Dave Linden ... Guest Blogger

By Dave Linden
Fying Rhino Cycling Club
Clarkston, Michigan

Velo Veneto Racing Camp – Italy - Day One: I arrived at Marco Polo airport in Venice without incident. I then made a quick cell phone call and located Pat Carroll, owner of Velo Veneto, in the crowd outside baggage claim. That was followed by a 45 minute drive to the Hotel Montegrappa located on Castelcucco at the foot of the Dolomites. We then had a quick but wonderful lunch in the hotel. I then checked into my room and assembled my bike for a 30 mile roundtrip ride to the local bike shop that issues Italian racing licenses. On the way over, we rode through one of the stage finished of the 2007 Giro. While in the bike shop, I was looking at a life size poster of Mateo Tosatto who was a stage winner at the 2007 Tour de France. The bike shop owner said something in Italian and pointed to the parking lot. Pat translated saying that Mateo was in the parking lot. Sure enough, he and his Porsche were less than 100 meters away soaking up the Italian sunshine. Talk about total immersion in Italian Cycling!!! The local bike shops are unbelievable. The second one we stopped at had a Pinerello Prince complete with Campy’s new Super Record 11-speed gruppo and Mavic’s all carbon wheels in the window. They had more models, color, and sizes of Sidi’s that I could ever have imagined even existed. And this was in a relatively small city. Finally, Pat mentioned that Alessandro Ballan lived less than a kilometer away.

Tomorrow afternoon the racing starts. Here’s what an Italian racing license looks like