light at the end of the tunnel

Stage square near to start today. You know the Italian music you hear in the background in old films? That was playing over loudspeakers hooked up all over the square....we felt like we were on a movie set or something.




Tina and I before the race......don't we look fresh? check us out after, pretty!



Apparently I came to Italy for consecutive days of motor pacing....today was another blazer, about 75 miles of interesting twists and turns and cobbles and upgrades. Today we were attacking and getting into moves right from the beginning of the race. Every team was after the same thing. This was the last flattish stage and certainly the last circuit stage. Each loop was 18km long and every time there was a break the combination wouldn't work out, either because some team had missed out, or because a rider too high up on GC would get in it and force the other GC rider's teams to bring it back. Tina, myself and Alison were in such moves, to no avail, but it really felt much better for the spirit to be racing our bikes even if the end result netted us the same placings. Its a weird thing to say, and probably only riders can understand it, but ultimately when you look back on any race you want to be able to say you gave it all you had at the time.

After my few turns at the front I was pretty cooked and grovelled in the pack the last half of the race. Tina came back after her turns up there and said the same to me only thing is she still had to try for the sprint. Alison was also pretty tired after getting into a break at the mid-way point. Also, everytime there was a break reeled in another would form, some that we weren't in so it was full gas the whole time right up to the end.

Can't tell you how many times today I wanted to radio: "Iona done, Giro finito"....somehow every time I was on the verge of snapping the pace would just stop for a few seconds enough for me to be in again. It felt like pure luck because truly, today I felt that the legs were shot after those efforts earlier on. Every one is tired, riders at breakfast have their faces down in their plates trying to shovel the food in, you get SO tired of eating.....staff members are fighting in the hallways (good entertainment), or sometimes you will see moments of absolute punchiness where we are so tired we are giddy and laugh at the silliest things.


We tried to take this picture of the dog (yes, thats a dog at the back) can you see his ears? It was so sad and funny at the same time, he was practically slammed up against the back window looking like he was dying of thirst in the inch of space the car owners have him in. Picture him with his paws up agaisnt the glass as well as his nose looking out" help!" or maybe "hilfe!" as he was in car with German license plates.

We were rally-car driving trying to get up to take the picture, During the rally, Tina was getting the googly-eyes from a very butch looking chick with rotten teeth in the next car, the thing is she thought she was being funny in passing the car and smiling at what she thought was a butch rotten teeth dude, only to find that it made the woman's day. To top it all off, Chris rolled down Tina's window for her as the girl's car came close! Of course Tina freaked out and tried to hide which made it funnier for us...


anyway, back to the dog, when we finally get near the car we could only see the dogs ears. Guess you had to be there but it ws one of those moments that struck us. You know how people are with their dogs in the US, it would be a strange sight to see. Poor thing was so squished up in there.