Il Grande Giro

It has started, this afternoon here in Amsterdam, and I was a part of it--a little. It started this morning at our local bakery, which had prepared special pink Giro d'Italia strawberry cakes in honor of the race, which passes through here early in the second stage on Sunday. I got the last one. Then I rode over to Amsterdam to watch some of the prologue action and hopefully get on camera somewhere in my IS Corp kit so that my friends over in Milwaukee could see me. It was hard to find tv cameras, just like it was hard to find a good spot from where to watch the riders. While it was possible to find room along the guardrail, the crowds were easily big enough to make the good spots inaccessible, certainly by bike. So I rode alongside the course for a little ways, then checked out the start area on the Museum square. It was easy to get close to riders there, as the teams' warm-up areas were right alongside the public walking areas. No way could I get on camera near the start. What I should have done, I realized after watching the last twenty minutes of this prologue back home on t.v., was first to watch a little t.v. at home to see where the cameras were pointed, then ride to the city and find those spots. Oh well, I think I got something better in the end, after also checking out the finishing area, near the old Olympic stadium. It was crowded there too, although I did catch a glimpse of two-time winner Gilberto Simoni going through the final turn. But when I started back, there was a Team Sky rider going the same way, and we ended up riding back to the start area together. It was Chris Froome (I needed to ask) who, he said, had taken it easy on purpose. We got on the topic of the risks of the course as we maneuvered over some not entirely dry and treacherous tram rails. He said these tracks had been covered, mercifully, but that he had just taken a spill in the prologue of the Tour of Romandie due to risk-taking, and once was enough. (His cautious ride today was good for 138th place, 51 seconds out of first place, but one second ahead of former winner Damiano Cunego). We then, thanks to me, got on the subject of Matthew Busche, a member of the Radio Shack team (not here) who only a year ago was still on my old team, IS Corp, winning the Wisconsin state road race (a race I used to do until two years ago, though not in the elite category). Froome didn't know him but then talked about how in his own first season in Europe, on the Barloworld team, he got selected to do a lot of big races, including even the Tour de France. Working for Mauricio Soler he even managed to finish, although now he would not recommend introducing young guys to the peloton in this way. When I asked if we would see Soler again, he said he thought so, because his current team, Caisse d'Epargne, seems to be treating him pretty well. In his first year Froome did Paris-Roubaix too, but dropped out due to a mechanical with 50K to go (that might actually have been this year, I forget). He's in this Giro to help his leader, Bradley Wiggins, who is probably quietly hoping to contend for the overall victory. Looks like he's got his work cut out for him. The last thing we talked about was Froome's teammate, Ian Stannard, who isn't on the team for this race. I just had to tell him how awed I was by Stannard's performance in this year's so-called spring classic, Brussels-Kuurne-Brussels, where the riders, as became especially clear from Stannard's post-race interview on Flemish television, were, in Danny Chew's phrase, "brutally raped by the weather." Froome remembered that, and confirmed that Stannard had needed some time fully to recover. And with that, we had reached the Museum square, the location of the Team Sky team bus. I wished him luck as he turned off, promising to watch him closely the coming three weeks. (I should have warned him about the atrocious stretch of road right in front of our house in Nederhorst den Berg, which the peloton will hit during the first hour of tomorrow's second stage, but we ran out of time). As I'll be following the race closely on Flemish tv, I'll start a Froome watch here, starting tomorrow. Among other things, this will be the perfect excuse to tune in every day. Now all I've left to consider is whether to get on Twitter, so that I can follow Froome's tweets.