Today was the alleged 'easy day', only 45km long. What we forgot to factor in was the 40 degree heat and the 2.5km of VERTICAL climbing. The heat was fierce, but it takes more than that stuff to beat Tango & Cash! We had to pull up long long hills past a few ski lifts today, which is pretty painful stuff, and we were not the only ones today to cuss the race organiser, Uli Stanciu.
Part of our trouble was down to the NI Chest, Heart & Stroke T-Shirt that we carried to the top for a photo. It weighed nearly 200 grammes, which is a lot over a day, and at one stage we nearly ate it.The daily wheelie over the finish line was pulled with more finesse today, and we actually made it over the line without falling over.
Highlight of the day was after the race. The showers had a long queue of Germans, who have lots of skin and take ages, so all the Irish dudes stripped off and gave the locals something to talk about in the form of a golden shower in the fountain in the street.
Tomorrow is our last day of cycling (probably ever). We finish the race in Limone sul Garda mid-afternoon tomorrow (DV), and then it will be kisses and hugs and pizza and beer. Our long-suffering women are on their way to see us, just to check we are actually doing the Transalp, so we will see them tomorrow afternoon when we finish.
I hear we are in the Belfast Telegraph today (Friday) too, so the PR machine rolls inexorably on.
Happy birthday to Tommy, who is the big 40 today. He found his climbing legs for his birthday, and gave poor Andy a roasting.
Yours in pasta,
The Material Guys!
7 comments:
News Report: Italy
This just in: Local Italian Policia have picked-up two Irish hooligan "cyclists", following a traveling circus..er ah "transalp challenge bicycle race" for stalking, harrassing and brutally beating two of the circus-folk...er ah cyclists (tourists). The victims of the crime were a pair of gentlemen known as Tango & Cash. Eye witnesses of the alleged beatings stated the "Big American" chap suffered severe back spasms and the "Brit" suffered a carreer ending broken leg (boot-leg beer runner as primary income source). The two Irish hooligans were discoverd to have stolen Tango&Cash identification in their possession. Itailian Officials are still investigating as "other" shower-related crimes have been attributed to this raucous duo! Stand by for further updates.
Darren O. - US Ambassador to crimes perpetrated under the Tango&Cash name worldwwide?
Doing a lot of showering together these days? - mmm. Usually in this type of movie the two male leads have at least one emotional bonding moment prior to the finale - tonight's the night!
Onwards to the lake.
You've made it - proud of you Andy! Glad you've all made it to the end safe and sound - from Andy's younger and better looking siser in law!
Nice one, lads :-) Look forward to seeing you back in the Emerald Isle, and seeing the photos up on the blog.
This event sounds like the 1999 Challenger Trophy (what a year !), only not as tough since you don't have any unfit people on the team to carry............in fact if you had trained as hard for Challenger we'd still be going !!
Congratulations guys!
It was good forward thinking to get all those crashes out of the way early in the year when it didn't matter quite so much.
Could I suggest that the wives hire a few bikes and then you could all go for a big cycle!
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