The routine of a normal race day: At dinner the night before the race, we are each given a daily schedule for the following day that is a print out with the following fields filled in with times at which each is to take place or whatever other info: wake-up, breakfast (time and either team or individual), bags out, depart for race, transfer by (bike or car), team meeting, race start, start location, race distance, est race finish, finish location, transfer to hotel by, hotel name, hotel location, dinner (time and either team or individual), other notes. This simple piece of photocopied paper puts everyone on the same page and keeps the staff from having to repeat the answers to the same questions all night.
Race strategy: Our strategy for the day is laid out by our director, Massimo Podenzana in the team meeting. Usually this happens the morning of the race as soon as we get on sight and before anyone leaves the RV. Podenzana speaks very little English and I speak even less Italian, so a couple times throughout each meeting he pauses to let teammate Alessandro Bazzana translate for the 3 of us that still think Italian sounds like enthusiastic Spanish (besides Ty Magner, the third is Aussie Ben King). For every race we've done so far we have essentially the same plan: "Everyone except (so-and-so) cover the early breaks if there are more than 3 guys in it." Who "so-and-so" is depends on the course and who's riding well. That person is sort of saved for the finish and doesn't have to expend the energy of covering the often fruitless attacks at the beginning of the race.
In Carnago, the one day race we did, that guy was Jure Kocjan. He was 4th there last year and he sprint real nice. He ended up 6th this time.
On stage one here in Settimana Lombarda we had no real go-to guy for the finish because the finish was at the top of a 12km climb, so the jist of what Podenzana said was "don't miss the early break." Here, big boy Lazlo Bodrogi took care of that (just as he had at Carnago). They got caught right before the last climb and Bazzana ended up 26th. He's reeeally skinny.
Stage two was really flat so sprinter Andrea Grendene was designated leader. I guess the legs weren't there so Bazzana went for it and got 9th. Yes, our best climber has also fared the best in every sprint.... whadda ya gonna do. Ty managed a 22nd on the day, so that was cool to see him work his way up there.
Stage three, today, was relatively flat until a 6km climb that summited 15 or 20km from the finish. I think naturally Bazzana was the guy to work for here. About 50 or 60 guys made it over that last climb in the lead and he pulled off an 8th place finish.
Ugh, enough for now. Gotta get up early, and an episode of Bones is calling my name before I go to sleep (just realized that moments ago I watched the latest episode of Entourage so now I have seen every episode in existence). Stay tuned for more! Maybe I'll actually tell how the races are going for me personally in the next entry!! How exciting!!!
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