Unintentional police escort
Giro stage 4
Today was a flat stage and so far we have started and finished in pretty small cities. We are often on roads that are barely two cars wide. I wouldn’t say they are two lanes wide as there are often no lane dividers and it is really difficult to drive two cars side by side (in the same direction OR in opposite directions).
Returning to our hotel last night, we were going the opposite direction of the races final kilometers. So narrow that it was almost a door scraper as we tried to get out of the city just as giro workers were tearing down the steel spectator barricades. All the while cars were coming uphill (slight incline) towards the finish to presumably get home.
Today’s transfer to the hotel was 100k. To get the riders back ASAP we put them in cars and bikes in the bus so the bus could go at a leisure pace (naturally slow) and we could sort of drive the riders back at a faster pace without the bus as a speed anchor. But again cities were small, roads were narrow and traffic was hell with all the spectators. We were crawling along when we heard sirens. It was a while till the sirens got close but when the did I saw the race police in a big caravan. I also saw a few team cars behind and when I did I gassed it to get behind them all.
All in all there were about 30 or so police motos, about a dozen police cars and finally one police van. Behind that was team car after team car after team car. About 25 or so team cars were riding the wave. The police were cutting a path down the middle of bumper to bumper traffic going Mach 5. And all of our team cars were following doing the same. I’m sure it cut about 40 minutes off our transfer time.
Other teams at our hotel: Liberty Siguros
Word of the day – Fugo/Fugitivo
In English it means fugitive. In cycling terms it is rider or group of riders that attacked and are ahead of the main/big bunch of racers. Specifically it is the Italian term for the Breakaway.