It’s now 19.45 on Saturday evening here at the Giro d’Italia 2007, and we’re sat in the car en route La Maddalena, listening to The Pioneers, ‘Let your yeah be yeah‘ – crucial, John.
The ferry port at Maddalena is grid-locked, but we’ve got our reggae and a cold Dreher beer, so waiting for the ferry isn’t so bad.
We shared the ferry out with CSC and Saunier, but they are long-gone on the first ferry out. It’s been a cracking day, weather and gig-wise. I think we broke our record for looking at bicycles today – around five hours.
Our faves were De Rosa, Ridley and Time; the last-named largely for the amazing graphics.
We also grabbed an impromptu interview with Rosella Signora of Sidi, hopefully that will be up on site before too long.
I was really pleased with myself – I managed to transfer all the bike pics from the camera to the laptop in the car at the TTT start. I’ve been using my new Finepix; my faithful wee Canon packed-up the other day. I’m chuffed with the new tool, even though it consumes batteries like Dave does beer.
I had to clear the memory in preparation for the main event of the day – following a team in the TTT, but suffice to say that it was a great experience.
You only think you can ride a bike until you follow the likes of Cancellara and Zabriskie in a gig like that. The speeds they corner and descend at are awe inspiring.
Like I said on yesterday, it was a really technical course, not particularly fit for purpose; the TTT is all about speed and precision, the classic example being the Tour two years ago when Zabriskie crashed on the run-in, what a race.
However, to repeat myself, it was a marvellous experience: Dave handled it like a real pro, keeping pace with the deranged CSC drivers all the way.
We grabbed a load of pics of Cancellara and the others at the finish then headed for the salle de presse. We had our report and most of our pics in to Martin before the last team finished.
Dave is taking to this press life well and had the buffet sussed within minutes!
There’s no point in false modesty, we did predict a Liquigas win; and so it proved, although it looked as if Di Luca was none too chuffed at Gasparotto taking the sprint – and that coveted pink jersey.
We’re off the ferry now and headed for Olbia and the digs. It’s the first road stage tomorrow, we’ll be there!
