Martin Porter's Gran Fondo Campagnolo 2008
Flight out Friday delayed. Team Thames Velo (Mike M, Steve, Gordon and Martin) consoled themselves with Bishops Fingers in Weatherspoons. Reach Hotel for 1am cold meats and cheese (vegetarian option, cheese; lactose intolerant option, meats) and bed. Saturday: assemble bikes after breakfast. Gordon has a mechanical problem and gracefully declines the offered assistance so the TV three head down 15km to Feltre to sign on and stroke the Pinarello bikes on display.
Bit of lunch outside the local supermarket where the 4 are reunited and spin back to the Hotel for a snooze/walk or whatever. Sunday: early breakfast, bus to Feltre. Lovely sunshine but a bit nippy.
Bit of confusion at the start leaves us rolling out at the rear of the 5,000 peleton. The views over the first half of the course were stunning. At around miday, though, the cloud rolled in and it was snowing hard at the top of the mountain. Martin is oblivious and presses on; Steve has already opted for the Medio route. Mike and Gordon accept the advice that the top of a mountain is not a great place to be that day and divert to cover a similar distance but with less up and down and more straight through. Martin is ok going up the mountain but gets a serious dose of hypothermia on the endless descent.
Martin and Gordon (in the background)
The violent shivering and numb hands, not to mention numbed and confused brain, is definitely affecting handling on the wet descent. Shivered under a heater and foil blanket at the feed at the bottom and pressed on. Fortunately some uphill followed allowing a bit of a thaw out. Hot food and coffee at the finish very welcome then finally back to the Hotel for a second supper before bed. Monday: tour of the Pinarello factory coincides with everybody's lunch break so lasts a quick 15 minutes. I do however have a photo of Giovanni himself.
Tour rep thought it might be easier to drop us straight off at the airport 8 hours before our flight so we took a boat into Venice, lunched on Pizza near St Mark's Square, then popped into a well appointed hotel at the foot of the Grand Canal from where our boat returned us to the airport.