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!