Prepping for Worlds

Only a few days to go before we head North to St. Johan in Tirol, Austria for the UCI Masters World Championships...or if you're German....Weltmeistershaft.

Since the Giro Dolomiti we've had a week of pretty easy training last week and some racing this week. This is the peak vacation time of year for the Italians (meaning we can't find any massage therapists not on holiday!)....so there are races every day of the week until we leave. We've chosen to do the Giro del Veneto a four stage points race. Today we raced in Sarego in the Vicenza province. Last weekend we raced in Biban di Carbonera on Saturday and Cusignana on Sunday.

We met a couple of Aussie blokes at the Giro Dolomiti. Turns out they're headed to St. Johan as well, but didn't have any plans for the two weeks between the Dolomiti and Austria. They were looking for races....so of course they jumped at the chance to join Velo Veneto for a couple of weeks when they heard we had plenty of racing to choose from as prep. Both guys are from Perth, Australia (western side of the country....the most remote large city in the world!)

Bob is 66 yrs old and a former pro from Great Britain originally. He rode in the 1968 Tour de France. He's a wonderful guy with lots of fun stories from his days in the pro peloton.

Jeff is 65 and a former "Croc hunter" (think Crocodile Dundee) in his youth in the 1960's. Yeah, there actually were croc hunters before it was outlawed. Jeff said that a good croc skin back then could fetch about $600...alot of money 40 yrs ago!

It's been a great pleasure having them here and they seem to really be enjoying the racing.

Also here and getting ready to head to Austria are Jim ("The Emir") and Charley, both from Seattle. Jim's wife Maria and their two kids are along and a joy to be with. And of course Domenic is still here. He'll race the 19-29 yr old race, then his first open elite race our final day...184k. And of course Lupo is a fixture.

Stay tuned for some stories of succes we hope !