Giro di Italia

Today I got to see my first professional bike race, and it was the 100th Anniversary of the Giro di Italia (Ride of Italy). First impresstions: I was overwhelmed with how fast the racers were riding, and equally impressed with how tight of a formation they could hold in the Peleton. There must have been close to 100 riders in the span of the average city bus. What was interesting about the experience, though, was how underwhelming it was... Remember the scene from Indiana Jones (raiders of the lost arc) where an arab swordsman threatens Indy for at least a minute, with intricate sword swirls and such? And Indy just shoots him... All that lead up for a split second, and undramatic finish. Well, ditto for the race. We get off the highway, near our house, and see a crowd formed up where the Poliza have cordoned off the street that they'll be racing on. As time goes by, a number of Poliza cars race by, ensuring the route is clear, and a few vans selling official 'Giro di Italia' t-shirts cruise by. The crowd continues to grow, with an increasing number of the locals buying shirts and such from the 'Giro' vans driving by. To add to the suspense, the crowd down the way starts cheering, just to see an old italian man riding his beater of a bike down the street. Ha! That 'Gotcha' happens a few times. Finally, team vehicles start cruising by, one of the most impressive being the Mavic (French wheel maker) vehicle: an all yellow sports-stationwagon (they don't have these in the States, unfortunately) with all yellow Cannondale racing bikes featuring all yellow Mavic wheels and all yellow seats/saddles. Looked like a chariot of gold. Then more Poliza cars and motorcycles. Then the lead group of cyclists race by, about 20 or so, with the crowd going nuts. About 3 seconds behind the lead group is the main body of the racers. I look frantically for Lance Armstrong in both groups, however my eyes and brain are not able to sort visual data as quickly as the group of cyclist ride by...as all this occurs in less than, oh, 10 seconds. Everyone then hopped in their cars, as the surrounding areas roads had become a parking lot. The area cleared out very quickly; it would have taken at least a half an hour in the states for the drivers to clear the area, but the Italians were able to get back to 'normal' very quickly. Simply amazing to see. Crazy how underwhelming it was, because of the speed involved, and my small perspective of the race. So many kilometers, and I saw mearly a few hundred meters of it. Overall, the experience was great. I'll be there again next year!

I found a couple Italian bike shops. I've been looking for a good bike shop, as my bikes arrived from the US of A in need of some minor repairs. The last shop I found, your standard fare of bike shop, does a great job on repairs. They trued my wheels and adjusted my brakes for about 15 euros, which I thought was a pretty good deal. Interesting thing about the bike shop, was that it took forever to find it. When I searched Google for the shop, it showed me one location, while the shop's website provided yet another location. Both locations that were provided by the internet were about 4 miles off of target! Crazy... I had to talk to locals and call the shop about 12 times to find it. Kind of frustrating, but they do good work, so I made sure to save the location in my GPS so to never lose them again! ...I thought it was interesting though that the bike shop's actual location was so far removed from where the internet placed them. I wonder if the address coding that works so well in the US for locations, isn't quite perfected here. I wonder if parts of the world should be locating business and homes by latitude and longitude. Probably more accurate where the government hasn't spend the time and money to regrid and rename streets for the benefit of GPS direction finding.

Otherwise, the other shop is very unusual, for an American. It's located closer to where I live, and they not only sell bikes manufactured by your standard European bike companies, but they also manufacture and sell their own line of bikes. The shop is pretty small, and they weld frames in the back area. They weld all their bikes out of steel, with a few of the high end road frames including carbon fiber seat/chain stays. I imagine the carbon components are purchased from a supplier and just glued in place. Overall, it's pretty interesting, as they create not only your typical fast looking Italian road bike, but also a slew of other bikes ranging from kids bikes, city bikes, tricycles and large cargo bikes. Pretty cool. Check out their site:

http://www.derosabike.it/

Yep, it's De Rosa bikes. Not the De Rosa you may have seen in the states, though. That De Rosa is from Milano in the north. This is yet another De Rosa di Pozzuoli. Interesting how the European style of manufacturing lives on (vs. American/Mass production), with local craftsmen building product for their local customer base. You'll notice the decal on the bikes highlight the geographic location of manufacture, unlike most products.