Giro d’Italia 2013 – Stage 16: Valloire – Ivrea 238km. We’re Here to See Intxausti Win

Wednesday morning, we’re at the Giro d’Italia, it’s 09:55 and on the ‘Milano by-pass’ the average speed is around 10 mph.

You only think you’ve seen traffic jams ’til you come to Northern Italy.

And it’s not helped by the fact that everyone thinks that it’s their private fiefdom; the standard of driving is dire.

We arrived late on the Monday rest day and after much messing around at the airport deciphered that our hire car was through an agency, so we had to tour the car hire offices ’til we got the right one.

Fortunately the chap on the ‘Firefly’ desk had spent time working for IBM at Greenock and was able to practice his Scots on us, his ‘ye awrite, Big Man?’ was practically flawless.

The hotel was sterile but the breakfast was nice and we spent yesterday morning getting our credentials and just finding the ‘Giro vibe.’

And remembering the foibles of Italian life – you don’t go to the back of a queue if you’re Italian, you slide in front of the idiot Scotsmen ’til they say; ‘scusa!’

And chemists don’t sell disposable razors; you only get those in super markets – and that’s why I look like Ned Kelly.

But the sun is out, the coffee is smooth and you’re never far from a Gazzetta.

Not the decaffeinated, slimmed down UK version but the full Monty, colour edition – Tuesday’s was the rest day issue featuring big interviews with Scarponi and Nibali.

Stage 16 was a hard one to call, a big climb early, not too savage for much of the rest of the day but a ‘video nasty’ in the finale which was must to tough for the pure sprinters.

We set up camp on the climb – the Andrate – at the beer tent to watch the comings and goings.

Despite it being a Tuesday afternoon, the Tifosi were out in force and the beer was flowing well.

Needless to say, we had to have one, or two…

But we “passed” on the burgers – for once in our careers we’d made the finish town Press Centre Buffet and topped up on ham, cheese, vegetable lasagne, fruit salad and beautiful sweet, sparkling wine.

If you were of a mind you could graze the buffet and then slump down in front of the press centre big screen TV monitors, every day – and that could be your Giro.

And is the way, for many journos.

Not us though, you have to be ‘out there’ on the percorso.

There was a big screen monitor in our beer tent and it was apparent that the break would fail – there was no co-operation, they were all too busy attacking each other.

By the time the race reached us – one kilometre from the third category Montagne points line – it was the ‘Bigs’ at the head.

Nibali looks more and more like a man in charge – cool, calm, collected.

Scarponi, Uran and Evans were there but don’t have the aura that the Sicilian does.

As the race previews said, it was always going to be tough to call the winner; Intxausti would have been on long odds in the morning.

But win he did, to give Movistar their third stage win of the race.

And Intxausti is ninth – but it’s entirely feasible he could go top six; but even if he doesn’t, the Giro has been a triumph for the Spanish team.

Big loser was Santambrogio, he was dropped on the Andrate and had to chase all the way home, fluo yellow jersey flapping in the breeze.

A familiar – to us – but anonymous face to the Tifosi, was that of Iljo Keisse. From ‘Kuipke King’ to ‘gruppetto Joe’ it’s not all glamour, even if you do wear a QuickStep jersey.

Two miles to Carravaggio, birthplace of the painter of the same name and the start for Stage 17.

The Giro Bible lists, ‘bread of the dead‘ as one of the local delicacies – we might pass on that one…

ciao, ciao.

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Result - Giro d'Italia 2013 - Stage 16: Valloire - Ivrea 238km