Hello from the sunny Adriatic coastal town of Forli where we have a little later start today before stage 4 of the GiroDonne. We have had long (i.e. 280k!) post race transfers after the stages which has not left much else apart from massage, shower, dinner and bed upon reaching our hotel.
It’s been full gas from day one with three tough stages to start the tour… My job in the team is a domestique for our team leader for this tour Mara Abbott (A domestique is a road bicycle racer who works for the benefit of his team and leader. The French domestique translates as “servant”.) This means I protect her from taking wind in the bunch, help to move her up into position etc
Day one was filled with heat, humidity, nerves, crashes and a technical pave finish.. it was short but fast, 800m ascent in total requiring super attention in a nervous bunch.
Day two was straight into the climbing starting at a ski town at 1500m elev we made a total of 1700m vertical in 91km.. all down then all up with an incredibly fast rainy descent, through fog and tunnels and again crashes. I was in the breakaway for most of the first climb before dropping back to remain with Mara.
Yesterday was a cracker stage with 12 short climbs to total 1800m vertical over 104km (2k the longest) one little 24% surprise thrown in at the 80k (yellow below) mark was incredible… we all rode a strong race (Claudia making a strong attack below)
My team and I area all happy with the way things are going and looking forward to the 7 stages ahead! Thats all for now.. time to go and eat some more pasta!!
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