Vince Gee

Couldn’t you have told us a little earlier?

Giro stage 15
Up at 6:00
Breakfast: 6:30
Depart hotel: 8:50 (by bike)
Race start:10:50
Last night just after we finished the bikes it started to rain a bit. Not too hard but rain is rain and not a fun thing to work in. If it still is raining in the AM that is. And upon waking up, the rain had indeed continued all night and into the morning here in the beautiful city of Livigno.
With the rain falling last night, the directors (ours at least) asked if there was any consideration for the weather and if it would have an affect on how/where we started the stage. The jury of commissaries said they did not think there would be any change.
Yesterday’s stage was only one road here and one road out. Difficult for team busses to get to yesterday’s and today’s finish unless they went
WELL in advance of the race. Basically eliminating having it at the start of today’s stage. Since our bus would have had a hard time getting to the finish of the stage here in Livigno, we decided to send it on to the finish of today’s stage. So our bus is in the city of Lissone (near Milan) waiting at a hotel. It will then drive to that stage finish this AM. Actually many teams figured the same thing and sent their busses onto that city/stage finish. With this in mind and the start being only 3k from our hotel our plan was to ride to the start of the stage instead of the customary bus ride to the start that ALL teams usually do. That plan had been thought of days in advance of today’s start. But who would have factored in bad weather.
With the bad weather we decided to have the riders ride to the start much later than we scheduled so they would not have to sit around in the rain. But, Lorenzo and I drove to the start at our normal time to see if there was any changes. According to the commissaries, the start time/place would not be changed. Even with the rain coming down relentlessly. Again it was not raining hard but consistently. At this point it was still 45 or so minutes to the start.
As our riders arrived just 15 minutes before the start, the commissaries decided to change the start time/place dues to “bad weather.” Thanks a lot guys!!! So all the (soaked) riders piled into team cars and drove to Tirano at the base of the GPM. Basically eliminating the dangerous wet downhill (after the only climb). Almost all teams were scrambling a bit because we all had our busses go on to today’s finish. So everyone crammed into team cars and drove up the GPM (the Cat 2 climb – Forcola di Livigno) and down the back side. The stage now turns into a sprinter stage. On the plus side for us it means a little less work to defend the jersey since the sprinter teams will do it now that the climb had been eliminated.
To the Commissaries: Regarding the stage (new) start. Couldn’t you tell us a bit earlier?

CClinton

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