Forum menu
And I hope the weather is better there than last Sunday as its the same area the worlds were in last week.
Bike is in box euros in pocket just hope my bike arrives with me in Pisa and that I manage over 200km on an old bike half of which is on gravel ? What tyres for chalky Italian gravel ?
White ones
[img] 
?v=20121007183702[/img]
Have a great time - very jealous. Maybe next year!
Hope the required woollen shorts are comfy.
Looks an amazing experience from all I've seen and read. Hope you get good weather to make the most of it
Well I have just about recovered .We arrived on Friday and looked round about 50 stalls selling old road kit ,loads of Campag and Italian frames and lots of old woolen jersies .We signed on early ,a good move as the queue was massive on Saturday.On Saturday it rained all day and didnt look good for riding 205km on the Sunday!
Sunday morning I was rudely awakened by the alarm at 3.30 and went for breakfast a t 4 am as the staff at the campsite laid it out for us spaghetti boiled eggs bacon ,cake ,yogurt .Breakfast done it was into Gaiole to join the line to get our cards stamped and we left town at 5.27 .after a gentle climb it was onto the first white road for a few kms the field began to stretch out and it became clear my mate was having an off day .I stayed with him until the route split at 63km into the 135km and the 205km route shortly after at about 75km we were faced with a cat 2 climb it was 15%for 1.4 km on gravel then a false flat on tarmac for 200metres then another climb of about 4km between 105 and 15% progress was quite good and I made the next 3 checkpoints on time unfortunately I missed the 4pm deadline at 140km by 4 mins and was diverted into a small town where we had food and wine laid on !Officially out of time now we were allowed back on coures and an 11km walk ride slog on white gravel .As this ended it started to get dark and I was faced with about 30km to the finish where I arrived at 8 20 pm after 15 hours of riding .I completed about 185km of the 205km and was allowed to get my card stamped at the finish and was rewarded with a bottle of wine and a cheese !The shortcut we were sent on therefore only cut us out of about 20km of the full route.