From inside the Giro d’Italia peloton
Canadian pro Christian Meier looks back at the difficult first week
Nine stages done and 12 to go. We have arrived at the first rest day for the Giro. It has been a testing race already and many in the peloton have been anxiously awaiting a recovery day. This year’s race has already been much more demanding than the past year’s edition. In 2012, we had a first week of mostly sprints and a pretty straightforward team time trial. But this year, there has already been many demanding hilly stages and bad weather to boot. For this first week, my team was mostly focused on our sprinter Matt Goss. Pieter Weening was pushing among the general classification contenders looking for opportunities to possibly jump into the pink jersey. Although Gossy is one of the world’s best sprinters, he needs a special kind of day to really shine. When up against Cavendish in a straight line, most will loose out, so we really focus on Gossy’s strengths, which are getting over hills that most sprinters will struggle on. On some of the early flat stages, we didn’t commit as much as the other teams. But on the day that really suited him (Stage 5 maybe; it all seems like a blur), we really committed. I had to do 150 km of riding on the front to chase the day’s breakaway. The rest of the boys waited for the end of the stage to really put the pressure on during the tougher finale. We had all the other sprinters on the ropes. Things were lining up well until a rider crashed in the last corner and took Gossy down. It was a hard pill for him to swallow as this was really the perfect day for him and the team had committed everything down to the last drop of energy. That’s biking race though and we move on. Next up, we are looking to Stages 12 and 13 as opportunities for results.
The Giro is quite a race. For those watching on TV, you will have seen the chaos that has affected the top of the leaderboard: crazy descents into the finishes combined with wet roads sending GC riders sliding. The other day, Vincenzo Nibali crashed on the way down to the finish but it just seemed normal in this chaotic race. Some days it feels like more of a triathlon, riders in ones and twos just getting to the line. The time trial a few days ago was absolutely spectacular. At my tempo-just-ride-through-it pace, I had time to take in some of the amazing views and enjoy tearing along the sinewy roads on a closed course. I am sure many others were just staring at the road ahead of them. For me, saving the legs is paramount. My role sees me doing just enough to get my team duties completed so I can save everything I can for the days we really have to commit to our leaders or the day I might happen to find myself in a breakaway.
As tough as this race has been, we haven’t even hit the real mountains yet. The Giro is the most beautiful race of the year and I always try to take in as much as I can of the beautiful countryside. The food has been fantastic: risotto, prosciutto and fresh buffalo mozzarella keeping us fed well and the coffee has been good enough to hold me over until I get back to my Rocket. Only another two weeks to go.
Christian Meier is also taking a photo a day at the 2013 Giro (like the one at the top of this article). See the complete collection to date.
