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.