Stefano left me in charge of planning the trip and all registration and activities around the race. We visited a couple area shops and ate well at the local Italian bistros. We had a nice 3.5 hour ride on Saturday. One of our guests hit pavement but got up with minor damage. This happened literally a half hour after mentioning to Struve how amazed I was that in ten years of riding on the bike trail with the teams, nobody has clipped a bar or one of those barriers at the intersections. Italian pros unfortunately don't yield the right of way to coming cyclists or joggers. They are, however, incredible bike handlers; however, they don't realize that everyone else isn't! Fortunately, they're only on the tight Philly bike path one day out of the year... sorry Philly!
Tip of the hat to James, my trusted mechanic who leaves us after this race and is head guy in charge of the US national mechanics and material... nice gig! James kept the bikes clean and even changed a wheel... on the second start loop!
That's Struve in the pirate costume!
Joey took this window shot in the waning hours of sobriety Saturday night I think.
James and that wheel change!
Race-wise, we could've done better. There was a crash in the final roundabout which slowed the green guys down. I won't say who may have caused it, but got wind from some of the US directors that it's a bit too common.
Post-race, it was back to CT for some time in the office. Oh yeah, and my real reason for going... Wednesday night world championships! We had sprints for points every three laps after 18 to go. I got two seconds and a third for 5 points and 7th overall. Twas nice to get the legs moving in anger again.
Now, it's off to Park City for some better weather for training (hopefully).
Oh yeah... keep an eye out for a future series on this space. I am getting my Italian bike restoration fix in this year. I just bought a Ciöcc from the 70's from the man himself. I'll try to document the restoration as much as possible and update as it goes.
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