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.

We continued to ride through one beautiful little town after another, (see pics of all stages here) with over 50% of the Giro route newly paved just for the event. Between these immaculate roads, clear signage all the way to the finish, and the ability to ride right into town with cheering crowds from about the last 50km to the end, it was like we were in Cycling Heaven!

After about 30km, we stopped at a castle town and Nina noticed that her back wheel was rubbing badly with the break. Our driver wasn’t much of a mechanic (and I’m officially the “anti-wrench”), they went in search of a local bike shop while Jennifer and I went on ahead – trying to keep a better pace than yesterday. Nina eventually rejoined us when we met up with Liza from Cycling Made In Italy. Liza did all the “in country” research for us, and without her our little Giretto would have been in real jeopardy of even happening. She went to check over Nina’s bike, and found one of the spokes in the back completely broken (Liza has some wrenching experience from her touring business). Consequently they had to find a bike shop once again, and so Nina had to jump in the van again to get this corrected before our mountain decents. An untrue wheel at 60km/hr could make a scary situation down right dangerous.

So, as they went in search of 2 wheel Italian expertise once again, we pressed on to the first warmup climb before our two major mountain ascents. This was a nice 2km push up La Rosina, with more mega views of the valley.

Eventually Nina caught up with us again, and we pushed on ahead – trying to get as far through the first climb that we could before the caravan came. We made it about half way up the 14km climb of Croce d’Aune before they came roaring by. This was the day I had Lance Armstrong actually “see” me. I’m pretty sure he still doesn’t even know who we are or what the Giretto even is, but on this day, as he was suffering up the first of two significant mountain passes, I was sitting on the side of the road with my iPhone, ready to shoot the riders as they came within inches of me.

After I took one of my pictures, I was just sitting there looking at the riders and all of sudden, there he was, his wheel within inches of my leg. I uncontrollably shouted “LANCE!” and I think it might have even startled him, as he looked at me with quite a bewildered look – like “What!? Who are you?!?”. That was as close to my dream of a “photo opp” that I would get.

So that was pretty cool, and one of the reasons I wanted to go to the Giro; to watch Lance ride in it. I forgot however, that he suffers too, and he was indeed suffering on that climb. Now I understand why he lost 3 minutes on that day – this was just half way up the first climb, and the second climb was worse.

The final ascent was up to San Martino di Catrozza, a 31 km (18 mile) climb of substantial grade. You can see from the profile below, this was no joke. From our standpoint, we had already put in now over 450km over the last 2.5 days, and we had this ahead of us.

We all made it, but it was one incredible journey. By the time we got there (almost 8pm and getting dark), it was downright cold, and with sweating bodies, we were freezing. To top it off, Nina and I did not see the van parked on the side of the road, and we continued to climb what was actually the start of the next day’s climb. After we put in another km or two of climbing we realized that we had gone too far. We came back down a completely frigid descent and Jennifer and I were extremely cold. In fact, we were both shivering uncontrollably, and had to jump into the shower before we got hypothermic. We simply took too long to get to our destination today. We were our own worst enemies. I’d like to say the story ends there for the day, but this day still had much excitement behind it. Stay tuned for my next post where the saga of that night continued well into the next day and stage.