I have never been so smashed in all my cycling life! I’m thankful to Dave (Mr Vicki Whitelaw) for daily updates. I had nothing left at the end of each day to type and even though I’m struggling now, I’ll give a brief update on how Stage 10 went down.
We started the tour as 7 Lotto riders and finished today with 5. With crashes knocking us around and then the second part of the tour resulting in half of us being sick, it was a tough task to finish this epic tour. This morning at breakfast, knowing the finish was so very near, we were all thinking about what a great day our Monday would be… and Tuesday… and Wednesday. Days of sleeping-in, no pasta and definitely no race gels! Ahhh, bliss. Yet we still had one more ‘flat’ stage to complete and there was something novel about doing a couple of laps of the Monza Ferrari racing track before venturing out for a 100km loop.
I was involved in several attacks on the initial racing circuit – enjoying the hot mix surface. I was keen to get an early break going, if nothing else to wake up my legs. Unfortunately nothing was sticking until 25km when Evelyn Stevens escaped solo. A couple of other riders were in pursuit and then another 1 min back was the peleton driven by Gauss and Valdarno. The pace was high for most of the race with the peleton strung out and our team working hard to keep bunch position, expecially for Ashleigh who had woken up this morning feeling very ordinary.
Evelyn was caught at 60km and shortly after a break of 6 riders formed. Team Australia had missed it so became the main chasers. Again the pace was high as we made our way up and down the rolling terrain of this ‘flat’ stage.
The most entertaining point of the race occurred with 15km to go, when the police motorbike led us down a dead end street and the whole peloton came to a halt and were directed to turn around. We then sat for 10 minutes while cars in the convoy came at us from all directions and soignys ran around crazily to hand out food and drinks to see us through the last 12km of racing! Once the police swapped GPS navigation systems and established where we were meant to go we were on our way and, in typical Marianne Vos style, she attacked immediately making my heavy “Coffee-shop legs” scream very loudly.
The last 12km are a bit of a blur. It was hot and humid and strung out for long sections in single file. I just wanted to finish! The final 5km were driven by Team USA who have had an outstanding tour. With 400m to go there was a U-turn where positioning in the first 5 wheels was vital for anyone dreaming of a stage victory. It seems that USA had done their research and timed things beautifully for Shelley Evans to take the win by a whisker from Kirsten Wild.
It has been a truly character building tour. We’ve all experienced extreme fatigue and there have been tears of relief as we’ve conquered the highest mountain pass in the Italy. I am hanging out for some serious R and R.
Next weekend Lotto is racing Cento – a 1 day race near Bologna, Italy that I have done the last few years. The following day is la Pinarello cycling marathon/granfondo starting in Trevisio. It will double as a great training ride and way to thank our wonderful bike sponsor – Pinarello.
Now I’m going to crawl into bed. It’s going to be a struggle just getting there from the couch!
Thanks for reading,
Vicki