The Mother of All Races

The Nove Colli is the name of the Gran Fondo of this weekend. It started and ended in Cesanatico, on the Adriatic Sea.

We (my teammates and I) arrived the afternoon before the race. We started with a nice, incredibly easy bike ride. I took pictures at random. Here are a couple. The town was gorgeous and it was great to see all of the cyclists doing their pre-race routine.

Considering the very odd weather Italy has had lately (rain in almost every stage of the Giro d'Italia, for example), I found it really strange to find this amazing town in a mid-summer-like state. Its beach-side businesses were teaming with people, the beach was full of volleyball players and sun worshipers, there was a full display of cycling companies' tents (think cross-race tent setups, but many times bigger) and temperatures where people weren't walking around in their mid-winter clothes (women are still wearing boots in Perugia, for reference). I enjoyed my first skirt-wearing days of the season.

The Nove Colli race celebrated its 40th year this year, the most historical of all Gran Fondos in the world (so I hear). It draws racers from all over Italy and Europe (and a few come from all over the world).

I fell asleep last night in the middle of putting this together. Today I feel good, but I haven't tried walking stairs yet (and I have to walk a lot of stairs to get anywhere around here!)

Here's the race summary. The race start was unreal, imagine the New York City marathon (actually it draws 35,000 people, there were 12,000 there yesterday), but almost everyone has a tricked-out Euro-cool bicycle to race. I couldn't see the starting line where I started (assuming mid-pack, but impossible to know). Fortunatlely, we had timing chips so the time starts when the cyclist rolls through the starting line.

This is a picture of what it looked like at the start...and imagine many, many other roads packed just the same as this one.

Here's another picture I found...they had one or two helicopters hovering above prior to the start. Must be how this was obtained:

Le Marche region (where the race course was) is absolutely fabulous. I loved this region from my Bike Across Italy trip with Ciclismo Classico last summer, these were very similar breath-taking areas with tons and tons of climbing (one town might be the same as one from last summer). Oh yeah, I had originally thought I'd be racing the 208 km version of the race.

The team asked me to do the short course (if you call 132 km short) because they didn't want me to trash my legs. I was disappointed not to do the long course because I wanted to see how I could survive the challenge...however, when it came time in the race to either continue on the 132 km course or take the right-hand turn for the 208 km course (this is at km 110, by the way), I was very happy to take the short route.

[Here's one picture of the great landscapes to be seen. I just looked all over the web for a good, representative of the lushness of Le Marche in this race...it's incredible, but I can't find the pictures to show it. Guess you'll have to come see it in person. This is what the descents looked like, the crowd thinned such that I wasn't scared to go fairly fast. I was happy that the corners were wide and a bit easier than those in the last Gran Fondo. All day I only saw one crash (I think someone took a corner too quickly).]

I had prepared mentally for the long course. So when it came time to race yesterday, I took all of that energy and raced as hard as I could in the short course (82 miles, 6,138 feet of climbing, took me a little less than 4 1/2 hours). Aside from the first 30 km of flat riding, it felt like we were climbing all day long. It's really weird: I only used to like criteriums, not climbing and not road races. Basically, I think I'm the opposite racer than I used to be. Long road races with climbing are AWESOME!!!



Everything in the race went great with the small frustration of congestion with too many riders on the climbs. I could have gone faster up the climbs had I not had to keep slowing down when it was impossible to pass people. All day (with 12,000 people out there) there was no one group to get with. I jumped from wheel to wheel moving up most of the time. I worked a little, too, especially at the beginning of the race where I wanted to open up my legs and this was a good place to move up positions (amazing, I thought it would be so congested at the start that moving around wouldn't be possible, but I was wrong on that).

There were hundreds of women out there (granted there are a few different classifications--it goes by age here for the most part), and I was happy to have more competition. It gave me a chance to see where I stand next to all of the other women racers in Italy (there were some pros out there, but the demographic is exactly as you'd find in a local race in the states: strong amateurs (wearing jerseys of their race teams), some there for enjoyment and some pros mixing it up).

It was almost too warm (high of probably 80 degrees), luckily the race started at 6:30 am, when it was a little chilly. I couldn't sleep the night before (we stayed at a motel near the race start, awoke at 4:30am) so I only got 2 hours in...fortunately as racers know, the sleep the night before the race isn't important, it's the sleep 2 nights before the race that counts.

I have a very specific diet pre-race and it's one that's impossible to find in Italy. The food I had the morning of the race was basically wrong. Good carbs, but bad for my system. The first 80km my stomach was really knotted up and yelping in pain. Fortunately, I don't think it slowed me down and I felt I had the energy I needed for the race. I also ate a lot during the race (gels). With so many racers, if one one wanted more water, one needed to pull over, fill up the water bottle and get back on the road. The food stops were said to be very generous...there were clearly people enjoying themselves at the stops. I stopped once for a bottle refill, but that was it.

This is a picture of one of four of the food/water/prosciutto/who-knows-what-else stops.

Besides the constantly amazing vistas, the waaaay coolest part of the race was the 18% climb that was part of the Giro d'Italia 2 days prior to this Gran Fondo. On that climb was PANTANI painted all over the road, there were tons of spectators, an announcer, music...it was the next-best thing to actually racing in the Giro. It hurt, but I was passing guys. Seriously, it is such a rush to pass men who are young, fit and there to race. Here's a picture that a race photographer took of one part of that climb, but it looked way cooler from my perspective. And yes, I saw a few people walking, too. It was steep enough that if you got stuck in traffic, it could be a little tricky to get going.

Again, as in the other races, I found the guys to be great to race with; every now and then I heard "brava!" from one of them or the spectators. The Italian language is great with the masculine/feminine: when I hear brava and I'm the only woman in sight, they might as well be calling me by name. Bravo! is for telling a guy "good job" and bravi is for a group of guys.

By the last 20km, a group had formed that was fast with very strong guys, we were cranking at 27-29 mph (with lots of short pauses to get through the roundabouts...there are very few lights in Italy, many roundabouts). We were flying towards the Adriatic during the last ~10km and the smell and feel of the sea became more obvious as the finish drew near, what an awesome arrival!!! I'm having small problems with photos at the moment...imagine the hugest finishing area you can with multiple banners and tons of spectators, etc. with the sea on one side and the town on the other and you have the finish. <>

We crossed the line sprinting it out, I came in with legs to spare, it is such a terrific feeling to finish a race sprinting, especially one as epic as yesterday. I got a rose (all women did) and everyone got a medal for finishing...cool, eh? The swag bag had a jersey and cycling gloves, recovery drink, energy bars and other useful samples for cyclists. After the race, my teammates and I enjoyed a pasta feast...we were glowing from great racing for each of us. Entry fee for the race was 50 euro. Compare this to a 45-minute criterium that costs $35. I'm really going to have a hard time paying that when I get home and leaving a race without a pasta party will be a major downer.

This pic (below) of the Selle Italia monster bus is simply here because it's cool. It is unreal to be at the heart of cycling in this country. Cycling has its roots here, people are super supportive of it, tons and tons of people do it. The culture surrounding cycling here is vastly different from that in the US. That being said, I'm still understanding it so I can't put it in words yet exactly how, but it clearly is.

To finish the story, I came in 10th place amongst the women in my category (ages 19-39, I believe it is) and 994 overall. So 993 men and women of all categories were faster than me...but I was faster than 5,424.

Here's the view from the ride home. This is in the vicinity of the race, but a little further south. The next Gran Fondo (in a week and a half) will be in this area. It's going to have even more climbing.

It was a great day and weekend. I feel so fortunate to have such a cool team and friends such that we could do this thing together. Definitely one to remember always! So wish I could share this with my teammates and friends from the US, thinking about you guys!!!