Stage 7

Stage7

Last day of riding in Italy! We are so lucky the weather has been there for us.. Sun, sun and more sun...we are in the high 30's which on a down hill is not so bad but climbing a 27km pass is not as fun... Hydrate was the word of the day... Felt great this morning, it is surprising that after 6 days of riding that you actually do seem to ride onto better fitness. So back to the 27km pass... this was the last pass we were going to have to climb to finish our journey through the ALP's  to reach Arco in Italy..... They changed the stage from 88 to 98km due to some constuction which gave us a little more of a warm up before the big climb... We decided this being the last day we would all climb at our pace and wait at the top, a good idea... Chris and I at the top hooked up with 5 of the riders that we had not had much of a chance to ride with during the trip, Paul and Graham with Red Truck, Jeremy with Speed Theory and Jo and Karen from England..(these girls could desend!)  we ripped down the pass knowing that at the bottom we only had less then 40 km to go..  Going into the very last switch back I miss judge how sharp it was and had to slow down in a hurry to be able to make it around...as I made it around I heard tires skid then a tire blow, I turned around just on time to see a guy hit the ground and slide accoss the corner I had just made it around and slammed into the road side rail.... Gary had caught us by the bottom and had a front row seat as the guy had come around him with to much speed and took a bad line into the corner... What a waste to crash that badly with so little left to the finish.. We saw him later with a full arm cast on and lots of road rash...sad.  Paul, Graham, Chris and myself got into a small pack and tempo'd the last 30ish km with a few some climbs that were left... The last 15km were pretty much down hill and quite beautiful as we desended down into Arco, o yah and very warm! We passed two castles which excited me as I up to that point I had not seen one that I knew I was going to be able to visit...... We came into the finishing shute feeling quite satisfied that we were all able to make it to Arco ... And although some of the team had to dig into the (as Chris put it)  suit case of courge several times during the seven days we all had a great time..  Proud of the whole group to make it to the finish.. 

Cheers
Jeremy