Giro Last Stage Time Trial

2009 Giro di Italia Trip

WOW! What a whirlwind 2 weeks. We left on May 19th, and after lunch at TGI Fridays in Atlanta, and flying all night, arrived in Rome on May 20th with Brian (Harz) Roberts from Phoenix in tow. We proceeded to pick up “il monstro”, the giant Fiat rental van. I quick 2-hour trip to IKEA in Rome and we were off to pick up the first of 3 rental bikes, at the bike shop, La Maglia Rosa, in the beach town of Francavilla al Mare. Once we got the bike, it was off to the grocery store than up to the house. Running a bit late to get a quick ride in and we hade some cleaning of the house to do after it was closed up all Winter. Thursday I took Brian out for a 3 hour spin of the neighboring towns and up to the local cross-country ski area. Friday we got in another great 2-hour ride including the “Montazolli short-cut” which is only about 1km long, but hits 22% in spots. We then headed up to our favorite bed & breakfast in Tuscany, Villa di Sotto. Saturday we headed out for wine tasting and a tour of the Volpaia Winery. Then a tour of Brolio Castle. In the afternoon I took Brian out for 3 hours of some of my favorite Tuscany roads. We spent Sunday morning in Sienna where as most of you already know, I finally put a ring on Kristine’s finger.
Monday we drove down to Rome to pick up Scott and Katherine Elliot from Ohio. We picked up their 2 rental bikes at the bike shop and made it up to the my house in Roio del Sangro in time for a quick spin ride before dinner. Tuesday we got in a solid 4 hours of riding then heading down the valley to see the pre-Roman castle in Roccascalenga.
Wednesday we were off to go watch the Giro stage 17 in Pretoro. Pretoro is where the final 15km climb starts and we heading off to ride the climb before having a picnic back in town to watch the race come by. The stage finish was moved down the climb about 5km from the actual summit where I eventually made it up to. Several patches of deep snow and mud to contend with but I made it. Once back down to our picnic spot, the helicopters hovering just above hinting at the building drama. Once the promotional caravan was past, the race came flying by with all the favorites still bar to bar. Pellizotti eventually solo’d for the win. Lance put in a good effort to chase him down but ended up back in the field. Di Luca attacked endlessly but could never shake Menchov. We had perfect sunny skies when we rode the climb but thick fog moved over the finish area for the racers. We also saw an entire family of Cinghiale (wild bore) crossing the road just outside of Roio. 2 very-large adults with several babies in tow. There are extremely rare and not seen very often. Thursday we had a mishap with the rental van a had to spend a few hours getting a new vehicle. The new, and much smaller, rental vehicle made for an interesting ride back to Rome on Friday. Me and Kristine combined our 2 suitcases into one and left a lot of stuff at the house. We took Scott, Katherine, and Brian out for a quick sight-seeing tour of rome, including the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain before a great dinner outside in the Campo de Fiori. Saturday we heading out for the big 3: Collesium, Palitine Hill, and the Roman Forum. A quick rest and it was back out to walk over to the Vatican before dinner. Sunday we got an early start to stake out our spot near the start chute for the time trial. Easy at first, but it got harder to hold your ground once the thousands of tifosi moved in. Got great shots off everybody going off plus pics of Di Luca, Pellizotti, and Menchov coming into the final couple of KM’s. Menchov had his now-famous crash shortly thereafter. We had our last dinner Sunday night in the Piazza Navona before heading home on Monday. Endless memories, hundreds of pics, and met some amazing people.

THAT'S what i'm talking about!

Shawnee Mission Trails finally opened and it was game on. After riding the hour to work in the morning, then the hour home in the afternoon, I swapped bikes and heading out to meet up with Matt Dutcher, Damian Almanza, and eventually Brian Prosser. Got in 3 full figure-8's. First descent off-road ride since April 10th. I did get in a quick 30-minutes out there Tuesday night, but that was more of a recon to see how the trails looked. Those 3 laps probably did more for my fitness than the last month of road riding has. My body is just hard-wired for that sort of power transfer, and it never really responds or improves doing much else. Ended up with about 4hr's to total riding yesterday, so I obviously couldn't ride to work and back today. Crawled back home after the ride, crawling up the Woodland climb in the smallest gear I had, couldn't feel my legs anymore and had a big smile on my face about it. Got home to find my lovely Kristine had just picked up Chipotle! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. My BikeWeek total mileage ended up at just 65miles. Only 10 commutes so far this year, down from about 20 this time last year. Weather partly to blame but not completely. LOT's of just going on - all good of course.

Wednesday Night Hill Ride

Boy did we dodge a huge bullet with the weather. That could have been very ugly, but fortunately everything just missed us to the south. Small group, most probably thought it would be a raging downpour but we didn't see a drop. Only about 25-30 in the group. The usually contingent of 20 Team 360 guys were absent, I found myself going over Lawrence Hill in the lead. I guess finally getting some good power work on the mtb last night opened up the legs a bit. Renner went about the same way. As long as I can role on the power at my own pace and build up the pace all the way up, I go OK. I'm not one of those guys that can go super-hard right at the bottom. I got up Renner in the lead with a couple guys tailing me and the rest of the group got popped, but they latched back on on the rollers before 87th. Head wind on 87th so not much there. Once on Woodland, I just did my normal deal, roll-on the power gradually till hit my my limit then just maintained it as long as I could. Legs were screaming at the top for sure,but it would have been worse if it had went slower at the bottom and middle than a hard acceleration towards the top. That crap kills me.

Nothing to see here......Move along.........

Not a whole lot to report. It seems like it's rained everyday since we got back from sunny Socal. I have 2 yards that need to both be mowed about every other day. The bugs and ticks are terrible right now (ask Kristine :-). A week or so ago, they had the official Grand Opening Ceremony at Black Hoof Park (Lake Lenexa). Very cool. They had a big fish tank there and the Lenexa FD and PD were out there. Kristine and I met up with Damian, Anita, and Aiden and walked down to the spill way. I decided to get some cross-training in and walked back with Aiden on my back. Very awkward and much harder than I was expecting. It was only about a mile, but it felt like 10. This past weekend I finally got out for a ride longer than 2 hours, ended up doing 3.5 on the paved trails with the pit bike. Been a while since I rode the Tamahawk Creek stuff and I found a bunch of stuff that wasn't connected together last time I rode it, very nice now. Only averaging 1 commute-by-bike per week still. This weeks Bike to Work week started off great, but then I chickened out with the weather forecast. The bad weather has yet to really materialize. Maybe i'm only a "fair weather commuter" anyway? Hey, I saw it ALL last year so i'm not missing anything. Next week at this time, I'll be in Italy, relaxing, riding, watching the Giro, enjoying nice wine with Kristine and entertaining Bella Vita's first customers. How is the Giro going? Ale Jet is back on top of the sprinting world, right where he left off. The "Killer" is looking extremely good. This is a big tour for him with several key stages in his home region of Abruzzo, and he's racing for the earthquake victims as well. Lance is looking great, considering he's been out of it for a while. He's doing a lot of work for Levi, so it was no surprise to see him get tailed off at the end of yesterday's stage. He's also doing some new pink wrist bands to support those effected by the earthquake. This is his first Giro and he's finding it much different that a TdF. Traditional, the Giro roads are narrower, twistier, bumpier, wetter, climbs are steeper, and there are about 50 fast-as-hell Italians ALL tying to be the #1 fast-as-hell Italian. At any TdF, you can count the number of fast French guys on one hand :-)
Last night, I headed out on the MTB for some paved-trail "fun". Rained off and on but nothing bad. I decided to look at the SMP trails and they were in great shape, so I Rambo'd and did about 45 minutes in there. Only a couple wet spots but I applied the "80/20" rule.