At only 57km long and with about 2000m climb, this GF sorta looked tempting and since I hadn’t done the RR when I was here for the World Masters Championships it was a sort of “must do” race.
One thing is clear…a good climber I am not. Perhaps if I lost 10kg of fat I might have a chance but long draggy climbs are definitely not my forte. Short one yes, long ones…ugh!
The organisation was ok although starting pens sorted by when you entered rather than age groups was a bit weird and the graphic of which pens were where was wrong anyway. The goody bag was ace..stuffed with…goodies! and there were 5 or 6 refreshment stands on my route, more on the long one. Each was excellently staffed by volunteers, providing opened bottles of water, coke or mineral water and food.
Well…..I finished and this is one GF I wont be returning to. If nothing else I have learned that a 21km climb is well beyond my comfort zone. I can manage it doing the Stelvio due to the stupendous views that mitigate the pain and, truth be told, the boredom but without that distraction 10-14 km is my limit. What’s worse is that in a GF there is always someone who is actually much stronger but for 1 reason or another is behind you and who when passing you makes it look so damn easy! I suspect people pushing wheelchairs would have passed me at one point! However I was determined NOT to stop at any point and didn’t.
How’s this for a great indicator of the climb courtesy of Veloviewer.com
Alex did the long course but stopped 10km from the top..he then ate his way through all the goodies at a refreshment stop and turned for home…he was happy with his effort.
The next day was transit to Treviso day…staying where we did last year and best yet… Treviso is slap bang in the middle of the flattest bit of terrain ever.
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