Brandon and I love to watch a good bicycle race. We've been to the Giro d'Italia, Tour de Suisse, and the Tour de France. I set a goal to see as much bike racing as I could in our precious short amount of time in Italy.
So today, with Brandon on spring break, the two of us set off to see the final stage of the Giro di Trento. Its a 5 day stage race in the mountains of northern Italy.
Todays stage looked a bit like a figure 8. Our plan: get to the middle of the figure 8 to see the race go by, then head up to the top of the figure 8 to see the mountaintop finish. The GPS and Google Earth both said it would take about 2 1/2 hours to get where we wanted to be.
Well, Italian spring break traffic did us in by the time we were on the road for only 35 min. We hit bumper to bumper traffic in Bergamo. It took a little over an hour to drive 9 km - thats about 5.4 miles!!
We were frustrated, but we moved on once the traffic broke up. We finally ended up in Tione di Trento, the middle of the figure 8, after the racers had already gone by the first time. It took us 4 hours to get there. The cyclists were now on the bottom loop, nearing the middle of the figure 8 for the second time before the climb to the finish. The roads were closed already, so all we could do was sit and watch them go by the second time. Better than nothing!
We watched the race go by then climbed in the car and headed home. No mountaintop finish for us today. We did manage to make it home in 3 hours, and that included a quick stop for dinner at Ciao.
The leaders go by. They had a 5 minute lead on the peleton.
Support for the lead group.
The peleton chases the lead group.
Team Radioshack on the right side, in white, red and black
RadioShack support.
Lone RadioShack rider
The tail end of the peleton
This BMC rider was having a tough day...last in the race.
And thats what we drove 4 hours for!
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