Giro d'Italia

Well I have now officially been to two of the three "Grand Tours" of cycling. I have now been to the Giro D'italia and Le Tour de France, but still need to make it to the Vuelta a Espana. Today I made a quick (because of finals it had to be quick) trip to Ferrara to see the 14th stage of the Giro d'Italia kick off. So far none of the stages had been at all close to Bologna, but today's stage started in Ferrara which is only 30 mins by train. So within just a couple hours I was able to go to Ferrara, watch the riders warm up, see them off, and be back in Bologna to study again! In Fact while I am writing this the riders are several hours away from finishing still!

The 14th Stage runs from Ferrara to Asolo. If I had lots of time today I would of loved to watch it from on top of the Monte Grapa Mountain, as those always look like really fun spots to watch cycling. While this was definitely not like watching the Tour de France finish in Paris it still was a lot of fun. Still the road the cyclists even started on in Ferrara was cobblestone just the Champs de Elysee in Paris.

Warm up area in Ferrara, all the cyclists would come by here

The Italian national champion (that is why his jersey looks like the Italian flag) stopped to sign some autographs and take some photos

All the cyclists at the start

Waiting for the stage to start. We were literally standing right on the road with nothing between us and the bikers (I almost got hit by a bike actually! you can see a bike come really close to me in the video later)

Team Garmin's (an American team) support car with all the extra bikes

Instead of taking pictures of the start of the race I took a video. So you can see how close I am to the action (probably too close) , but it was really cool. As you can see since the stage only just started they riders are not going that fast yet. No doubt they also want to save some energy for the big mountain climb as that is where this stage will be won or lost later in the day.

Overall it was a really cool to see a part of the 2010 Giro, I would love to see more of it, but that is life, enjoy what you can. This will almost for sure be my last excursion here in Italy as I have a couple more things to finish up for Finals and then fly to Morocco this coming Thursday! It has been a fun year in Italy and this was a great last trip!