If you love Italy, hate cancer, and spend as much time as you can on 2 wheels, you should read on.  The Giretto d’Italia (The Little Tour o Italy) is in it’s second year, and enrollment begins now.  This year Cycling Fusion will recruit a minimum of 10 riders before we begin raising the money, booking the airfare, and in general letting the Giretto take over our lives for the next several months.  The Giretto d’Italia is a Livestrong grassroots fund raising event aimed at the best amateur riders in the cycling community, or those that want to be in the lead group.  If you want to find out just how good you can get if you train properly, this is your chance.  All that being said, we will have 2 separate groups of riders this year; the Hammer Heads (who will ride every day), and the Alternators (who will ride day 1, 3 & 5)  If you are an avid cyclist who isn’t quite sure you can “keep up” even with training, you may be able to handle the Alternators group.

The new genre of “virtual cycling” DVDs for indoor cycling training is picking up steam with Global Ride’s release of Speed & Power in Italy. The release is obviously timed well in advance of the upcoming winter indoor training season in the U.S. Starting with some of the early efforts of Endurance Films on behalf of the Spinning® company, Mad Dogg athletics, and then followed by probably the biggest producer of indoor cycling training DVDs, Troy Jocobson of Spinerval fame, this new type of training film is gaining popularity.

Reflecting on the Giretto, after being home for more than a week now, I feel like I’m still waking up from one of the dreams that you could swear was real. It was grueling, exhilarating, exhausting, rewarding – each emotion at its peak. The overwhelming feeling I am left with is “I can’t wait till next year!” The logistics were as challenging as the training. The fund raising was as challenging as the riding. But the experience was well beyond what I had expected, even though I had previously ridden in Italy on 5 different occasions, including once following the Giro with a tour group.

On my last post I told you how yesterday’s 8 hr in the saddle, concluding with both a Category 2 and a Cat 1 climb wasn’t really over after we stopped riding. The strength of our riding group was consistently Nina leading the way, and Jennifer brining up the rear. We all shared our time in the front pulling on the flat lands, but in the mountains, this is how it shook out. These climbs were no joke – each one taking 1 to 2 hrs to complete. By the time we hit our last climb Jennifer was basically depleted of all sources of fuel and just barely made it to the top. But made it she did – I was very impressed that she didn’t give up; most people would have – but Jennifer Sage is made of different stuff, and she pressed on to the end.

After about 200 miles already under out belts, we started this stage with a level of cumulative fatigue none of us had ever experienced, and yet we were starting our first real mountain stage today. Nevertheless, the good Lord blessed us with another beautiful day of sunshine, and today we were determined to get ahead and stay ahead of the pros. The owner of the B&B washed our gear (an unexpected but delightful surprise), and we were ready to go. After not being able to find the real start due to traffic and construction around Padova, we found the first pink arrow from within the city, and started there.

If you’ve watched Gomer Pyle reruns, you’ll know how to say that title with the right southern twang, and silly grin. Nina and I were nursing “would be” injuries today. The last blog I noted how Nina began to have severe knee pain at about 75 miles. She completed the stage but we were all worried about how to rest and recover it with a century required each day in front of us, and with climbing starting at the end of today’s longest stage. You can see pics of all stages by clicking the link.

As I write this blog before breakfast on day two, my stomach is in knots and I don’t know if it’s nervousness in anticipation of the longest ride of my life (200km), or just a something I ate last night… but the travails of today will have to wait, I have yesterday to regale you with, and by the way, click here to see pics of each stage.

As many of you know from following our “tweets” on Twitter, we had a marvelous start to the first ever Giretto – timed to perfection to coincide with the 100th year celebration of the biggest cycling race in Italy, and Lance Armstrong’s first ever Giro d’Italia. Between not losing any luggage, and having a beautiful day to tour Venice, we were walking on air. Here are some pics from both the day off in Venice, as well as Stage 1.