Back in Feltre
Palio time is just a fantastic time to be in Feltre and this
year we stayed in an apartment in the old city and so were able to just look
out of the window in order to see the parades going by. Granted it was only a bit of a view, but at
least we were able to know when things were or weren’t happening.
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| Medieval festivals have to have the drunken friars! |
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| The competing quartiers have drum and flags this pix is of the Duomo quartier |
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| skill level ..very high |
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| and there is jousting |
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| a yoghurteria is a new one on me! |
Training wise it was time to get down to the faster stuff
and so I did a few sessions along known fairly flat roads..the benefit of
staying in an area where you are really
familiar with the roads. Sadly we were
only able to stay for 7 days as the apartment was already booked out the next
week and so in Saturday we moved to an apartment near Treviso..once again
..known roads and as flat as…
Alex had hoped the Pinarello shop would have a replacement
for the t shirt he bought there 3 years ago, but sadly they were emphasizing
the colour yellow for some reason or
other (!) and so we came away empty handed.
On to the start of the pointy end of the holiday…racing in
Austria
Hartberg
Once again we stayed at Gasthaus Lechner in Kleinlungitz, a
hamlet 10 km out of Hartberg, where we joined Ray Jarrett, Stephen Fairless and
Pete O’Callaghan for 10 days of peace and quiet and having to watch our
weight! Over this period I end up eating
more cream and more desserts than I do for the rest of the year.
The week of racing here goes like this, in order, Prologue,
road race, crit, road race x 2, hill climb, time trial. The prologue for me is always a question of
trying to limit loss rather than expecting to do anything really good. 3rd..10 seconds off Tracy, who got
the yellow jersey and 5 secs off Vida.
Road race no 1..I got away from my rivals on a hill but dropped my chain and so was caught and
rolled in 1 second behind Vida and well in front of Tracy.
Vida in yellow.
Crit…a tight 1km circuit and we rolled over the line
together.
Road race no 2.. this was a 2 lap 20.9km circuit a really good circuit with long downhills, a
flat section (actually a part of the TT course) a long drag uphill and then
finally, when you least wanted it a really really nasty 400m grovel at 11-13%. Since we were a group of racers from aged 50
up, it goes without saying that the young guns and the less young guns attack
from the get go. I blew a gasket on the
first slogging hill and so was once again caught by Tracy and Vida and we work
together to try and close the gap. It
eventually happened at the base of the grovel and then blew apart. Vida and I had already dropped Tracy and that
was the last I saw of Vida, although I wasn’t super sure of that until the
finish. The second lap was a solo ride
and oddly enough wasn’t that much slower than the first…driven by my
uncertainty as to exactly where Vida was.
In the end it turned out I was waaaay ahead, beating her by 2 mins 44
seconds, thereby earning the yellow jersey.
There has been 1 downside of the trip and that is …….during
the crit, 1 of our group, Ray fell and
broke his wrist..actually a #/dislocation and so has to have it pinned and
plated, but when and where. Currently we
are hoping for an op on Thursday to allow minimal disruption to our travelling
plans.This pix below is of the hospital canteen...check out the beer and wine for sale!
and finally:
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