Bonjour from Italy

Howdy lads! I hope all is going good in Brissy!
After what seemed 3 days to get here we finally made it, and what a place. Our first day we were told it was to be a flat day and about 60ks, so after 125ks and 1800m of climbing we realized this was our intro to Italy and it's amazing roads/scenery.. Ahh and coffee shops, and pastries.
The 2nd day was a pretty easy ride into Luca and back, we still managed about 90ks but I think we averaged about 30-35 coffee shop stops. The highlight being passed by a team car honking its horn with his TT rider in tow (who ever that is).
The 3rd day was a quick 20k blast around the block. But of cause it wasn't just any block we climbed a few hundred meters and bombed down San Baronto which will be a climb on the worlds men's road race on Sunday, also ran the GoPro see below



After that we're off to Florence to catch the individual road race





Was bloody awesome! I have a lot more pix and video but I'll upload later, I will tell you that Richie Porte by far got the biggest cheer!

Today was a bloody slogfest! 175ks and 2300m climbing. We climbed up to a ski resort call Abetone, which had a 10k climb, and was very brutal!
Tomorrow I believe will be an easy day, but I'll attempt to upload the decent of the Abetone, magic.

GD

Good stuff mate.

You are gonna soooo love coming back to bogansville and riding up to Scabbage or Shamford...... NOT!!  

Enjoy

Hey GD,

Great ride. How did it feel on the wrong side of the road? Loved every minute of it. And you saw the TT. How fantastic was that! I look forward to the road races. Hope you can video them with your group's photo included. Thanks for going to the trouble putting this on for us. Keep them coming.

Paul

bloody brilliant GD. livin the dream m'boy. bet you are already planning a 2014 Euro tour.
meanwhile, Phillum and moi must suffice with another Glorious F&B. Bet they don't have rainforests either side of their climbs over there....or maggies.....or bogans.

Just hung out with my mates today.. Can u guess who they are?

very cool GD. so now you know what to call your first son.....Thor Dawson. he'd rule the sandpit I bet!
did you say "race ya!", or "jersey swap?", or "Norway? is that in Europe?"

Does this sort of thing really happen? You just swan up to the Norse gods like that and expect (and get) a photo? I didn't get the one in front of you(?) The Belkin rider? Who Who Who?

Paul

Yea this cafe is apparently where all the pros go. Rabobank girls team was there, team canada and heaps of others kept rolling in. Richie Porte took my dad the last time he was here apparently ha.
I was with Thor, Boasenhaggen, and Belkin in Jan's pettersen. Crazy huh

GD wrote:
I was with Thor, Boasenhaggen, and Belkin in Jan's pettersen. Crazy huh

They must be soft. I notice all their bikes were in the small chainring!!
Maybe coz they hadn't had a coffee yet.

Bit of the peloton from today

Did I count 5 ambulances or only three? We haven't seen the race yet (we record it and will watch tonight). But the women's race was a corker!

Paul.

Pailo, I counted 4, maybe 5 ambos.

Would u believe they have a dedicate channel on TV to cycling in Italy?
Mainly local road races, and the traffic is shut down and they have police escort.. Geez we can only dream right!

Funny thing about Thor, Bosenhaagen and Pettersen. They pulled up just after us, we got off our bikes and I seen these guys walk into this coffee shop, I caught a look at there legs and geesus, carved out of granite!

Also in that clip, what you didn't see was the 20 to 30 motorbike escort, commissaries cars, número police cars, it was crazy! On another note, really feel sorry for Cadel that was shit as.

Bongiorno GeeDio,

Yeah heaps of bad luck for Cadel etc but Simon Clark rode like a true champion for 5th and 22sec over 7 hours! Fantastic finish. These races are just so exciting on TV it must be surreal to actually be there and soak up the atmosphere. Lucky you! Such memories. And then to be able to ride at least part of the course afterwards is just about as good as it gets! Toscana is so beautiful. How come a country as broke as Italia is has such perfect roads and look sooooo prosperous. As I said - lucky you. What about Uran's(spelling?) stack at the end. Had he done that in rocky Aus he probably would have been quite sore. Hope your Dad's back is ok and he is not missing out. I'll bet he is loving it though. Keep the local insights coming. I look forward to them as they add real local colour. After seeing Costa's efforts in le Tour I am not surprised by his win. Truth is any one of a dozen of those riders could have won. Probably more than a dozen.

Paul

Giday lads hope everything is going well. Italy is blood amazing! And continues to impress. Today we did a climb today that was 12% for 5 ks, we did have some flatter bits but she was steep, and such a great climb. At the top we ran into this bloke



Bloody legend, he was asking us questions and making small talk. (10 points if u can guess who he is?) Apparently in the worlds he said around every corner someone came off.. Nuts! He still had the battles scars to prove it. I'll be deft cheering him on at the tour of Lombard.. And from now on.

After we descended from what was the highest peak in Tuscany (apparently) we stopped into a town for lunch. Just outside this town this weekend they are having the L'Eroica (Google it) anyway as we are there having lunch, this guy turns up on his old classic steel bicycle in mint condition (again guess who?)



Anyway we ended up back back at base, what a great bloody day!
Not sure what's on for tomorrow but I'm sure it will be awesome!

Laurens Ten Dam... aka 'Wolfman' for obvious reasons as you will see if I am technically astute enough to post a photo of him which helped to give him said nickname!

Erik Zabel... is the next answer. I notice his skin isn't as red and the eyes aren't as wide as they used to be! Probably either because he's been off the juice now he's retired, or that shot was taken in the 'off season' when he was racing with Milram.
I think he was recently a sprint coach for Katusha and before that HTC.

As far as L'Eroica goes, the brother of a mate of mine from Brisbane went over and won that event a few years ago. Brad Nightingale.
You have to ride a pre '87 steel frame race bike with down tube shifters and at least 32 spoke wheels!! Sounds fantastic.

http://www.eroicafan.it/en/

Mate, sounds like you're having a ball, as expected.
We need a plan to get over there and start some sort of bike tour company!

Start thinking of ideas.

180

http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://fcdn.roadbikereview.com/attachments/pro-cycling-race-discussion/283992d1373678759-laurens-ten-dam-000_par6395012tendam_600.jpg&imgrefurl=http://forums.roadbikereview.com/pro-cycling-race-discussion/laurens-ten-dam-308507.html&h=346&w=512&sz=37&tbnid=8T6r9ovDGJTInM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=183&zoom=1&usg=__PBrStfqetYCFryiTvIhfmXzLdcY=&docid=H2tMzbcZuKZdGM&sa=X&ei=ek5OUuX2Gsbdigfy3oAg&ved=0CDcQ9QEwBQ

I'm an amateur, but this will do.

Haha yep that's them! Both really nice guys.
Wolf man was telling us that around Florence someone came off in every corner every lap, they just didn't show it on tv,

Yeah I can believe that. They were pretty horrendous conditions.
208 starters with only 61 finishing.

AND... for all those on the Team GB/SKY are great bandwagon, their team bus had every seat being 'warmed' when there was still 100kms left in the race!!

#justifyyourwagesboys

Ha ha ha - I'm loving this. First yours GD. What a trip. What an experience. Have the pasta calories caught up with you yet? It must be an experience to be able to talk to these pros so easily. I must admit 180, I did not recognize either rider although "Wolfman'' looks familiar. Was he riding a Giant Propel GD? I'll bet you didn't even notice! Nice post as well 180. Had me laughing.

Ha PD, I remember thinking to look if it was a propel but.. I didn't. I do remember a TT like seat post, but that's it.

Another big day today, lots of hills, was awesome. Supposed to be rain tomorrow but fingers crossed it doesn't. Here's a video of some of a decent, was bloody steep, but I don't think the video does it justice

Ha ha. Who was riding with you? One of your mates or another pro that just happened by?

I'm back. Look forward to talking to you about the trip. Hope your dad enjoyed it.

PD