going to be an early finish. I should have known better, it was not to be, this stuff just seems follow me around time and time again. You cause trouble in life, you have to be able to take it as well, I love giving it, and I love taking it. Sitting down for a late lunch, Magness Backstead, one of the pro men who rides for Liquigas, gave me the news that he was expecting a new bike to arrive today sometime. That was pushing it, last thing I need for the old stress levels is a big (7 foot, at least, measured at 2000 watts in the sprint) riding a new bike in the worlds for the first time. Not ten minutes after he told me I saw the delivery truck pull up, the box he was dropping off did not look like bike size, I opened it and not to my surprise, it was just the frame. Damn, this is getting worse, no cables for Campag, a full frame swap and the race in two days.
Well after working with older, tight ass, cheap as, kiwi customers for years, it was no problem saving the cables, and the frame swapped over in record time, sleep at 1am, plus he gets a day to shake down the new build, now I’m not worried. Life would be too easy if everything fell into to place for us (you listening kids), life was meant to be a challenge, too many people let the smallest of things get them down, when big things come along they just give up. The rest of us deal with things as they arise, the bigger the problem, the bigger the smile on our face when we solve them. The world is round, with stuff all over it, how easy is that to work it out?
Two more gripping instalments on the Worlds to come..
The course was in the middle of the city, so pre riding it was a nightmare, we took the car around a day earlier, almost two and a half hours to drive around it, at 28km or so, gives you an idea of the traffic present. The organization decided to do a rolling blockade, with about thirty police cars and about as many bikes about midday, so the competitors could get a good look at the course. What a nightmare in this town, with no traffic rules to speak of, nose to tail traffic everywhere, cars sporting multiple dings, this was going to be fun. All competitors lined up to pre-ride the course, I worked it out at about 375ish riders, what a sight. Fortunately I got to hang out at the start finish as there was a load of people wanting to drive in the team car, sweet an hour off for the week. I slept on a park bench in the sun, for an hour and a half, I will sightsee in the car the next day with a few laps, think I will be doing about 32 for the day…
After the pre-ride, I started work on the five girls bikes, and the boys U23, only about 10, sweet, there was still a few hours daylight, and the nights were pleasant, not so hot. All things went well, most of the bikes we had sorted out during the week so it was looking like it was going to be an early finish. I should have known better, it was not to be, this stuff just seems follow me around time and time again. You cause trouble in life, you have to be able to take it as well, I love giving it, and I love taking it. Sitting down for a late lunch, Magness Backstead, one of the pro men who rides for Liquigas, gave me the news that he was expecting a new bike to arrive today sometime. That was pushing it, last thing I need for the old stress levels is a big (7 foot, at least, measured at 2000 watts in the sprint) riding a new bike in the worlds for the first time. Not ten minutes after he told me I saw the delivery truck pull up, the box he was dropping off did not look like bike size, I opened it and not to my surprise, it was just the frame. Damn, this is getting worse, no cables for Campag, a full frame swap and the race in two days.
Well after working with older, tight ass, cheap as, kiwi customers for years, it was no problem saving the cables, and the frame swapped over in record time, sleep at 1am, plus he gets a day to shake down the new build, now I’m not worried. Life would be too easy if everything fell into to place for us (you listening kids), life was meant to be a challenge, too many people let the smallest of things get them down, when big things come along they just give up. The rest of us deal with things as they arise, the bigger the problem, the bigger the smile on our face when we solve them. The world is round, with stuff all over it, how easy is that to work it out?
Two more gripping instalments on the Worlds to come..
7 October 2005
Madrid here we come..
Well of course the, 1650km grew another 200km before we even left, it was going to be a long drive. By the time we crawled north up the Italian coast the wind was starting to pick up to a hardy blow. It was quite fun as we exited some of the tunnels at the top of the mountain, with the large sail area of the truck, and 18 bikes that weigh nothing, we would lunge two or three meters sideways with every gust. The storm followed us through the entire night just making sure that we were awake for the view. Slept the night in a tiny hotel in the base of France, we would hit Madrid in a matter of 1180km.
Crossing the border into Spain was like a scene out of some bible movie, believe me I’ve seen a few. Almost as we left the border of France the sky had a line across it mirroring the border, we were leaving rain clouds that had been with us for the last day, moving into perfect blue sky with not a cloud to be seen for miles in front. It was one of those ‘had to be there’ moments, sorry suckers. The drive through the desert into the centre of Spain was pretty wicked, if you wanted to film an old style Western, this is where you should come. Every now and again there was a huge silhouette of a bull in the distance, these things were massive, stood out up to ten km’s away. Diving close I was hypnotised by the awe of them, I missed every one with the camera. We were going crazy in the desert, long straight roads, small orchards covered in olive trees, we should of stayed there, it was sure less crazy than the traffic of Madrid, man oh man I thought Italy was crazy. Still I have to say it again, traffic here was not as bad some parts of Auckland.
My work with the team had almost finished, this was the last race of the season, for most, it was the end of the season. Unless you had been selected to race for your country, your finished already. Lucky our girls are good, as most of them were here to race. Hell, I was looking forward to the end of the season and I had only been here just over three months. As mentioned earlier, I was contracted to work for the Sweden, a few months in the job and complete nations were biding for my services, I should put up my price. I had a team of five women, three under 23’s, and three elite men, plus organising all our girls bikes and wheels, this will be a busy week.
Getting to the worlds, is a feat only the best will experience, something to remember for years, to mechanics its just another race (so I was trying to tell myself) except that the whole world will be there if you mess up. First up was the Women’s Time Trail, Susanne will be the only one racing, but then two of the elite men the next day. These guys spare bikes would make your eyes pop out. Thomas Lovquist was showing me three discs, they were all shiny and clean, yeah this is my spare, then this one on the spare bike, oh and I think I have another one somewhere. What ever they want the team drops off, he rides for a top pro team so this is normal. In total he has four of the sweetest wheels, four nice carbon bikes, three sets of shimano’s prototype high flange rim, man they look sweet, even for Shimano Wheels!
The course was sweet as it winded it’s way out of a park with the wicked bush section with a selection of local hookers every 50m, showing everything. Well it’s all for the worlds, I thought, what a great way to celebrate. It was a nice climb out of the park, this would certainly hurt for the men doing two laps. The start was sweet, first I had to get the bike checked, measured and weighed, this is serious I thought as the line up is waiting to get their start. As this is not Susanne’s preferred event, she was not too worried about it, she was just waving the flag for Sweden. She raced well, think it was 17th overall, beating her place from last year, she was rapped.
Next up the men, working on the bikes the night before, strange things move through your mind as you tighten and check things for the tenth time. I have always told other mechanics or apprentices, ‘it takes a big man to walk away knowing there is nothing more we can do, it’s up to the rider now’. If only I could listen to myself occasionally. I had to do it, didn’t I, open my big mouth on the morning of the race. Gustav Larsen came out to see us as part of his preparation for the race, with an hour to go before we leave for the course I ask him if he is happy with the brake levers he was running ( Fasso Bortello is sponsored by Campag, with the biggest, ugliest brake levers ever on his bike), I offered to swap some of the levers off the U23 boys who had raced yesterday, might be worth 15 secs per lap, I heard myself say (I need some mountainbiking soon as I am turning into a road geek fast). To cut a very long story short, what would have been a very easy job turned into a nightmare, with three different levers and about five cable rerouting later, I sweated as I put the race bike on the car to leave, with a minute up my sleeve. What could have been a cruisey morning, turned into a very stressful one, oh well, things were running a little bit too sweet up till then.
Both the Elite men bombed, they were both high on the list for a good win but just didn’t fire on the day. Upon talking to them later, their bikes were sweet of course, but they had both come from the tour of Poland and were still not recovered well. In fact, both of them had done rather well in Poland, they just timed their recovery badly.
The kiwi contingent had one good result, with a third the day earlier in the U23 men, I don’t think Meshy Holt did so good in the Elite Women’s event. Oh well there is always next year.
Road race for the Elite Women, Men and U23 Men to come, in the second part of the Worlds.
Crossing the border into Spain was like a scene out of some bible movie, believe me I’ve seen a few. Almost as we left the border of France the sky had a line across it mirroring the border, we were leaving rain clouds that had been with us for the last day, moving into perfect blue sky with not a cloud to be seen for miles in front. It was one of those ‘had to be there’ moments, sorry suckers. The drive through the desert into the centre of Spain was pretty wicked, if you wanted to film an old style Western, this is where you should come. Every now and again there was a huge silhouette of a bull in the distance, these things were massive, stood out up to ten km’s away. Diving close I was hypnotised by the awe of them, I missed every one with the camera. We were going crazy in the desert, long straight roads, small orchards covered in olive trees, we should of stayed there, it was sure less crazy than the traffic of Madrid, man oh man I thought Italy was crazy. Still I have to say it again, traffic here was not as bad some parts of Auckland.
My work with the team had almost finished, this was the last race of the season, for most, it was the end of the season. Unless you had been selected to race for your country, your finished already. Lucky our girls are good, as most of them were here to race. Hell, I was looking forward to the end of the season and I had only been here just over three months. As mentioned earlier, I was contracted to work for the Sweden, a few months in the job and complete nations were biding for my services, I should put up my price. I had a team of five women, three under 23’s, and three elite men, plus organising all our girls bikes and wheels, this will be a busy week.
Getting to the worlds, is a feat only the best will experience, something to remember for years, to mechanics its just another race (so I was trying to tell myself) except that the whole world will be there if you mess up. First up was the Women’s Time Trail, Susanne will be the only one racing, but then two of the elite men the next day. These guys spare bikes would make your eyes pop out. Thomas Lovquist was showing me three discs, they were all shiny and clean, yeah this is my spare, then this one on the spare bike, oh and I think I have another one somewhere. What ever they want the team drops off, he rides for a top pro team so this is normal. In total he has four of the sweetest wheels, four nice carbon bikes, three sets of shimano’s prototype high flange rim, man they look sweet, even for Shimano Wheels!
The course was sweet as it winded it’s way out of a park with the wicked bush section with a selection of local hookers every 50m, showing everything. Well it’s all for the worlds, I thought, what a great way to celebrate. It was a nice climb out of the park, this would certainly hurt for the men doing two laps. The start was sweet, first I had to get the bike checked, measured and weighed, this is serious I thought as the line up is waiting to get their start. As this is not Susanne’s preferred event, she was not too worried about it, she was just waving the flag for Sweden. She raced well, think it was 17th overall, beating her place from last year, she was rapped.
Next up the men, working on the bikes the night before, strange things move through your mind as you tighten and check things for the tenth time. I have always told other mechanics or apprentices, ‘it takes a big man to walk away knowing there is nothing more we can do, it’s up to the rider now’. If only I could listen to myself occasionally. I had to do it, didn’t I, open my big mouth on the morning of the race. Gustav Larsen came out to see us as part of his preparation for the race, with an hour to go before we leave for the course I ask him if he is happy with the brake levers he was running ( Fasso Bortello is sponsored by Campag, with the biggest, ugliest brake levers ever on his bike), I offered to swap some of the levers off the U23 boys who had raced yesterday, might be worth 15 secs per lap, I heard myself say (I need some mountainbiking soon as I am turning into a road geek fast). To cut a very long story short, what would have been a very easy job turned into a nightmare, with three different levers and about five cable rerouting later, I sweated as I put the race bike on the car to leave, with a minute up my sleeve. What could have been a cruisey morning, turned into a very stressful one, oh well, things were running a little bit too sweet up till then.
Both the Elite men bombed, they were both high on the list for a good win but just didn’t fire on the day. Upon talking to them later, their bikes were sweet of course, but they had both come from the tour of Poland and were still not recovered well. In fact, both of them had done rather well in Poland, they just timed their recovery badly.
The kiwi contingent had one good result, with a third the day earlier in the U23 men, I don’t think Meshy Holt did so good in the Elite Women’s event. Oh well there is always next year.
Road race for the Elite Women, Men and U23 Men to come, in the second part of the Worlds.
1 October 2005
Racing, Italian style
Tour of Toscana was a six-day tour, covering most of the areas surrounding the mountains and valleys were drove in on. The first stage was a drive of about an hour, but with 15 minutes to leave the car park and street we were staying on, plus Italian traffic we left two and a half hours early. The small circuit was wicked, small alleys with some tight corners, finishing in a small town square looked wicked. I took a small shifty over the circuit, the street was about a thousand years old, with corners comprising of the locals front door, which opened up onto the course. Some of the doorways stopped me in their tracks, these area had been inhabited by the Roman army hundreds of years earlier, now to be used in battle by some of the fastest Women in Europe. The Roman pavers looked slippery, a glaze from a chariot wheels from long ago, mixed in with a million plus footsteps, and few hundred thousand Fiat wheels, this was the corner to watch. There was already a huge crowd waiting for the carnage, wish I could stay, those stones looked hard..
The racing was sweet, all the girls had a good ride, some on TT bikes and some just on the road bikes, a tough choice. Think we finished with two in the top ten, and the rest of the team in the top twenty, we were looking good, I was buggered. A few days later were sitting 2nd and 3rd. We had been in the sweetest of old towns every day, start and finish just blew me away. Locals hanging out of windows, people every where in the smallest towns, all very interested, along with the 40 or so cops on motorbikes as the escort, the peloton looked like some sort of marching army about to conquer a nation. The bikes in formation in front, no street closures as such, but a rolling road blockade, the cops in front a few km’s stopping traffic and clearing the road. Then the jury, neutral survive and the peloton, flying flags out high, like a large spear piercing the countryside. followed by the caravan of team cars and local mafia. What a sight to be seen through old castle walls mountain top villages. This was definitely the most enjoyable race so far. Hey it’s Italy, almost the heart of cycling for me, what better way to see the countryside. Shame that I was stuck in the back of the team car and not riding, I must come back, and soon.
A couple of days with double stages were starting to hurt, then we have a night crit that starts at 2100pm, it will be a long day. There was talk of a protest as we got things ready for the night. One of the teams were telling every one that that the race was to be neutral for the entire race. Our girls were not happy, they come to race, why waste it, and Linda had won here the year previous, and was keen to repeat it. The race started, a few laps into it there was talk on the radio of stopping the race as a protest for putting a night stage in the race. And they did, all except on Brazilian girl who continued around the course, when she lapped the field at the finish line she was booed, spat on, yelled at and shouldered. It was bad, she was crying badly, but was probably under orders from her director, poor girl. She went around again and they declared her the winner, everyone was really pissed at her, can’t see how she’s going to race tomorrow without going in the gutter a few times. Man girls can be nasty sometimes.
The race continued up to the second to last day when we were sitting 1st with Susanne, 3rd with Miriam, pretty good work for the team as we were missing two riders. But with 40km to go, 7 seconds in the race, Susanne crashed and went down hard. Freaked us out in the car, as it’s such a tight margin that this is just how you lose it. Spare bike was delivered with blinding speed, she was on her way, with the little minions coming out of the peloton to help tow her back up, we were safe for a while. One massive climb to go, things were good as we made a break with 5 girls we could beat easily to the finish. She sprinted, we won, great, closer to our goal. The last stage was pretty cool when we finished right in the middle, of the coolest town I have seen for a while. In fact the view from the top of the last climb put a chill down my spine as I looked out over a city where this same view has been here almost twice as long as we have had people killing moa’s at home. I’ll think of the name of it soon, Pisa is close, and it starts with a F. Call it Florence, sounds close enough. Meanwhile Susanne was attacked on the climb a few last times, going into the city the radio yelled out ‘groupo compacto’, I’m sure you can figure out. She won for the third year in a row so was rapped, we also got the points jersey and third place with Miriam as well.
The race was over and we were off, now to Madrid, only 1650km to go, yeah ha, and what a nice day to travel in. A storm was brewing in the mountains.. But that’s another story..
The racing was sweet, all the girls had a good ride, some on TT bikes and some just on the road bikes, a tough choice. Think we finished with two in the top ten, and the rest of the team in the top twenty, we were looking good, I was buggered. A few days later were sitting 2nd and 3rd. We had been in the sweetest of old towns every day, start and finish just blew me away. Locals hanging out of windows, people every where in the smallest towns, all very interested, along with the 40 or so cops on motorbikes as the escort, the peloton looked like some sort of marching army about to conquer a nation. The bikes in formation in front, no street closures as such, but a rolling road blockade, the cops in front a few km’s stopping traffic and clearing the road. Then the jury, neutral survive and the peloton, flying flags out high, like a large spear piercing the countryside. followed by the caravan of team cars and local mafia. What a sight to be seen through old castle walls mountain top villages. This was definitely the most enjoyable race so far. Hey it’s Italy, almost the heart of cycling for me, what better way to see the countryside. Shame that I was stuck in the back of the team car and not riding, I must come back, and soon.
A couple of days with double stages were starting to hurt, then we have a night crit that starts at 2100pm, it will be a long day. There was talk of a protest as we got things ready for the night. One of the teams were telling every one that that the race was to be neutral for the entire race. Our girls were not happy, they come to race, why waste it, and Linda had won here the year previous, and was keen to repeat it. The race started, a few laps into it there was talk on the radio of stopping the race as a protest for putting a night stage in the race. And they did, all except on Brazilian girl who continued around the course, when she lapped the field at the finish line she was booed, spat on, yelled at and shouldered. It was bad, she was crying badly, but was probably under orders from her director, poor girl. She went around again and they declared her the winner, everyone was really pissed at her, can’t see how she’s going to race tomorrow without going in the gutter a few times. Man girls can be nasty sometimes.
The race continued up to the second to last day when we were sitting 1st with Susanne, 3rd with Miriam, pretty good work for the team as we were missing two riders. But with 40km to go, 7 seconds in the race, Susanne crashed and went down hard. Freaked us out in the car, as it’s such a tight margin that this is just how you lose it. Spare bike was delivered with blinding speed, she was on her way, with the little minions coming out of the peloton to help tow her back up, we were safe for a while. One massive climb to go, things were good as we made a break with 5 girls we could beat easily to the finish. She sprinted, we won, great, closer to our goal. The last stage was pretty cool when we finished right in the middle, of the coolest town I have seen for a while. In fact the view from the top of the last climb put a chill down my spine as I looked out over a city where this same view has been here almost twice as long as we have had people killing moa’s at home. I’ll think of the name of it soon, Pisa is close, and it starts with a F. Call it Florence, sounds close enough. Meanwhile Susanne was attacked on the climb a few last times, going into the city the radio yelled out ‘groupo compacto’, I’m sure you can figure out. She won for the third year in a row so was rapped, we also got the points jersey and third place with Miriam as well.
The race was over and we were off, now to Madrid, only 1650km to go, yeah ha, and what a nice day to travel in. A storm was brewing in the mountains.. But that’s another story..
Tour of Toscana.
After leaving Germany we headed for Italy, bit of a drive so we decided to split it with a stay in Austria for the night. Austria looks pretty much like places in the South Island, large mountains, picturesque lakes and forests, after driving through the monotonous countryside of Germany this rocks. Almost makes me feel at home as I look longingly into the forest dreaming of mountain biking some of the trails, I will come back sometime for this, those mountains look steep with thick forest covering what looks like awesome ski trails, nice to ride in summer, that’s for sure.
Next day we head two hours earlier than the Girls and the rest of the team, our truck is a little slow at 140km/hr so we need a head start as the girls need a ride when we arrive in Tuscany. Only about 800km to travel today, so not so bad. Some nice little climbs out of Austria wake us up, as the air is pretty thin and cold up there. I never took geography when I was a kid, as I thought that physics and chemistry was much cooler, how wrong was I. Who would have thought that Italy would be joined with Austria, not me that’s for sure. The roads are pretty bad once we get into Italy, motorways perched on the sides of incredibly steep mountains. We pass through the Dolomites, this is a place I have wanted to ride for a long time. The mountain scape is wicked, small villages hanging off the side of crumbly looking mountain passes, old houses and churches poking their noses out of the forest. We travel through this massive valley for about 200km, the mountains getting smaller and smaller, still no end to the motorway or the promised view of the beach yet, but 500km to go.
We carried on through more mountains, I stopped counting tunnels at 57 (nah there was 103, but that makes me sound too much like a trivia geek again). The views of some of the small towns from the overbearing motorway start getting me excited, surrounded by orchards and vineyards, some of them look like they have been there for hundreds of years or more. Getting closer to Toscana (that’s what the locals and everyone around me call Tuscany, so it stays), the mountains get a little bit flatter, the orchards a little bit bigger. Stopping for gas means stopping for coffee, always to the side of the gas station there is a caffeine station, and what great companion for a long drive, coffee. After shit coffee all over Europe so far, I couldn’t believe my luck as I walked into this little roadside stall to see a gleaming three group coffee machine, belching out steam and leaking a black oily substance out of it’s belly. I struck gold, black gold, the barrister thought I was crazy as I asked for my third short black, he just smiled when I asked for a takeaway of a Quattro restretto. Ahh Italy, they know how to make a good coffee.
Back on the road with a smile on my face and the shakes in my hands, we were off to the beach. The hotel we were staying at was about 100m from the beach, the tepid Mediterranean Sea, the same sea my ancestors swam and fished (from the other side in Croatia). It might be time for you to buy a map, as we have many countries to go on this trip, and you might get as confused as I am (I don’t need to travel to get confused, it comes naturally). The traffic starts to get pretty crazy as we head more and more down country. Still not as bad as the drivers in Auckland though, even with their bad rap, Italians are pussy cats compared to NZ drivers (are you guys listening). Finally we see the sea, what a sight for driving eyes, now to find the hotel. Great information as usual from the local race organisers as we found the hotel that they had organised for us, but the hotel knew nothing. Lucky there was another team checking in to the same hotel and he had been sent to ours instead, now that’s good timing. Off to the hotel down a street wide enough for a bicycle, but not designed for a truck. Squeezing down the smallest gaps we finally find the hotel and manoeuvrer through a 123-point turn into the car park. With about 25mm clearance each side I thought it was difficult. Upon parking, the American National Team sharing the same hotel and car park, with a smaller truck were telling us they had just smacked their truck three times getting into a bigger park in the same postage stamp car park..
The girls had arrived an hour or so before us and were hanging out for a ride, so a quick coffee later we have seven bikes ready for a ride to enable to girls to unwind after 800km, we had six major repairs and changes to finish. I could smell the sea one block away, it can wait. Racing starts tomorrow with a 1.5km prologue may as well be 150km as there is just as much preparation for us, but that’s racing Italian style.
Next day we head two hours earlier than the Girls and the rest of the team, our truck is a little slow at 140km/hr so we need a head start as the girls need a ride when we arrive in Tuscany. Only about 800km to travel today, so not so bad. Some nice little climbs out of Austria wake us up, as the air is pretty thin and cold up there. I never took geography when I was a kid, as I thought that physics and chemistry was much cooler, how wrong was I. Who would have thought that Italy would be joined with Austria, not me that’s for sure. The roads are pretty bad once we get into Italy, motorways perched on the sides of incredibly steep mountains. We pass through the Dolomites, this is a place I have wanted to ride for a long time. The mountain scape is wicked, small villages hanging off the side of crumbly looking mountain passes, old houses and churches poking their noses out of the forest. We travel through this massive valley for about 200km, the mountains getting smaller and smaller, still no end to the motorway or the promised view of the beach yet, but 500km to go.
We carried on through more mountains, I stopped counting tunnels at 57 (nah there was 103, but that makes me sound too much like a trivia geek again). The views of some of the small towns from the overbearing motorway start getting me excited, surrounded by orchards and vineyards, some of them look like they have been there for hundreds of years or more. Getting closer to Toscana (that’s what the locals and everyone around me call Tuscany, so it stays), the mountains get a little bit flatter, the orchards a little bit bigger. Stopping for gas means stopping for coffee, always to the side of the gas station there is a caffeine station, and what great companion for a long drive, coffee. After shit coffee all over Europe so far, I couldn’t believe my luck as I walked into this little roadside stall to see a gleaming three group coffee machine, belching out steam and leaking a black oily substance out of it’s belly. I struck gold, black gold, the barrister thought I was crazy as I asked for my third short black, he just smiled when I asked for a takeaway of a Quattro restretto. Ahh Italy, they know how to make a good coffee.
Back on the road with a smile on my face and the shakes in my hands, we were off to the beach. The hotel we were staying at was about 100m from the beach, the tepid Mediterranean Sea, the same sea my ancestors swam and fished (from the other side in Croatia). It might be time for you to buy a map, as we have many countries to go on this trip, and you might get as confused as I am (I don’t need to travel to get confused, it comes naturally). The traffic starts to get pretty crazy as we head more and more down country. Still not as bad as the drivers in Auckland though, even with their bad rap, Italians are pussy cats compared to NZ drivers (are you guys listening). Finally we see the sea, what a sight for driving eyes, now to find the hotel. Great information as usual from the local race organisers as we found the hotel that they had organised for us, but the hotel knew nothing. Lucky there was another team checking in to the same hotel and he had been sent to ours instead, now that’s good timing. Off to the hotel down a street wide enough for a bicycle, but not designed for a truck. Squeezing down the smallest gaps we finally find the hotel and manoeuvrer through a 123-point turn into the car park. With about 25mm clearance each side I thought it was difficult. Upon parking, the American National Team sharing the same hotel and car park, with a smaller truck were telling us they had just smacked their truck three times getting into a bigger park in the same postage stamp car park..
The girls had arrived an hour or so before us and were hanging out for a ride, so a quick coffee later we have seven bikes ready for a ride to enable to girls to unwind after 800km, we had six major repairs and changes to finish. I could smell the sea one block away, it can wait. Racing starts tomorrow with a 1.5km prologue may as well be 150km as there is just as much preparation for us, but that’s racing Italian style.
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