It was back to the mountains today. One of the troubles with going up is that you often have to come down again. This can be a scary experience when you are surrounded by other riders and motorbikes and cars and spectators and so on. Wet roads most certainly do not help!
When I talked to Vicki this morning I think the thing she was most happy with on last night’s stage was that she stayed upright and safe through the day. “Touritis” is starting to set in… and it didn’t help that it was pouring with rain when the Australian team arrived at the start. It fined up before the actual start itself but then rained on and off through out the stage and the roads remained wet all day.
The bunch of 115 riders was blown apart by the climbs but more so by the descents. A number of attacks which proved to be significant to the stage placings occurred on the slick roads coming off the climbs. Vicki rode well and finished with a small group in 31st place. She has dropped two places to 29th on GC.
Vicki will probably yell at me for doing this… ;-) …but there is some footage on the Giro website of the podium ceremony following her win in the time trial: check it out.
Tomorrow is a nasty, nasty day! It is a “short” stage, covering only 83km from Macherio to Montevecchia. But what an 83km they are! In the last 40km there is a category 2 climb, then a category one climb, then another category two climb and then, in case that wasn’t enough the girls will finish with a 3.8km category one climb that averages 5.3%. Not all that bad you say… until you realise that it has pinches of up to 20% in it. Scary!!
Until tomorrow…
Dave