Bilekaville

Giro Stage 8
Today is the first real TT. Not counting the silly Prologue TT this one is a real TT. It is 45ks long with a small hill/rise in it.
I was to follow Jason (first rider of our team today) in a van with Elvio so we would have a “BASE” at the end of the stage for riders and bikes after the race.
On the downhill portion Dave Zabriski came flying by at Mach 5. I thought for sure he was going to crash he was going so fast through the turns. I later found out he won the stage and that is cool. It is good to see Dave excel after his horrific crash in Redlands “04” and now on his way to the top of the European peloton.
At the bottom of the hill was huge signs in honor of Bileka. He lives in this region and trains here with the locals. So they came out to cheer for their adopted hero. There was even a club in town that had the exact same color graphic scheme of out Discovery jersey. Just with the club name and club sponsors in place of our sponsors logos. Too funny.
They call Paulo “El Falcone” or “the Falcon” for his flight down hills. Today’s TT had 4 sectors for comparing the riders intermediate times. One was from the start to the bottom of the hill. Another was from the bottom of the hill to the top of the hill. Another was from the top to the bottom on the back side. And finally from the bottom of the hill to the finish line. Well, Paulo was second fastest on the down hill sector. Only 2 seconds faster than the fastest descender of the day. There was not enough time to pre-ride the course so Sean Drove Paulo and Tom to go over the course. Given the fact that Paulo NEVER pre-rode the course (inc. the Downhill sector) AND the fact that fastest guy down the hill lives there and trains on the course, makes the fact that Paulo being only 2 seconds behind on that sector even more impressive.

CClinton

Owner of Promechanics.com and long time professional race mechanic.