Giro Finish

Miles from Home - 5612.4 miles
Firsts / Highlights - Lunch on terrace overlooking the Colleseum, Giro Stage 21, Colloseum, Forum, Capitol Hill, close-encounter w/ Lance and Team Estana
Miles Ridden - 0 miles
Vertical Feet - 0 ft
Route - No Route Today.
People - Brad Frazier



This post is from May 31, 2009.

Brad humored me today and followed along for all of the Giro viewing around Rome. Time trials are not usually the most exciting stages to watch, but this one had some extra drama heaped on. It was the final stage of the 100th anniversary of the race, and it was being held in Rome for the first time. Not just Rome, but a circuit course setup through many of the iconic images of Rome. The starting ramp was in the Venezia Plaza, then it wound through the ruins of ancient Rome, past Villa Borghese, into Vatican City, St. Peter’s Square, Castle St. Angelo and finished with a lap around the Colloseum. Closing down Rome for a bike race must not be an easy thing to get done.

Prior to the race, Brad and I walked through the team staging areas and watched the mechanics working on bikes and riders warming up. Just as we got to the Astana bus, there was a big commotion. I recognized from my time at the race three weeks ago that something was likely to happen and be over within seconds. Moments later, the team emerged and got on their bikes to go to the starting area 500 meters away. Levi Leipheimer brushed past me while I fumbled to get my camera. Then by coincidence, I found myself standing directly in line with Lance Armstrong who was about 10 feet away moving directly toward me. He was looking down trying to clip into his pedals without being taken out by the crowd. I knew that I would only be able to get one shot with my slow point-and-shoot camera, so I waited. I didn’t want a shot of the top of Lance’s helmet, so I continued waiting as he slowly moved toward me – still looking down. When he was 5 feet away, I needed to decide whether to step aside or wait just a little longer. At the last possible moment, he got clipped in and looked up. I was only about 2 feet away by the time I got the picture. It was simply fortunate that I was there when I was and recognized the commotion and was able to get to my camera quickly.

One of the unique things about bike racing is that the stars are so exposed. You can see from the picture how tight the crowd was. Someone as recognizable as Lance Armstrong needed to make his way through that crowd unprotected just to get to the start of the race. That is a lot of risk in an already dangerous sport just to get to the starting line. I mentioned to Brad that it would be like Tom Brady having to walk through the parking lot on his way to the Super Bowl. It just wouldn’t happen.



In the end, Denis Menchov rode well enough to slightly extend his 20-second lead and win the Giro. It wasn’t without some tension. After 2,200 miles, he had managed to get a lead over the second place rider of only 20 seconds. That was considered an insurmountable lead for Sunday’s short time trial, as long as nothing catastrophic happened. As the race leader, Menchov had the advantage of being the last racer to start on the course, which meant that he knew at every time check whether he was going fast enough to preserve his lead. Brad and I were positioned on the course at a place where we could see the riders pass once at 1 km from the start, and again at 3 km from the finish. Menchov took off quickly and extended his 20-second lead on the first half of the course. By the time he passed us for the second time, a light rain had started to fall on the Giro for the first time in 21 days of racing. It wasn’t much, but enough to make the cobblestone streets a little slippery. I said to Brad, “There goes the winner of the race, unless he crashes. With this rain, that isn’t out of the question”. Since we did not have access to a television, that was the end of it for us and we started climbing Michelangelo’s steps up to Capitol Hill.

It wasn’t until the next day that I learned Menchov’s advantage of being the last to start turned into a disadvantage. He had the advantage of knowing all other rider’s times, but he was the only person who had to negotiate the final turns around the Colloseum on wet cobbles. It turns out that he crashed in the final kilometer just as he was about to cross the finish line and claim the pink jersey for 2009. A team mechanic in the chase car was alert enough to stop the car and get a replacement bike off the roof before Menchov even stopped sliding following his crash. The mechanic ran the new bike up to him and Menchov was underway in time to preserve his lead and win the race. If the crash had happened 300 meters later, the chase car would not have been available because they were required to exit the course on the final curve. Who knows whether he would have been able to finish the race on the crashed bike? You can’t take anything for granted in bike racing.

Following a hike around Capitol Hill and The Forum, Brad and I returned to the team staging area to see what was going on. I expected that everything would be torn down and moved on like it is on a normal stage. Since this was the final stage, the riders just milled around talking to fans, signing autographs and posing for pictures. This was the first time I had seen them when they were not in motion. The most notable observation was that they all had significant scrapes and scars. Some wounds obviously happened during this Giro, and some had happened earlier in their careers. It made me realize that like football, no one gets out of professional bike racing without permanent damage.

In addition to all of the race-related activity, Brad and I covered the archeological section of Rome fairly well in one day. We toured the Colloseum walked through much of the Colloseum neighborhood. We know that it will be impossible to fully cover Rome in the 2 days we have here, but we will see what we can.