Great day for racing

Or anything really. Jing showed the Midas touch again when it came to the weather, getting her racing finished before a wet and stormy afternoon. Saturday dawned warm and clear and we headed out to the course nice and early to avoid the parking issues we experienced the day before for the time trial at Ostia. We were sharing a tent in the pit area with Greece and Israel, but neither nation showed up so we shared the tent with the Japanese team who spilled over from next door. Jing and I rode a couple of laps of the shortened course, which proved quite different to the description provided on the World Cup website! Instead of one short climb out of the finishing straight, the entire 5km circuit, other than the start/finish straight, was either up or down, combined with sharp corners and dubious surfaces. The most exciting part was a long fast descent at about half way around ending in an almost hairpin bend and straight onto a reasonably steep climb about 400m long. Jing's raced in a combined C2-C3 category with nine starters - seven C2 and two C3. After lap 1, two of the C2s had lost contact. During lap 3 C3 Schindler and C2 Jones attacked together and split the race wide open. A lone Czech C2 remained close but the rest of the field was left to time trial home. Jing produced her best performance of the "Italian Campaign" to finish 5th C2, only 7 minutes off the pace in a 40km race on the most difficult course encountered. With racing over, we took the opportunity on Monday to visit VIlla d'Este in Tivoli, high above Rome, but less than an hour's drive away. The villa and gardens, set on the side of a virtual cliff, we're created by Cardinal Ippolito il d'Este around 1560. The Villa normally features running water and fountains throughout the gardens but due to recent heavy rain, all the water features were turned off. The gardens were still magnificent though. Now we have to come back to reality and pack bikes for the trip home. Ciao for now.

Ring roads and Roma

It's been a busy few days since racing concluded in northern Italy. Of the two days we stayed in the Piacenza region after the racing, one was very wet and the other very nice, so on the averages we did ok I guess. The best day of all was Wednesday - warm and sunny and not much wind. Unfortunately we spent the entire day on the road, driving to Rome in preparation for the World Cup. It was a long day but we saw some amazing landscapes. We only managed to get a few photos but it's not possible to upload them with this system. The drive is very easy, dual carriageway all the way and average speeds in excess of 130k/h, and we were constantly being overtaken by an interesting array of Mercedes, BMWs and Range Rovers! We started on flat straight multi- carriageways, then moved into tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. The "slow" lane was bumper to bumper semi trailers broken occasionally with slow moving camper vans. We passed through flat open fields and narrow mountain passes. Navigating Rome has been quite an experience, but so far we've managed to find our way to everywhere we've had to go, albeit with the occasional unplanned detour! Today we travelled to the nearby sea port of Ostia, which lies just to the south of Rome's International airport. This was the location of the Rome World Cup Time Trials. They were originally scheduled to be run on the same circuit as the road races in central Rome, but I'm guessing that with 34 nations and 274 cyclists participating and the time trials being on a Friday, the logistics became impossible. The course was a flat and windy 4.7km rectangular circuit right on the water front. The temperature topped out at around 31 degrees and there was no shade to be had anywhere. Jing rode off at 2.12pm and rode a strong race, closer to the pointy end than in previous outings but not strong enough to influence the podium. Full results are available at www.uci.ch - go to para cycling then the world cup tab (also can't currently copy in links). Tomorrow the first lot of road races will be held on a 5km circuit not far from the Colosseum. The course features a sharp but reasonably short hill about 200 m from the start line, so the action should be full on right from the gun. The C1-3 women start at 9.02am and will complete 8 laps of the circuit. Nine riders have nominated for the race so it's a good field. Hopefully I'll get a chance to update shortly after the race, which is expected to finish around 11am. That's it for now.

The results

Final results from Piacenza are available online if you search for Piacenza 2012 para cycling but a brief summary of Jing's results are 4th and 4th - road race and time trial which means 4th overall. And for anyone interested in a weather update, it rained all night and it's rained all day. We're hopeful of something better tomorrow!

Some good luck with the weather

Racing for Jing in the Piacenza P1 Road event has now finished. On Saturday the road races were held under overcast skies and mild temperatures. Jing raced in the combined C1-3 women's event that started at the same time as the men's combined C1-3 event. For the women this really meant only C2-3 because the only C1 woman currently racing, Jayme Paris, wasn't at this event.

The result of the men and women starting together was that the stronger C2 women were able to capitalise on the bigger bunch and gaps opened in the women's field on the first of four laps. The women's event was originally scheduled for 6 laps, but was reduced due to time restrictions on the course.

Jing rode strongly and looked good on the bike but couldn't match the might of primarily Allison Jones of the USA, who blasted around the course in a quick time to obliterate the opposition - C2 and C3! Jing finished 5th of 6 starters, looking forward to the time trial the next day.

Within about 30 minutes of the C1-3 race finishing, the skies opened up and the remaining classifications came home with wet and dirty bikes after intermittent rain persisted for most of the afternoon.

T Sunday dawned with similarly overcast weather and colder temperatures. Jing was about 120th rider off, so we didn't have to set alarms for an early start.

This was fortunate for me because at 4am I was woken by my bed shaking. I thought I must be particularly restless or there was an earthquake. As it turned out, it was an earthquake, with its epicentre only about 60km from where we are staying at Castel San Giovanni. We were only slightly shaken, but unfortunately several people lost their lives in the quake, so a sad day in Italy.

But back to the time trial... The course was a flat out and back circuit, very fast and a reasonable surface. Jing motored through, putting 30 seconds into her minute rider, the Austrian C3 woman who finished behind her in the previous day's road race. With limited internet access at our hotel, we don't yet know the final results, so that will be for a later post.

Once again, within about 30 minutes of Jing finishing, the skies opened up again, more seriously than yesterday, and it hasn't really stopped raining since. Fortunately we are warm and dry indoors watching the Giro live on TV - no Cavendish this time though since the race has moved to the mountains.

We have a couple of days training in the Piacenza region before moving on to Rome on Wednesday in preparation for the Rome World Cup.

More information and results as they come to hand. And maybe with better internet access, photos? We can only hope!

Getting close to the action

Today's Giro stage has 12 kilometres to go and for us it isn't the middle of the night! Unfortunately we're only watching it on TV but it's better than staying up. It seems a lot has happened since my last post. We saw quite a lot of the Italian countryside getting here - countryside that we hadn't planned to see, but one wrong turn that takes you onto a motorway without exits will do that! Still, no harm done. Yesterday afternoon was all about getting the bikes together. Fortunately we have a decent sized room by European standards, so there was room to spread out. Haven't worked out how to upload photos to the blog from the iPad so I can't show the photographic evidence yet. Today we rode out to the course for tomorrow's Piacenza Para-cycling road races. It is flat and quite exposed in places so if there's any wind at all, positioning will be crucial. There were many cyclists out on the course, competing for space with the teams of workmen making repairs to the road where it was badly chopped up from local traffic. And back to the Giro, we've just witnessed another clinical display by Mark Cavendish - even boxed in and checked a couple of hundred metres out, he still made it look easy! So, tomorrow the "real" racing is on. Jing's race starts at 11.00am and is 6 laps totalling almost 56km. Stay tuned for results in about 24 hours.

A quick update from Singapore

It's 1am in Australia and I should be sound asleep. Instead, I'm sitting in the Transit Lounge at Changi International Airport Singapore. With a few hours to kill it seemed like a good opportunity to provide a brief update. This morning we fitted two bike boxes, a bike bag, a hard wheel box, a suitcase and a soft duffel-type bag into the back of a Subaru Forrester for the drive to Sydney. It was no mean feat! Check-in went smoothly with our total baggage coming in right on allowance. Not bad, considering the cost of excess baggage these days. A comfortable 8 hrs on an Airbus 380 and here we are, wide awake (well, almost) psyching up for the longer leg through to Malpensa Airport near Milan in Italy. More updates soon...

How Time Flies

With all the best intentions, it's never easy to make regular posts with everything else going on. But things are about to ramp up again.

It's not possible for me to report the outcomes of the Paralympics selection process because everyone is sworn to secrecy until the APC announces the team, so everyone will have to wait for that (if you don't already know what's going on). The only thing I can report is that since I posted the published timeline, the process has blown out quite considerably, hence no announcements to date.

Since my last post there have been several other developments that I can report on.

Next Wednesday Jing and I head off to Italy for Jing to compete in a "P1" event in Piacenza and a World Cup in Rome. The P1 is on 19-20 May and is the level of competition below World Cup, so still UCI points but fewer for just as much effort! More information on the event can be found at http://www.piacenzaparacycling.it/2012-race.html.

The Rome World Cup is on 26-27 May, more info at http://www.giubileodisabiliroma.it/index_en.html. Both events feature a time trial and a road race, so a couple of good races coming up.

Towards the end of May, Brandie and Kerry, and Sue head off with the Australian team for a series of races in Europe, culminating in the Segovia World Cup in Spain.

I will endeavour to provide all the results and other features of Spring in Italy as time and internet access allows.

Stay tuned....