Friday, March 29, 2024

Giro d’Italia 2015 – Stage 16, Pinzolo – Aprica; the Mortirolo!

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HomeDiariesGiro d'Italia 2015 - Stage 16, Pinzolo - Aprica; the Mortirolo!

Bassano del GrappaYou forget how gruesome the climbs are here in Italy.

I’d never been over the Mortirolo before but it was an eye opener – 11.9 kilometres (that’s more than seven miles) with an AVERAGE gradient of just under 12% and a maximum of 18%.

Lance reckoned it was the toughest climb he ever raced and ‘Bert’ was on 34 x 30; ’nuff said!’

Mortirolo
Giant-Alpecin mechanics get the 32 teeth sprockets on. Photo©Martin Williamson

On most of the big climbs there are sections where it eases a little; not on this swine, it’s unrelenting and unforgiving – ask Fabio Aru …

Mortirolo
Fabio Aru signs on. Photo©Martin Williamson

And on the subject of As-ta-na who’s this dude Landa ?

There were some nice results as an amateur then three years with his home team, Euskaltel where he won a stage in the Tour of Burgos and finished 69th and then 39th in the Vueltas of 2012 and 2013.

This is his second year with the Kazakhs; in 2014 he won a stage in Trentino, was 34th in the Giro and 28th in the Vuelta.

But this year he’s really sparked; a stage in the Pais Vasco, 2nd on GC in Trentino and now two Giro stages and the prospect of a podium finish in Milano.

There comes a day when a decent rider becomes a good one – the day when those guys who used to give you a kicking in training are suddenly struggling to hold your wheel.

But we’re all so cynical now and the trouble is that most of the rumours turn out to be true – let’s hope that Senor Landa is the real deal.

But we have Tom Robinson’s 1978 hit, ‘Too Good to be True’ cued on the second turntable, just in case.

We flew into Bologna on Monday and it was a fair old drive for Martin up to Pinzolo and our credentials – those life transforming bits of plastic which are a bit like putting on Superman’s cape giving you powers of access that those behind the barriers can only dream about.

the Mortirolo
The ‘creds’ go onto the car and we’re all set. Photo©Ed Hood

Putting a piece together after getting up at 03:00 am, a flight and all that driving and no stage to discuss isn’t the easiest but we made a fist of it and lapsed into a coma after out pizza.

Yesterday we’d hoped to get up on to the Mortirolo before ‘closing time’ for press accredited vehicles at 13:00 – after that it’s just team cars, race vehicles and polis.

But we arrived at a roundabout – which, unknowns to us – where there were direction arrows for stages 16 AND 17, you can guess which ones we followed and were half way up this huge climb when we thought, ‘nut !’

The doleful Giro guys at the bottom of the the Passo weren’t having any of our pleas so we adopted ‘VeloVeritas Emergency Strategy #1′ – find a bar.

Mortirolo
Astana pull the front of the race along – but where’s Bert? Photo©Martin Williamson

We watched the race on TV – not knowing that Alberto had been ambushed – then dived outside to watch the faces go past.

Alberto’s poker face was concealing anger but those behind couldn’t hide the pain of this brutally hard race which was just about to get much harder.

Mortirolo
Bert’s team do what they’re here for and close the gap as much as possible before the climb. Photo©Martin Williamson
Mortirolo
It’s not an easy race, or stage. Photo©Martin Williamson
Mortirolo
Nathan Brown chases to get back on before the Mortirolo. Photo©Martin Williamson
Mortirolo
Luca Paolini now just aims to get to the finish, his work done for the day. Photo©Martin Williamson

We jumped the tail end of the race for our trek over the beast – there perhaps weren’t as many fans up there as we’d have expected but there are very few parking spacers to be found up there and ‘wall to wall’ campers it certainly was not.

Mortirolo
Kevin Rèza chats to Francis Mouray in the grupetto. Photo©Martin Williamson
Mortirolo
A glance across to the wall of forest and the Mortirolo climb. Photo©Martin Williamson

The descent was a total ‘radj oot’ as we had to keep pace with the team cars on the long run to the start of the last climb to Aprica – as Phil Lynott might say; ‘I still think those cats are crazy!

Mortirolo
The wee hire car we have for the week did well grinding up the Mortirolo in 1st gear. Photo©Martin Williamson

Almost time for those post-Mortirolo sound bites at the start, so ciao, ciao!

Mortirolo
The Madonna di Campiglio statue. Photo©Martin Williamson
Ed Hood and Martin Williamson
Ed Hood and Martin Williamson
Ed and Martin, our top team! They try to do the local Time Trials, the Grand Tours and the Classics together to get the great stories written, the quality photos taken, the driving done and the wifi wrestled with.

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