Velo Veneto - Ciclismo Italiano !

Twittering

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:45:00 +0000

Trying to figure out how to post from Twitter.com/VeloVeneto directly to the 'blog here and to Facebook

Tre Provincia

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:34:00 +0000

Today's ride was 103k, 3:35 ... we covered three different provinces (like counties in USA) ... our own Treviso, then Vicenza, into Belluno and back. The climb up to "Rocca" was awsome, very old road, but in really nice shape to the beautiful lake where we had a drink and snack. La Dolce Vita !!!

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:15:00 +0000

We did 90ks, a bit over three hours today ... was nice and warm with moderate humidity. Mostly it was a flat to rolling course out to the Montello, site of the 1985 World Championships which 40 yr old Joop Zoetemilk won. On the way back to Castelcucco we went over the Col Mostacin (3k at 8% ave., max 12%), which is used often in local junior and U23 races. It's a very narrow, winding road that can be a bit sketchy in the wet. But most of these Italians go downhill like feerless deamons. It's no wonder since they start racing on decents like this when there are teenagers.

I was a bit incredulous at the whining of one LA and LL during the Giro, complaining about decending on wet, twisty roads. Hey guys, this is bike racing. Perhaps we should take them up and down gravel roads with 30 lbs bikes and spare tubulars around their shoulders ... make men out of them !!!
Just kidding :-)

It was market day in Nervesa at the east end of the Montello. Here's a couple of
shots of David and Paul.

Italia calling

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:48:00 +0000

Ciao Tutti ... only four weeks to go until camp opens in Castelcucco. I got chills down my spine watching the Giro this year when they finished in Valdobiaddane. Great win for Petacchi. Those are the roads we ride so frequently at Velo Veneto.

If you haven't seen this on PezCycling News ( http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=7150&status=True&catname=Latest%20News ) check it out ! We'll be riding that same loop a couple of times this summer.

Riding with Renato in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 01:09:00 +0000

This video was made by Matt Fritzinger, founder of the NorCal HS Mtb League. Matt was a rider at Velo Veneto in 2000. He visited Renato in Castelcucco in November 2008.

Final Day...Thanks Velo Veneto !

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:56:00 +0000

Velo Veneto Racing Camp – Italy - Day Ten: Today we did a 50 mile ride in the Dolomites. We climbed four passes all of which have been included in the Giro at one time or another. I’ll just let the pictures tell their own story. It was a great ending to a fantastic trip.

Thank you Velo Veneto!

Dave Linden

(Our route this day went over Passo Pordoi, Passo Sella, Passo Gardena and Passo Campolongo ... ed)

Day Nine

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:37:00 +0000

Velo Veneto Racing Camp – Italy - Day Nine: Well it took me six races but today I finally made it into the winning break and finished in the top ten! To make it even sweeter, two of my team mates were in the break with me and that resulted in our team winning the overall team competition as well. This is the first time Velo Veneto has won a team trophy for nearly 10 years. Here is our proud team with our trophy.

Today’s race was in Carbonera which is an hour southeast of our hotel. It was another mostly flat circuit race but it did have two significant motorway overpasses to “climb”. One of them came immediately after a hard left turn which made it even more significant. Here’s a shot of the race registration area.

The race was about 40 miles and consisted of eight laps. The start was the fastest I had seen all week and by the beginning of the second lap there was a six man break established with out any of our team represented. The field caught the break halfway though the second lap but immediately three riders from the same break attacked again. A few riders chased and then we hit the sharp left turn at the base of the overpass climb. The race then exploded as riders tried to bridge to the break over the climb. I was the last to try. I totally buried myself and it must have taken me 30 seconds to get across. I almost didn’t make it across the last 15 meters. Finally I did make contact and we had a 13 man break established with six laps to go. Here’s a shot of me leading the break with Mateo sitting fourth.

The break worked well together. I suffered for the first couple of laps but then settled in. We eventually opened a gap of over 90 seconds on the field. The sprint was won by a fellow who used to be a track sprinter on the Italian Olympic squad. I finished ninth and was very pleased with that result. Here’s a photo of me receiving my bag of groceries from the podium girl.

It was a great way to end our week of racing. Tomorrow we are going to take it “easy” and do a 50 mile training ride in the Dolomites hopefully going over four mountain passes, all of which have been used in the Giro. I should have some good photos of the Dolomites for tomorrow’s final edition of this blog.

Thanks for reading. Dave Linden

Day 8

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:19:00 +0000

Velo Veneto Racing Camp – Italy - Day Eight: Today we traveled to the town of Ponte de Piave for yet another perfectly flat circuit race. The Omnium is now over so the fields are smaller. Our field was only about 50 riders today. Ponte de Piave is a “holy” place for Italian cycling with a monument and shrine to the famed “Campianissimo” of Italian cycling, Fausto Coppi. Our race finished right next to his monument.

This race was located right in the middle of some vineyards. In fact, most of the cars parked under the grape vines:

Once again the four juniors and myself would be racing together in the Supergentleman field. I’m pretty sure the old guys are getting pretty sick of having to chase the juniors around. We were doing 12 laps today for a total of only 30 miles. Trevor established a break on the second lap which proved to be the winning move.

Logan, Mateo and I worked to control the field with Logan doing the majority of the work and totally demoralizing the entire filed. We eventually had to lay off because the Italians actually began threatening us with bodily harm! Here’s a shot of Logan controlling the field with me in fourth spot. He’s even smiling!

On the last lap Mateo and I got a few hundred meters on the field but were caught about 500 meters from the finish. I finished around 15th but it was a victory for the Velo Veneto team as Trevor dropped his break away companions in the sprint.

Racing in Italy is a really big deal as you might imagine. Even a local race like this is complete with a podium and podium girls. Here’s the boys receiving their awards for the
“Debutante” category.

Tomorrow is our last day of racing. See you then.

Day 7

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:08:00 +0000

The Velo Veneto team returned to racing today in Sarego and we finally made an impact on the local racing scene. Sarego is about an hour west of our hotel. On the drive there we passed through Vicenza, which is where Campagnolo is located. We also passed the remnants of a walled city (called Marostica) probably from medieval times.

Once again the four juniors and myself would be racing together in the Super Gentleman field. We had heard there might be a one kilometer climb in the race today and when we arrived in Sarego, it certainly looked hilly enough to support such a climb.

However, much to our collective dismay, the race again was perfectly flat except for a single small bump over a canal. We would do seven laps for 35 miles. Three of the juniors would play a major role in today’s race. Here’s a picture of (left to right) Logan, Matteo, and Trevor.

Logan initiated numerous breaks, some lasting a lap, some lasting only a few minutes. He was by far the most aggressive rider in the race. Matteo and Trevor also raced hard. However, as we began the final lap, three other riders had a 10 second gap. Then Logan, Trevor, Matteo, myself, and another couple of riders jumped hard to close the gap. I looked back and saw there was about a 50 meter gap behind me so I shouted at the juniors to kick it hard. I sat up to slow the chase while they jumped away with three other riders. Mateo and Trevor buried themselves and launched Logan into the final stretch. (The pack caught Matteo and Trevor in the last kilo.) Logan and the two others fought it out in the sprint and Logan finished second. I continued trying to control the field until our sprint started. I finished about 20th. All and all a great result for Team Velo Veneto.

Here’s a picture of me leading through one of the corners.

Finally, here’s a shot of the finish of the Gentlemen’s field which was the race after ours.

This race was the last of the Omnium event. Although I did not have any top ten finishes and thus no Omnium points, I still had a great time racing.

We have two other races left over the next two days. Then on Sunday we are planning a ride in the Dolomites which will include some of the Giro climbs. By then, I should be ready to go home.

Day 6

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Today was another recovery day and I really needed it. Four of us rolled out of camp at 9:00 AM under cloudy and threatening skis. I left my camera at the hotel fearing it might rain (which it didn’t). We did a steady 45 mile ride on what the locals call the “Canal Route” which circles around the Montello following a couple of canals. It is a very popular cycling route and we must have seen over a hundred other riders including a couple of large teams complete with team cars.

We were back to the hotel for lunch followed by a quick nap. Then it was off to another of the numerous bike shops in the area. Although I did not have my camera with me today, I thought I would include some shots I took during our first rest day on Monday.

It's back to racing tomorrow and we heard the course might have a 1 kilometer climb in it. Once again the juniors will be racing with me in the Supergentlemen field. My quest for a top ten finish continues.

Guest Blogger - Day 5

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:52:00 +0000

Today’s race was within a stone’s throw of Saturday’s race, about 45 minutes away in Vigardolo. The course was also similar, totally flat except for two overpass crossings of the motorway. We would do nine lapsfor a total of 35 miles. Once again, the supergentleman field was big today consisting ofabout 70 riders. One big change was that the juniors in camp would also be riding in the supergentleman field with me. I would no longer be the “lonely Americano”.

A good break of about six riders got away on the second lap with two of our Velo Veneto juniors driving it. One of the other juniors and I blocked and I really thought that the breakwould make it. However, all of sudden the older guys in the break refused to work and it all came back together. Almost immediately another six man break went and this one would not come back. Unfortunately there were no Velo Veneto riders in this winning break,

The sprint consisted of a 500 meter straight shot proceeded by a hard left turn after a narrow two kilometer straight run-in. That run-in was quite an adventure. There were still 50 riders at that point and all of them were trying to get to the front. There was lots of yelling and pushing. I rode the last two kilometrs with my elbows sticking straight out but still only managed to finish around twenty-fifth.

Here’s a picture of the next race charging through the start-finish. This was a combined field of the “Veterans” (40-47) and the “Gentlemen” (48-55) classes

Here’s picture of our camp director, Pat, in front of the bar where registration held.

Since none of us have accumulated any Omnium points, we have declared Wednesday a rest day and are planning on an easy 50 miles in the foothills of the Dolomites. I hope to have some nice pictures as a result. See you tomorrow.

Day 4 - by Dave Linden

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:13:00 +0000

Velo Veneto Racing Camp – Italy - Day Four: Today’s race is about an hour and a halfaway in Vescovana. As usual my start time is at 2:30 PM and the temperature is pushing 90 degrees. The course consists of five laps of an eight mile mostly flat course. There isone little hill as we climb and then later descend off of a levee. The supergentleman fieldwas big today consisting of about 80 riders.

Italians do race differently than we do. One example is cornering. In the US, the pelotontries to carry as much speed through the corners as possible. In Italy, the entire field hitsthe brakes hard at every corner and then sprint out of it like crazy. I’m told it’s a tacticaimed at creating gaps and dropping riders. I really pissed off a bunch of guys when Idove inside them on the sharp turn at the bottom of the little descent off the levee. Theyall started shouting at me but I can only guess at what they were saying.

Also, the prizes in Italy are quite different. Everyone that places (usually top ten) gets thesame prize, a bag of groceries!

The racing today was similar to Saturday. Team mates constantly let gaps open right near thefront and you spend most of your race jumping across the gaps. I must have jumped across adozen gaps today, Unfortunately, I chose the wrong time to drift back into the field and a breakof eight riders got away without me with two laps to go. Seven kilometers from the finish I didmanage to get away in a three man group but we were caught about one kilometer from the finish.
I jumped in as the field screamed by and finished somewhere around 20th..

Here’s picture of one of the “younger” groups coming and going at the start finish.

Tomorrow things change a little as the juniors are going to start racing in the supergentlemanfield along with me. (Turns out woman and juniors typically race with the supergentleman.)
So, tomorrow I will no longer be alone in the field but will have four team mates.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Dave Linden - Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:36:00 +0000

Velo Veneto Racing Camp – Italy - Day Three: The closest race today (Sunday) was well
over two hours away so Pat declared today a rest day. We did an easy (but hilly) 25 miles in
the area around Castlecucco including a brief stop in the nearby town of Asolo. The roads and
the views were simply breathtaking.

Here’s this week’s Velo Veneto team and staff:

Here’s a photo I took in the hills above Castlecucco. This is a two way road, not a bikeway:

Later in the day we drove about five minutes from the hotel to watch a UCI U-23 race do
four circuits up a very steep hill nearby. This was at the 100k mark of a 170 km race.

Tomorrow it’s back to racing!

Day Two ... by Dave Linden

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 05:00:00 +0000

We loaded up the Velo Veneto van at 12:30 PM and headed south. There would be five of us racing, myself and four juniors from Ottawa. I would be competing in the Super Gentleman class at 2:30 PM. The juniors would be riding in the “open” class at around 5:00 PM. After an hour’s drive we arrived at the race. The course was a four mile circuit of which we would do nine laps for a total of 35 miles. The course had lots of corners and was flat except for two motorway overpasses which we would have to climb and descend each lap. The field was big but not huge. I’d guess about 60 riders. The race went from the gun and I found myself right at the front for the first two laps. In fact, I lead the field through the start finish the first two times. I tried some early breaks but nothing really ever got established. After the first two laps I settled in and let others do the work. The race was pretty fast given that everyone in the field was over 56. The average speed was in excess of 25 mph. Here’s how the Italians seem to race: A team goes to the front and purposely opens a gap letting one of their riders escape. Riders then start bridging to them one by one. It was common to have a break of five riders form and get 100 meters off the front. However, they always seemed to eventually sit-up usually because there were two many “passengers” who had bridged across and were now sitting on.

Any ways, the finish was about one kilometer after the last overpass. I wanted to be in good position coming down that overpass. On the last lap, a group of three riders were 100 meters off the front going into the overpass. I bridged across to them over the climb pulling a couple of other riders with me. So, with one kilometer to go, I was in a six man group with a very small lead. Unfortunately the break slowed down a bit with 500 meters to go and the front of the field swarmed by us announced by the sound of metal scraping against pavement as some riders went down behind me. I jumped into the swarm but only managed to finish about 15th overall. All in all, it was a “great” introduction to Italian racing.

Here's some info from my PowerTap ...

Duration: 1:19:10

Distance: 33.6 miles

Max Power: 1060 watts

Normalized (Ave.) Power: 322 watts

Ave. Speed: 25.5 mph

Dave Linden ... Guest Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 06:56:00 +0000

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

GF Pinarello

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:04:00 +0000

by Bud Napolio
San Francisco, CA

What is a Gran Fondo? Is it a bicycle race? Well, sort of, but not in the way we typically think of races with categories of racers going off in waves with other racers in their categories (or maybe several categories combined). Is it like a century? Absolutely NOT, most centuries I’ve done have a span of time over which you can start and don’t keep track of your time and most people I’ve seen who do centuries are not rabid racers like the participants in a Gran Fondo are. In the end, in my opinion, a Gran Fondo is a race, a celebration of cycling and a marketing masterpiece (I saw more Pinarellos on this one ride than I’ve seen if you counted up every Pinarello I’ve ever seen and added them all together). It’s also a great focus for anyone who is serious about riding a racing bicycle and riding it fast. It’s a big deal in Italy where thousands of people train for and race in Gran Fondos. There are professional teams that compete in Gran Fondos, there are magazines fully devoted to Gran Fondos. There are Gran Fondos that take place in many parts of Italy .

The format of the Pinarello Gran Fondo is really pretty simple. 4,000 people start in two waves, the first wave is for the 209km (130 mile) “lungo – long” course, the second wave is for the 125 km (78 mile) “media – medium” course). Each rider has a timing chip on a velcro strap that he/she attaches somewhere on the lower part of either their bodies or their bicycles – most people seemed to attach them to one of their ankles. The timing chip records when you cross the start line, as you can imagine it takes that many people a few minutes to cross the start line – so it’s nice that your timing chip doesn’t begin to register until you actually cross the start line. It also records your time at various checkpoints along the course, and, of course, your finishing time. It’s all pretty high-tech. There are narrow strips of blue carpet that run across the course at each checkpoint, and at the finish – you can hear a little “beep” as you and your timing chip cross each checkpoint. Once you cross the start line, you ride along with an ever-changing and never-ending group of riders as fast as you’d like, or can, until you cross the finish line. Then you hang out in a giant tent eating good food, drinking beer, having a caffe’, maybe a gelato and watching all the people and their cool bicycles, kits and gear mill around with tired but happy, tanned and healthy faces.

Team Velo Veneto consisted of two maniacs from Manhattan – George and Bill, who were each doing the 130 mile long course (which also had 2 giant 10km (6 mile) climbs) and the only slightly less crazed but larger group of us doing the 78 mile medium course – Tom (from Terre Haute, Indiana) Jim and Jeff (from Portland, Oregon), Alex (from Hermisillo, Mexico), Simon (from Southern California), Il Capo Pat (Velo Veneto Directeur Sportive from Castelcucco and Santa Rosa, CA) and me (from San Francisco). We left the Hotel Monte Grappa at 5:30 AM for the roughly one hour drive to Treviso – the start time for the long course was 7:00 and for the medium course was 7:30.

After a brief warm-up and restroom hunt, we took our places toward the back off the mob at the start line – we were way behind the start line. The announcer was going on in Italian in a voice and manner similar to that of an announcer with the World Wide Wrestling Federation. I think he was announcing some of the dignitaries who were doing the Fondo and generally just trying to whip the crowd into a frenzy (the crowd seemed pretty calm though). I heard later that both 5 time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain and former classics superstar Michele Bartoli where participating in the race but I never saw either of them. Finally, the long awaited countdown to the start occurred as the frenzied MC shouted “cinque, quattro, tre, due, uno, BANG”……..………………………..and then nothing happened – we didn’t move an inch, we looked up at the mass of helmets as far as we could see and there was no movement at all, we waited a minute and still nothing. Could we have mis-interpreted the countdown? Kind of hard to mis-interpret that! Finally, we noticed some movement – then in a few minutes, we were clipping in and beginning to slowly ride toward the start line. As we approached the start line we began to ride a bit faster, then shortly after the start line we were suddenly doing about 25-27 mph in a mob of hundreds of people. Just think about that for a second, you’re maybe 3257th wheel in a giant peloton moving through the fairly wide streets of Treviso, Italy with absolutely no automobile traffic – all intersections are closed off, no cars are parked on the streets, you have the entire street – curb-to-curb, you’re zipping along listening to the buzz of 8,000 skinny, high pressure tires on the road; ahead of, and completely surrounding you is an ocean of brightly colored jersey, helmets and bikes, all of your senses are on high alert, your blood is coursing through your body – YOU’RE FULLY ALIVE, YOUR ENTIRE BEING IS COMPLETELY IN THE MOMENT, YOU’RE IN ITALY RIDING YOUR BIKE AND RIDING IT FAST!!! It’s hard to capture that feeling without actually doing a Gran Fondo.

After a short while, the giant mob began to break up into sub-groups, each in itself quite large. Pat, Alex, Jim and I stayed together and sort of leap-frogged our way up from group to group – we were always moving forward, no group passed us, if a faster group came along, we’d just hop on the train until a faster group came by, this pattern repeated itself several times until finally there was a team that was smoking fast – we jumped in with that group and stayed with them until we hit the first climb (I don’t think our staying with that group had anything to do with the supremely fit, tanned women with perfect bottoms and legs wearing the short-shorts, in fact, I didn’t even notice them).

The first climb was tricky – Alex and I were climbing relatively faster than most and tried to move up on the climb – however, the road was narrow and completely full of riders. The left side of the road was the “passing lane”, we got into this lane and whenever we saw daylight we darted into the opening and moved up as best we could – it’s amazing that we somehow managed to reach the summit together given all the traffic we had to maneuver through. Of course, what goes up, must come down – we now had the prospect of descending a narrow twisty road that was about 80% blocked. The descent was surprisingly fast and safe – maybe two “yahoos” were taking unsafe chances but the rest of us descended quite quickly and comfortably.

The pattern above continued for the next few climbs. Items of note were: there was an “official” descending with us on his Vespa, the scooter just couldn’t cut the switchbacks the way the bicycles could, so on a few of the turns the underside of its floorboards skidded along the pavement letting sparks fly and creating that flinty smell of sparkling metal. Alex and I quickly got by the Vespa before it went down and stung us. As Alex and I sped along, an hour into the ride, we saw a Velo Veneto jersey up ahead – “that crafty Pat, he found a way to snake ahead” I thought, however, when we caught up with our teammate it turned out to be not the young and spry Pat, but 65 year-old Simon. Simon had started a bit ahead of us and was smoking along in a pack at 25-26 mph – how many 65 year olds do you know who can do that? Simon looked “molto italiano” in his Velo Veneto team kit on his custom Cavalera (Michele Cavalera is a master framebuilder who has his shop in the area). Alex and I hooked up with Simon and we stayed together until the next climb – as we approached the climb we could see that it zig-zagged up the side of a forested mountain – it was really cool to look up the mountain and see the road and its 8 or so switchbacks covered and colored by the never-ending line of cyclists. By this point in time, it was easier to move up in the group on the climbs. Just about every group we got into (after the climbs) had a handful of older guys looking smooth and relaxed – by older, I mean 60 +, truly inspirational.

There were a handful of ristori (rest stops) along the way, they consisted of a throng of volunteers who had cups and pitchers of water – the first one was a bit tricky to navigate because a lot of people stopped to grab a cup of water or fill up a water bottle. It wasn’t in my plan to stop at any of the ristori but by the second one (maybe halfway through the ride), I had already drained my two water bottles and was feeling a bit off. I told Alex that I needed to stop for water, we stopped and it took my a few minutes to fill my two water bottles – Alex and I lost each other at the rest stop so I was on my own for the rest of the ride.

I began to feel better and better such that when I hit the last climb I was completely on fire and in the zone – the final climb is 3 kilometers long followed by a very fast descent and then 20-25 kilometers of flat roads to the finish. Pat had taken us up the final hill and down the descent earlier in the week which was a great idea – I knew exactly how to pace the climb and what the descent was like. I literally passed over 200 riders on the final climb – I learned that I just needed to ride up the left side of the road shouting “Ocio” (sp?) which I believe literally means “eye” but in this context means “Please to give some space to the American who thinks he’s alone out in front on the Alpe d’Huez stage of the Tour de France.” People were really good about making space and even yelling out “vai, vai – go, go”. I crested the climb feeling great but remembering Pat telling us that on the descent last year he was doing 50 mph when he felt a hand push him along because he wasn’t descending fast enough. I really didn’t want that to happen so just before the descent I jumped into the 300 hundred meters of space between two groups of about 20 riders – I went by the first group figuring I could comfortably do the descent and then bridge up to the front group on the flats, or wait for the rear group to catch me. Well the plan worked for about half of the descent – somehow I caught the front group and flew by them at over 50 mph – wow, these few weeks in Italy have really helped my descending!!

So many cool things had already happened in the Gran Fondo and there were only 20 flat, seemingly uneventful kilometers ahead – but this is Italy and unexpected pleasures and experiences literally await around ever corner – the highlight of my ride was yet to come.

Shortly after finishing the descent I was briefly alone, she saw me from the second floor window of her expansive family villa, she leaned out amongst the brilliant flowers along the bottom of the window in her low-cut, tight blouse, she had a bottle of Sangiovese in her olive skinned left hand and waved, then she called to me “ciclisto, ciclisto bello – come here please, I need you” ……………er, well not really! It was more like this:

I was briefly alone and saw a couple of guys from the same team up ahead – something like “UC Castelfranco”. These guys were roleurs – big guys (6 feet, 170+ pounds) who looked like they could lay down some smack on the flats, I guess they were in their 30s. I bridged up to them and immediately the three of us took short 20-30 second pulls at 25 mph, we were flying along, working together when we passed another rider in a nice green and blue kit (think Sprite can), he latched onto the back but didn’t take any pulls – I couldn’t really see his face I just knew that he was there and suffering to stay on – as we approached a round-about he was just about pinched off the back, however, after the round-about, he was right back on our wheels – he took the slightly shorter left side route around the round-about (pretty crafty). I took a pull then pulled over to let one of the UC Castelfranco quarter horses through. No one came through so I flicked my elbow and moved over in a very obvious fashion – no one came through. I looked back and the quarter horses were nowhere in sight but the Sprite can was on my wheel, I got a good hard look at him – the guy was ancient – his skin was brown and wrinkled, he didn’t have sunglasses on so I could see that the whites of his eyes were yellowed like an old newspaper, his face was strained, there was a large protruding vein running diagonally down the center of his forehead, the carotid arteries running down the sides of his dark, loose-skinned, wrinkled neck were pulsing – I was actually frightened for a moment – it was like I came up upon one of those unliving/undead pirates from the “Pirates of the Carribean” movies. He said something to me in Italian – I said, “mi dispiace, non parlo Italiano – I’m sorry I don’t speak Italian” (I used that term almost as much as “un cappuccino per favore”). He indicated to me by grabbing his leg and yelping that one of the quarter horses had cramped up. So it was just me and him. There was a group of about 40 riders about 300 to 400 meters ahead of us – we caught glimpses of them on the long straights or when the route took 90 degree turns – I motioned to him to sit on my wheel and I would try to pull him up to the group. I now had a focus, and, I thought, a noble purpose. He gave me the thumbs up and we began the pursuit. I took it up to 25 mph and looked under my arm to see if he was there – I could see his front wheel about 4 inches from my rear wheel. I took it up to 26 and did another check, still there – we stayed at 26 for about 5 minutes and he was still there, looking smooth but not particularly comfortable – yet he still gave me a thumbs up – a few more minutes and I took it up to 27, the underarm check showed that he was about 2 inches from my wheel – we were really close to the big group of 40 now – I gently nudged it up to 28, yes 28 mph and here’s the Ancient Mariner in the same air bubble with me, his wheel was only an inch or so from mine. We did it!!! We caught up to the back of the group and I kept the momentum up until we were mid-pack, then I pulled over – he rode up next to me and gently but firmly took my arm (which somehow transported us to a very quiet place), he looked me right in the eyes and said something like “grazie, grazie, tu molto forte - thank you, thank you, you are very strong”. I made up Italian and said somelike like “e tu molto forte, con complementi, molto respecto per tu, tu un inspirazione” he understood and his eyes shone – I asked him “quanti anni – how many years do you have”? “Settanta – Seventy” was his response (from the neck up he actually looked older but from the neck down he could have been my age). He rode like he was born on the bike, smooth and relaxed with a perfect pedal stroke despite the fact that he was suffering immensely – I was a little alarmed at how close he rode to my rear wheel but he just did it – which made me focus on keeping all of my moves super smooth – so he helped me too.

He and I stayed safely in the big group until we rode through the narrow archway in the old wall around Treviso and across the finish line in front of the Pinarello store. We said our goodbyes and he left an indelible mark on me – I’d like to ride like that, right here in Italy when I’m 70 – it’s not just a hobby or a sport, it’s a lifestyle and a culture and I’m in it for the long haul!!!!

Results:

I finished in an official time of 3:33:55, my cyclometer put me at an average speed of 21.8 mph, I was 522nd overall and 65th in my age group (whatever age group that is). Interesting note – about 10 minutes after he finished the Gran Fondo, while sitting under the giant pasta feed tent, Simon received a text message that said something like, “Congratualtions Simon, you have finished the Gran Fondo in 3:41:31, you were in 726th place overall and 13th in your age group.” How’s that for high tech quick results – I guess the timing chip sends the signal to the Gran Fondo computer which records the time and placement data and had Simon’s contact information in it such that it could send him his results immediately – even before he stopped sweating!!

UDACE Race on Croce d'Aune

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:29:00 +0000

By "Guest Blogger"

Bud Napolio

San Francisco, CA

Below is a long report, not just on a race, but on the whole experience of racing in Italy – the executive summary is that I finished 8th in the Veterani Category (ages 40-47), at 47 I was at the upper end of the age group. The course was a challenging roughly 20 kilometer (12 mile) loop that we did 3 times followed by a roughly 10 kilometer (6 mile) climb up the fabled Croce D’Aune (the climb where Tullio Campagnolo had the idea for the quick release and thus hatched his company). The 20 K loops had everything - hills, cobblestones, flats, roundabouts with “traffic furniture”, sections that went through towns where the road was only about 5 riders wide as it squeezed through ancient buildings, fast descents, a GPM (KOM), false flats, tricky tight corners. The 10 K climb was steep and tough with lots of switchbacks and has been used in the Giro d’Italia on several occasions.

I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful this experience was and the decent result was just icing on the cake. Pat asked me to be the guest blogger for the Velo Veneto Blog, so that’s why I rambled on in the full report below. So for the none or two of you who would like all the gory details read on:

Race Report: Pedavena Race

Sunday July 13, 2008

Racing in Italy is just plain different.

Registration:
Team Velo Veneto showed up at the race venue which started at the 110 yr old brewery in Pedavena near the town of Feltre in the foothills of the Dolomites. We were there a little early and registration had not yet opened. I asked one of the women at the registration table “Scusi, dove bagno? – excuse me, where is the bathroom?” She got up from here chair, smiled at me and then practically took me by the hand all the way around to the back of the building. She took me right to the door of the men’s room and then asked me in Italian, with hand motions that I understood, if I could find my way back. Oh yeah, and she was gorgeous in a very natural, non-put-together, non-made-up way: jeans, a loose fitting silvery-grey T shirt and her hair up in a bun. Then as I was washing my hands the janitor came in and started yelling at me something I couldn’t understand. “Mi dispiace, non parlo italiano – I’m sorry I don’t speak Italian” I said. It didn’t slow him down, he yelled at me “Chiuso, Chiuso – closed, closed”. I repeated my line again – “Mi dispiace.” and rushed back to my warmer, prettier new friend.

I found my way back to registration and told Velo Veneto Director Sportive Pat Carroll “I might need your help filling out the registration form.” “What registration form?” he asked, “They take your racing license, it has all the information they need, they don’t have you sign waivers or anything like that here.”

So I got into the registration line for my category – my racing age is 47, so I am a Veterani, which is ages 40-47, so I’d be the old man of the group. There were two registration lines, one for the 4 or 5 categories that exist for those under 47 (juniores, dillentantes, under 23’s, etc – or something like that) and one for the age groups over 47 and the women. Since I was 4th in line I was given number 4, the guys in front of me, #’s 2 and 3, had butts about as wide as my thumb and looked ready to rock. I gave the lovely woman my license and she gave me a number that was different from the numbers we use in California in a few respects – it was fairly small, it was more cloth-like than paper-like and it had been used many times before as one could tell by the many pin holes in it. She took my license and said “otto euro – 8 euros”, that’s right 8 euros to race, not $30 to $40, and no paperwork to fill out.

The Course:
A humdinger!!! 3 roughly 20 kilometer giri (loops) with hills, cobblestones, flats, roundabouts with “traffic furniture”, sections that went through towns where the road was only about 5 riders wide as it squeezed through ancient buildings, fast descents, a GPM (KOM), false flats, tricky tight corners – it had everything. Then after the 3 loops we did a roughly 10 kilometer climb up the fabled Croce D’Aune. It was on the Croce D’Aune where Tullio Campagnolo came up with the idea for the quick release and the company Campagnolo was born. There’s a monument to him and the company at the top of the climb.

While we were getting our kits on near the Velo Veneto Van, one of the volunteers in an orange vest came over to talk to us. I think he heard us speaking English and thought we were a curiosity so he came over to check us out. It didn’t matter that he didn’t speak English – through Pat, and his able assistant, David Covington’s translations, we found out that his name was “Mamo”. Mamo gave us some pointers on the course – “watch out for the descent that comes halfway through the course, it’s fast and in a forest so there may be slippery leaves all over the road. The final climb up the Croce D’Aune is very steep at the beginning and at the end, but fairly “pedalable” in the middle section.

The Start
The skies were dark and there was loud, threatening thunder. All of the categories would start together and the placings would be picked separately. That meant us Veterani (40-47), Gentlemen (48-55) and Super Gentlemen (56+) would have to deal with the young budding pros out on the course.

The way the race started is there was a guy on a PA, he called up every single rider by name and race number – “Buda Napolio, numero Quattro”. There was another guy with a clipboard and a whistle – as each rider showed up on the start line, this guy would toot his whistle to acknowledge the rider checking in and then cross the name off the list on his clipboard. I wasn’t fully aware of how the system worked so there was a bit of a delay between the calling of my name and the whistle toot acknowledging my taking my place on the start line as I stood in the back waving my arm when they called my name. I wanted to start in the back to stay out of the way of the young bucks but my numero 4 meant that I was called up to start in the very front row.

As I stood there waiting for them to finish calling up the 100 or so racers, it started to rain. I was able to move back a few inches so that I was under the huge inflatable “Sportful” start arch. I was in Italy , I was in the front row, there was a herd of young bucks behind me, the course was technical, tricky and hard, it was raining and I was pretty darn nervous.

David had my camera and was able to capture my apprehension in about a dozen photos.

The race began with a promenade behind a small bevy of motorcycles and a lead car or two. They don’t do road closures here, and there is no center line rule. They do sort of a rolling closure and shepard cars off the road as we go – there were many cars on the left hand side of the road that had to stop to let us pass – most of the drivers sat patiently in their cars and more than a few got out of their cars to cheer us on – that was really cool.

The Race:
The speed during the promenade was about 15 mph, for about 8 minutes or so we rolled out of the brewery parking lot and through town. For this early on a rainy Sunday morning there were a surprising number of townsfolk out to watch the promenade and cheer us on. Then the lead car and motorcycle armada sped up and it was “game on”. Immediately, and I do mean immediately, 4 riders jumped off the front hard and the speed went from 15 to close to 30 mph, we quickly pulled them back in, but from that point on (i.e., for the next 2 hours or so) the race was fast and hard. I drifted to about 1/3 of the way back in the field and hung on for dear life. The challenge was to maintain the pace, avoid the road hazards (traffic furniture, cars pulled over on the left side of the road, the narrowing of the road through the old town, the fast descent (which wasn’t so slippery) and be very watchful as any gaps could quickly convert from a few seconds to minutes. One several occasions I saw a gap open up ahead of me – when this happened I waited a few seconds to see if someone would close the gap, but if not I bridged up to close the gap. On two occasions I almost got pinched off the back of what was beginning to be a leading group but I was able to hang on. My teammate, Alex, wasn’t so lucky in this respect – he got pinched off the back and ended up in a chase group that finished 5 minutes behind the lead group

At one point, I was suffering from the pace and drifting toward the back of the lead group, I was last in the line and considering easing up. All of a sudden the church bells from a local church tower began to ring – “Dude, you’re racing, IN ITALY , how cool is that, dig in man” Inspired by this divine intervention I found my way to the middle of the lead group. I was really pleased that I could hang on to the lead group given the difficulty and technical nature of the course and the fact that there were plenty of young bucks in the group. Somehow, each lap felt easier than the one before it, although Pat and David informed me that our splits per lap were incredibly consistent.

The racers in the pack were very smooth and safe and had perfect etiquette, any road hazard was translated through the pack, a few guys bumped elbows here and there and apologized to each other or made a joke about it by popping their elbows out and looking side-to-side like a gorilla ready to rumble. One guy who was in front of me held out his arm with his hand turned backward to me as if to say “clear this space”, he then took a quick check behind him to see that me and the other riders understood and proceeded to blow his nose into the dead space behind him.

I managed to hang on to the lead group for the last lap and was thinking, I’d be really happy if this race just ended after the third lap without having to climb the 10 kilometers up the Croce D’Aune. I had already been redlined for an hour and a half and was thrilled to have hung on to the lead group. But climb we must.

As soon as we hit the base of the climb the field splintered, I was about mid-pack when we hit the climb and just set out at a high tempo – a handful of guys jumped at the bottom of the climb. “It’s a long climb, there’s no way they can keep that pace” I thought, well I was about 90% wrong, I never saw most of those guys again. However, in the early part of the climb, I was able to begin picking off a few riders either alone on in clumps. Then things sort of stabilized. I couldn’t tell who was in which class, all I knew was that those of us who were 47 and under had 2 digit numbers and those over 47 had three digit numbers. It didn’t really matter though, I was racing in Italy and that was an end in itself.

As we climbed there were about 4 of us in a clump, that skinny #3 from the registration line, a guy with a frame and jersey that looked Eastern European (Croatia isn’t that far away) – the lettering on his jersey and frame had P’s and O’s and what looked like upside down K’s and a bunch of consonants without vowels to interrupt their flow. We were picking off riders but not many, finally, this little group split as skinny #3 and me rolled away – we took turns leading each other and then we rolled up to his teammate, even skinnier #2 – 2 and 3 had a brief exchange and then 3 and I rolled on. Somehow, we started talking with each other between breaths, I asked him “quanti chilometri a il fin – how many kilometers to the finish?” He thought 3 or 4 – we both let out an “UGH”, then we rounded two more switchbacks and he said “Americano – ultimo chilimetro” as he pointed to a sign on the side of the road. “Grazie” I said as I upped the pace a bit – he sat on my wheel for a while, but by 500 meters to go he was gapped. It felt a bit odd as we were sort of temporary “amici – friends” but hey this was a race. I saw the 300m, 200m and 100m signs but could not see the finishing arch. “Uh oh”, I thought, “what if the finish is not just around the corner – I’m burning my last match here”, fortunately, I rounded the last switchback to see the 50 m sign and the long awaited finishing arch. As I approached the finish line and official called out “numero Quattro – Buda Napolio” on the PA.

Results/Awards:
After a brief cooldown, David took my number off my jersey to return it to the officials in exchange for getting my license back. It turns out the official who had my license was the natural beauty from registration – that David, he’s no fool.

After maybe half an hour or so, the results were taped to the wall of the caffe, bar, ristortante at the top of the Croce D’Aune not far from the monument to Tullio Campagnolo. They only list the top 10 in each category, if you’re not in the top 10, you don’t know where you finished. Alex finished 8th in the Gentlemen category, he’s 52 and an incredible climber, I’m sure he would have been top 5 if he didn’t get pinched off on the loops back in town. I also finished 8th in the Veterani category which I’m incredibly pleased with. This really felt like a hard circuit race and then a hard hillclimb race rolled into one.

We waited around for the awards ceremony, there were plenty of “Sportful” bags filled with various items ranging from Sportful products to groceries, there were huge bottles of what looked like either apple cider or moonshine grappa and other items in the back of the hatchback that served as the lead vehicle (complete with the open roof from which, during the race, an official waving a traffic paddle of some sort stood looking and sounding very, well, official).

They were calling out the results counting down from tenth place to first, they started with the younger categories and after they called out the rider’s place, race number and name, the riders would walk down to the officials and collect his prizes. They got to the Veterani Category and said “8th place – Buda Napolino – numero quattro”, I took a few hesitant steps forward as I realized that the riders in 10th and 9th place hadn’t collected their booty. “Well they must have left” I thought, so I walked down to the awards presenters in full view of all. I said “Bud Napolio, numero Quattro, otto” They said what I thought was – “we’re on 7th right now, your award is next.” So I stood there like an idiot, while they called 7th, 6th, 5th, etc. I figuratively had my hand out waiting for my bag of goodies when Pat called out to me and waved for me to come over. I left my idiot spotlight next to the presenters to head over to Pat – Pat told me “they are only awarding prizes to the top 7, but they are recognizing the top 10.” Oh that’s what they said – duh!

In the end, I am really pleased with the race and the whole experience. Regardless of the result, it was definitely a “peak experience.” Finishing in the top 10 on such a challenging course, in Northern Italy - the epicenter of competitive cycling was just the icing on the cake.

It was a happy ride back to the Hotel/Bar/Ristorante Monte Grappa for yet another delicious Italian lunch and shared bottle of red wine followed by a sweet, delicious nap.

Tour of California Training Camp

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:38:00 +0000

Friday night dinner at "Syrah"

What at fantastic weekend we had for the Tour of California training camp weekend. We had a enough sun to keep everyone happy and did about 300 kilometers of riding with about 11,000 feet of climbing in three days. The dining was wonderful.

The group heading out toward Cazadero and the "King Ridge" ride.

Regrouping on King Ridge Rd.

The view south down the coast on Meyers Grade Rd.

The pro peleton with 1 lap to go on Stage 1 in Santa Rosa

Il Re Leone (The Lion King) returns

The Cricket, Paolo Bettini heads off with his Quick Step team

Two laps to go

Cipo's group was dropped

Marmolada, et al...by guest blogger!

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:51:00 +0000

the view from Passo Valles

Good afternoon gents! Well, I just finished my second long ride in the Dolomites. We did Passo Rolle, Passo Valles, and the Marmolada. The ride was 94K with a total 3100m+ (over 10,000ft) of climbing. Jack and I went for the time record up Passo Rolle. The record is 1 hour and 3 minutes. Jack and I both did the ride in around 1 hour and 10 minutes. The conditions were not ideal. It was very windy and it was constantly in your face. The climb is between 5 to 10% grade the whole way up. Jack managed to wreck himself while trying to zip up his jersey or his time would have been faster. I on the other hand threw my chain twice. If we haven't had problems and had some better weather we would have been much closer to the record. Pat indicated that he thought the headwind really impacted our times. The temperature also affect us. We were both cold even though we were riding hard. I really couldn't ride at threshold, which is an indicator that my legs are dead. The descent is fast and beautiful but not too long. The ride up to Passo Valles is not all that difficult. The climb is only about 7.5k long. It is a good break for the climb up the Marmolada. You have a very long descent off of the Passo Valles back to Alleghe for the start of the climb to Marmolada. The actual Maramolada climb is up to Passo Fedaia. The climb starts at the little town of Caprile and is 14k long. The start of the climb is not too bad but does have some kickers. The last 6k up the Marmolada is painful. There is an extended section that is over 15% grade that is at least 1k long. About 3k from the top you finally get some temporary relief with a few switchbacks, but each switchback is at 15% grade. There are actually signs that tell you the grade. The views from the top are incredible. There is a lake at the top that provides some incredible views and was good for a photo stop. We are now headed back to Castelcucco for some rest before dinner. And our hotel proprietors are fixing a Veneto specialty...rice and peas (Risi e pisi)

I do not have high expectations for the TT (back home in Tennessee...ed.) this weekend since I have riden well over 430 miles and 30 hours since last Monday.

Ciao,Tim

Soave Race....by Tim V.

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 20:00:00 +0000

Good morning gents!I did my first Italian race this morning. It was like nothing you can imagine. We started in a littlle town of Soave in the Verona province. The town is ancient and is enclosed in a stone wall. All of the racers start at the same time. We had about 150 riders show up for the race, based on the size of the crowds and the use of sequential numbers. We started the race by first riding in and around the town to the applause of the locals. People outside the cafes and coffee shops cheer you on as you ride through town; this parade was made interesting by seeing how many riders could jam their way through the narrow entrances in the stone wall. . The real race begins as you leave the walled city. The pace quickens instantly. We went from riding along at 15 mph to about 33 mph. I was wondering who the hell was on the front of the pack. The pack is frantic as you jam down the roads following the lead car and motorcycles. You get the whole road as you ride and cars are forced to the side of the road. Note that this is an easy way to go from the front to the back of the pack. If you aren't real careful you will have to hit the brakes to avoid the car on the side of the road and the pack will go by you. I observed this happen and later had it to me as we went through the narrow streets of a little village. This put me too far back. I basicaly TT'd with some guys on my wheel, but they would not work and just stayed back. I would have done the same thing if I were them. At one point, I was riding beside a guy that looked to be around 60 years old on a 5K climb and he paced me back close to the lead pack. This is where I got seriously dropped. The roads are wide enough for one car and maybe your bilke in places. The 60 year old guy descended like il Falco. He was passing people everywhere. I on the otherhand was getting passed all down the descent. I would catch people on the climbs and get passed like I was sitting still on the descents. You wouldn't believe how fast these guys take blind curves. When we got down the final descent I was quite a ways back of the large lead pack. I went into TT mode with an Italian guy on my wheel. We worked together for the last 15 miles hovering around 24 mph on a relatively flat section. At the 1K line he told me to go ahead using a hand gesture, since I spent more time pulling than he did. We ended the race together coming through a large Arrivo banner with the castle as a backdrop. This race was as hard as any on the TBRA calendar and required more handling skills than I have ever needed. The madness of the pack at the start is worse than any crit race that I have done. The Italians will put their bikes through spots and ride within inches of cars coming directly at them. I wished I had their confidence on the bike. The training that we have done this week in the mountains affected my power, but I still wouldn't replace the mountain rides for a win in any race. The races are just the cherry on top of the Sundae, delicious and desired but by no means the best part of the Italian riding dish. Tomorrow will be a recovery day and on Tuesday we head for another 3 pass climb in the Dolomites. This is one camp that I think all of you would enjoy. I will be putting some pictures up on the web when I get home to try to entice all of you to do a training camp over here with me next year. Ciao,Tim

Guest blogger....Dolomiti

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 03:00:00 +0000

Guest blogger....Tim V. from Knoxville, TN...these are his comments sent via Blackberry to his friends back home.

Good afternoon gents. Another day of riding in Italy that cannot be described by words of mere mortals. We did the following three climbs that were in the Giro d'Italia in 2007: Passo Giau, Passo Tre Croci, and Tre Cime Lavaredo. Total climbing today was about 3000m (10,000 ft) in about 48 miles. Brutal to say the least. I rode well up the climb to passo Giau. I was the first to the top by a few minutes. The climb was great. It was 9.5K of climbing at threshold. The views from the top are what make this climb so phenomenal. The mountain tops are gagged rocks protruding from snow covered base. Majestic spires rising above the rounded domes of the Dolomiti break the skyline and make you feel like you are in another world. The descent off of Giau is wicked fast. I am getting better at descending, but I did have a wreck. A guy was coming up the mountain and was partially in my lane. I had to cut the curve tight to avoid him and laid the bike down. It hurt like hell. I also ripped my Assos bibs. Thanks to Marzolf I have another pair. The guy did ask, in Italian, OK? I was pissed for wrecking, but I don't think it could be avoided since he was riding in the center of a narrow road. A German couple behind asked if I was OK. I lost one of my Edgar Soto water bottles because I didn't realize it was gone. This will necessitate the purchase of another one from a local shop. The climb up Passo Tre Croci was not too bad. Jack and I crossed about the same time. We then descended down to Misurina to get to the base of the climb up Tre Cime Lavaredo. Tre Cime Lavaredo is the hardest climb I have done. My right shoulder was killing me from the fall. The 4K main climb had an average grade of 15 to 18%. Did I say that it was the hardest climb that I have ever done. My shoulder was really causing me pain. I could really not pull on the bars too hard. In fact my lever is a little loose and I had to climb in the drops at times. Jack was the first at the top by a couple of minutes and climbed well. We kept about 200 m within each other. A hard day on the bike, but this was the best riding I have ever done. The group is great and the SAG support is spectacular. Pat really knows how to pick the rides and was leapfrogging us to keep us supplied and providing us cold gear when we needed. I repeat, riding in the Dolomites is the best riding that I have done. The group gets along very well and looks out for each other. All of you would enjoy the riding immensely. More news later. Now we are heading back and I am going to the pharmacy to get some things to heal my wounds and some ibuprofen for my shoulder. Right now I can hardly lift it. Ciao,Tim

and from guest blogger....Heather Mac...

Here is the report I sent, sorry it is late :-). The trip has been truly epic - far more than I ever expected. I can't thank you enough.

Italy is perfect!!Today we ventured out of Castelcucco up north to retrace the last three climbs from one of the hardest mountain stages of the Giro!!Starting in Agordo we meandered through one of those picturest valleys I have ever seen - like a post card you thought had been doctored.... We eventually started our climb up to Passo di Giau - top elevation 2232 meters. This first climb was over 5000 feet with an average grade of 12 percent. We then headed down into Cortina - the decent was epic, the roads are simply butter over here! After a brief pass through the perfect town we start the next ascent up to Passo di Croci (1805 meters), with approximately 12 percent grade. A very short downhill before we hit the real climb up to Tre Cima di Lavaredo (2320 meters). Average grade 15-18 percent - oh my god!! Thank god the views are amazing - these mountains are on steriods, we feel like we are in the land of the giants.Total ride distance: 48 milesTotal time in saddle: 5 hoursTotal elevation gain: 10,000 feet!!!!There are 4 of us here along with Pat our camp leader. A couple from upstate new york who both race cat 4 and one guy from Tennessee also a cat 4. The two guys are equally matched and Susanna and I are exactly the same pace - plus she and I can head out for shopping excursions :-)Today we will ride a simple flat 2 hours to Castelfranco for coffee and back!!Life if good!!:-) mac

UCI Masters World Championships...St. Johan, Austria

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:14:00 +0000

This video is from the "World Cup" race in St. Johan. Bob Addy and Geoff Marshall from Perth, Australia competed. Bob finished this race in 21st. Later in the week, Bob was 12th in the UCI World Championship race and Geoff was 29th in the same time as the winner. Good on ya mates !

Here we see Ian Lovell, another Aussie (in all blue over the top)....this was Ian's 7th time in St. Johan and he earned his highest placing with 17th. Well done mate.

Here's the "Emir"....Jim K from Seattle. Jim, Maria and their kids Ella and Jacob spent two weeks with us. Tons of fun !

Here's Charley D from Seattle.

Here's Domenic V from Toronto. This is his first year of racing. He should be very happy with his progress. This video is from the Pro/Elite race which he didn't finish. But earlier in the week he finished the 116k race for 19-29 yr olds (plus older guys who raced down in age). It was the fastest race I'd ever seen in St. Johan....45.5k/hr average...way to go Dom !

Of course I raced too. Dropped out of both races. It's been a long season. The other shot is our group right before we left Castelcucco for St. Johan.

Prepping for Worlds

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:39:00 +0000

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 !

Giro e' finito

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 10:34:00 +0000

The Giro delle Dolomiti is finished! Wow, it was tough. We are very happy to be back "home" in Castelcucco.

Following the "rest" day, we faced 112k with four passes again (Thurs, 2 Aug.), total of 3100m of climbing. First we had to drive into the mountains for the start in Canazei. It was chilly, about 46 degrees when we arrived. Our men from Panama and Mexico were shivering just thinking about it ! But not to worry boys, first off we immediately climbed the easy side of the Marmolada. That was followed by the Passo Giau. With this event I've seen and climbed most of the major passes in the Dolomiti...but the scenery on the Giau was the best I've seen....incredible...and the climb was tough...10k at a bit over 9%. Again the speed of some of these guys shocks us. Most of us did the climb between 46-53 min. The winner? 35 min!!! Maybe there should be drug testing.....?

Following the Giau was the Falzarego and then the Pordoi with a final decent back into Canazei. I don't know if I mentioned that the riding time for our long day was over 8 hrs. Today was more than five and a half.

Things got a bit off track the next day. The day of stage 5 dawned with cold rain. Our riders who came specifically for the Giro decided to start the shortened stage and two of them finished...Ian and Tom. Hats off to you guys!

The rest of us took the day to catch up on sleep and rest sore legs. And then that night at dinner a crazy thought entered everybody's minds. Hey, what if we skip the final day and go ride the Stelvio? Are we gluttens for punishment? Ian and Tom decided to go ahead and finish the Giro (Ian was 9th on final GC in his age group), while Pat, Domenic, Alex, Juan and Rod drove up to Prato Stelvio to start the 24.3k (1800m of climbing) Passo Stelvio, the highest pass in Italy with it's 48 tornante (switchbacks or hairpins). The guys were thrilled...."what a way to end our trip" was the consensus. Ian (and wife Lyn) and Tom stayed in the area an extra day and will do the Stelvio today.

So, will we do the Giro delle Dolomiti in future years? Hard to say. It's a great event, but not really a "race". We missed an opportunity while doing the Giro to compete in a five day UDACE stage race with some climbing in the Friuli region. Chances are we'd opt to do that next year and then have a 3-4 day climbing "mini camp" headquartered in Canazei or someplace like that. All in all though a great experience. Now time to rest, recover and prepare for the UCI Masters World Championships in two weeks.

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Carroll) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:38:00 +0000

Woops, I forgot to put the battery back in my camera after charging. So no pictures yet. But what a day. We had the longest and biggest climbing day. In all 168k (104 miles) and 3400m (11,150 ft) of climbing over four passes....Passo Gardena (2,121m), Pso. Campolongo (1,875m), Pso. Pordoi (2,238m) and Pso. Sella (2,244m). Consider we start in Bolzano at an elevation of 266m and climb to Selva Gardena at 1550m before you really start the first pass!!! It was a long day in the saddle, about 8 hrs of peddling. And a couple of fun decents with no restricted speed (coming off Gardena and Sella). This all happened yesterday (July 31).

Today was a rest-day....so what do you do on a rest day other than sleep in? Of course you drive 200k round-trip in order to see the highest pass in Italy and a mythical climb of the Giro d'Italia....the Passo
Stelvio (2,758m). Here are some pictures.....