Skip to main content

Mountain Goats: Passo Giau


Written by our riding reporter Robert Gill

First of all Thank you to the 81 people who signed up for the race and in particular to the 45 who made it to the top. Your support of the race is gratefully received and much like I said last week, I know we can continue to grow and introduce new friends to the joy of climbing.

The Dolomites are the graveyard of millions of sea creatures, their bones solidified in to limestone structures that have dominated the landscape over the last 250million years; first as coral reefs and then as mythical craggy outcrops. In to the present day, the Dolomites continue to provide suitably heroic graves for cyclists bludgeoned to death by the incessant gradients. I'm sure many of the Mountain Goats count themselves amongst these after today's ride!

The race was won by R.2cn who finished in an excellent time of 33:32. Chapeau! The second step of the podium was taken by Matteo Zwaenepoel just 25 seconds behind. Close behind in third was Christophe Contant a further 9 seconds behind. Bravo! The top 3 put in great rides and were able to deny perennial podium chaser Kenneth Vansina condemning him to 4th place! KV finished in another crazy fast time of 34:46 and the top 4 were clear of the rest of the field.

(Much) Further down the mountain, I found myself bemoaning the radiator a few metres away which I forgot to turn off. It reduced me to a sodden mess and I felt more like a shoulder of Yorkshire lamb being slow cooked in a water bath than a mountain goat. I overheated and was passed by a fair few riders who were able to manage their efforts more effectively. I found myself in a haze behind Augustin Crespo, who is undoubtedly the brother or son of legendary Argentine striker Hernan Crespo, picturing scenes from Football Italia on Channel 4 in the 90s as a young lad with Crespo terrorising defences whilst playing for Lazio and Inter Milan. I also ended up with the theme tune worming it's way in to my head too! ("Goooooaaaaal Laaaaazioooo!"). I managed to catch Crespo at one point but he clearly didn't like my company and he immediately rode me off his wheel and disappeared in to the sunset. In another strange football related quirk I was just ahead of A. Robertson, the current best left back in the world and the second best left back ever to play for my home town club Hull City.

The Giau was tough and it is a great credit to all the finishers that you made it to the top. You have a week to steel yourselves and prepare for the spiteful monster that awaits you next week... Monte Zoncolan. Hope to see you there. Oh and because you are of course all wondering - the best left back ever to play for Hull City is Andy Dawson. Grazie mille!
Etiketter:

Comments

Post a Comment

Did you read this?

Rasio Racing - A force to be reckoned with

Imagine this. After the usual start, where everyone sprints out the pen, you've made the front group. The pace is high, but you are confident in the draft. Within limits now. You start to notice who else is in the group. And when you start looking around, not one, not two, but five or six riders are in black jerseys with orange helmets. And you realize you've ended up in a group where half the riders are in the same team. Not only that, they are coordinated, they attack in turns, and try to play to each other's strength. This scenario is becoming more and more frequent on RGT and is the reason why Rasio Racing is so difficult to compete against.  All of the team members are capable of winning a race, none of them are afraid to work for each other. Together they are harder to beat, than most individual riders on RGT. With the addition of Andrzej Krajewski, who ended third in the Tour de Monde, the team also has a top, top climber, and seems like the Team Ineos of the RGT pla...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stage 10 James Ross Island - Antarctica

After flying almost 13.000 kilometers southwest the TdM convoy landed at the James Ross Island in Antarctica last night. The cold weather was in stark contrast to the hotter temperature in Egypt, but overall, the scenery is pretty much the same.  Even though the hills were less than what is to come, the GC guys didn’t miss an opportunity to battle it out. Once again, the 18.30 slot was by far the fastest slot, including 9 out of the 10 best-placed riders in the GC, only missing out on Blair Drader who did time slot 3. Once again though, as we have seen before in the TdM it wasn’t the GC guys that left with the honor of the stage win. That was a fiercely battled contest between two relative newcomers to the platform, Manuel Palmar and Maxime Saonit, where the latter did get away with the victory averaging an impressive 5.14 w/kg for an hour. Former amateur world champion Igor Kopse concluded the podium 1 minute and 30 seconds down from the winner. The second hill was always going to...
Post a Comment
Read more

A THRSDY Crit Win with Ned Bowen

Written by Ned Bowen Pre-race Check the course and the players. It is always important to know who and where you are racing! On the start list for this event was a large Rasio Racing contingent Alex Pleger, Joris Schepers, Andrzej Krajewski, Ben Phillips, Nick Greenhalgh and Jørgen Vanbers. Other strong riders I saw were James Melville, Jan Deca, Wout Hartveld, Jan Linden, Ben Skinner, Bas Van schaayk. Also on the startlist were Sammut, Lister, Rowbottom and Navin, but I am not sure they made the race. As a dabbler in RGT racing, I am not familiar with everyone, but I knew with this strong group it would be a fun race.   The course for the event was the Playa Honda crit course (a Magic Road set in the Canaries), which I had not raced before. One nice thing about short courses and long races means you can really learn and perfect a new course over the 20 laps that were on the docket! The RGT load-in screen is not the most detailed course description, but I could clearl...
Post a Comment
Read more