Epic Italy - Day 8 Part 2

Before I had to board the plane I believe we were at the point where we had stopped to refuel from the van just south of Trento. As I noted Molina and Randy caught up to us at this point and we (Gordo, Steven, Anthony, Douglass and I) waited for Scott to get a spare front wheel from Ian as Scott had broken a spoke. Earlier in the week his hub required some maintenance and I had a pedal go bad. With all the rain and kilometers the bikes are taking some abuse. To be honest, Scott’s bike is in need of some TLC and I think he’s going to have it rebuilt when he returns from this trip. Gordo is encouraging him to do so as Gordo has recruited Scott to join him for an altitude camp touring around Colorado for a week or so. Scott can push Gordo in the pool and also provides great company. Somehow, Gordo managed to pull Erin (Scott’s wife aside) during the trip to get her support. Not sure whether Scott is thrilled or not by the prospect of chasing the G-man around the Rockies at the moment given our fatigue but I suspect he’ll be fired up to go in a day a too. The prospect of riding around his old stomping grounds from when he was based out of Boulder has to be appealing and the altitude training can't hurt as he tries to ramp up for Kona. Despite the comment on Scott's blog about being less than pleased with his swimming and cycling, I have a hunch he's going to be ready to go in October. He's not where he wants to be but he's come a long way since knee surgery last year. Both Scott and Gordo seem to be on track coming into to fine form for their upcoming races.

Back to Friday’s ride. As I noted, we had been on the bike path for over 100 km at this point. The bike path network in Italy is astounding in both its scale, quality of road service and beauty. On this Sunday I think I saw more bikes in a single day than I ever have before. I saw mountain bikes, new carbon road bikes, touring bikes, handcycles, 2 year olds on bikes, classic Italian racing bikes that had clearly been maintained with loving care for decades. Not a lot of helmets on those older guys but I guess they figure they've lasted 70 years without one so no need to change. There were quite a few "aid stations" along the path where you could by fresh fruit, coffee, beer, wine, etc. It's becoming more and more clear to me why I have seen considerably less overweight individual here than in most areas.

Once back on the road we had a bit of an incident. The bike paths are great but there are several areas where you have to make pretty quick turns to stay on course. That's not a big deal if you've been riding them your whole life but if you are crusing along at 40kph, are not familiar with the path and have been training for 8 straight days it can be a little challenging. We missed one and slowed quickly and Scott ended up running into the back of Anthony. Steven also ended up on the tarmac but was apparently uninjured. Scott had some nasty road rash and announced at that point that he was done with the path and was getting on the road. Seemed sensible to the rest of us and we rejoined the two lane road headed for Verona. There was a bit of traffic including quite a few Ducatti's for whom it was apparent the speed limit was irrelevant. It certainly get your attention when 7 or 8 of those Italian Stallions come up behind you through a turn at what seemed to be 100+ mph and have there bikes laying over to the point where their knees or nearly touching. Actually the wake up call was needed as about 40 km from Verona Steven moved to the front and put down the hammer. To my untrained ear, Steven's accent sounds a bit Scottish and I have visions of Graham Obree or David Millar on the front. I don't know how fast we were going but it was plenty fast for me. Afterwards Steven said that he felt the it was the Pink Jersey's obligation to do it's share of the work and when he saw the 40km sign he just told himself that it was a 40 km time trial. I was really impressed with the effort given all the work he's done this week. About 15km or so from Verona I began to suffer on a few slight inclines and pulled out of the paceline. I managed to chase back on but then fell back on the next climb and was nabbed by a traffic light so had no chance to catch back on. It was then that I realized I had a puncture on my rear tire. To be honest it was a bit of a relief as I didn't feel obligated to chase back on although I was a bit disappointed that I wouldn't be able to ride into town with the "peloton". As luck would have it John Ellis pulled up in the car at this point and thankfully changed my tire. I remounted and cruised the last 10km back into Verona reflecting back on the week past which including the lowest of lows (unable to walk and riding the van on day two) and the highest of highs in our successful assault of the Stelvio. While I hadn't met my pre-camp goal of completing the minimum swim bike run sessions every day, I had come through much better than at Epic France and was confident that with some rest this training camp would be taking my fitness to a higher level. In addition with my two hour run that morning I had managed to more than make up for the missed sessions so my total volume was above my pre-camp goal and I had maintained reasonable intensity as well.

Steven and I had considered going for 200 km as neither of us had done a 200 km ride but after the flat I thought better of it realizing that I would barely have time to pack my bike before dinner. That combined with the prospect of living the hotel at 5 am for a ride to the airport caused me to sensibly accept the 170 km we had ridden. I actually considered going for another run to try to get 3/4s of an ironman of training in as I had swam 3km, run 14 miles and riden 106 miles or so already but fortunately recognized that such a run would likely do little good and had the potential for a lot of harm. Somehow I managed to find the hotel without making a wrong turn. I've come to really enjoy navigating around Europe and there's a certain sense of accomplishment in finding one way. Upon arriving at the hotel I immediately packed my bike to get that out of the way before I had my shower and began imbiding as I had a feeling my tolerance would be minimal.

We were all ready to eat at dinner and had a good time reviewing the many photos John Ellis and Julie had taken. The wine was flowing and the Grappa although I have to say one sip was all I could bear of that infernal concoction that Molina has such a taste for. After the meal Julie brought and very large wheel of extremely smelly but quite tasty cheese that I believe Erin or Scott had brought up from their time in Tuscany.

Later we headed into the center of Verona for beer and pizza at an outdoor cafe across from the ancient stadium. A few of us stopped for gelato on the way. I had heard that Jo had asked Gordo and John Newsome about their view on her racing an olympic distance race the following weekend (just for training of course). They both quite sensibly advised against it. I couldn't resist asking Molina for his thoughts in front of Jo. Having been coached by him for a few years and knowing how often he raced in his prime I had a suspicion he might say something to the effect of "go for it" which of course he did. I found it quite amusing especially as his head slumped over and he fell asleep at the table no less than 5 minutes later. For some reason at this point I thought it was a good idea to grab a handful of the dried peppers on the table and started munching away. Pretty soon my mouth was on fire and I was draining a beer which didn't do much good. We all agreed it was time to leave. I held back a bit to order two more gelatos (mint and cafe) which seemed to take the sting off the peppers. I wasn't quite certain of the route back to the hotel but managed to find my way as did Scott who had been unsuccessful in finding a cab.

Off to bed for four hours of much needed sleep before heading to the airport for the journey home.