The 25th Anniversary running of the Maratona Gran Fondo. Only 99 Americans of 9,000 at the start. 1%. Turned out to be just right.
The Maratona dles Dolomites caught my eye a few years ago when it made the “must ride” list in just about every cycling magazine. Then my friend Tom did it once, a second time and then a third; raving about how great the experience was. 86 miles and 14,000 feet of climbing sounded torcherous. At Leadville or at the Tour, the courses are 20-30 miles longer to accomplish that same amount of climbing.
Well, the Maratona measured up in every way. If majestic means to echo the majesty of the creator, then these mountains are just that. Beautiful beyond what our pictures have been able to show. The beauty was actually distracting from the racing – at times you’d look up and find yourself gazing at 50 different peaks on the horizon as you crested a climb. Amazing.
It measured up too in the Italian / German approach to racing. This region is reluctantly Italian. After World War I, the penalty to starting the whole mess for the Austrians was giving up the region. The people here have clung to their language and alpine culture. The order is German and Prussian. The joy of life, the cuisine and the laid-back vibe is all Italian.
As opposed to the Etape, where elbows are sharp in the starting grid and in the feed zones, there are smiles, laughter and boisterous conversation. Very skilled descenders. Not a wiff of sketchiness. The Etape features dozens of ambulances due to the severity of the crashes. Only a couple of ambulances were out on Sunday.
Being a 1% minority felt just right. Contento.
This race is about 95% German and Italians. They were amazed that we’d come from America to ride “their” race and were extremely welcoming. “You are from America? You come here to ride this race? You crazy?”
Somehow amongst the 9,000, AndrewT, Fred, BillR, Tai, Jack and I managed to ride almost the whole course together. We’d wait at the top of climbs for the group to reform and then again at the bottom of descents. Bill was the winner of the King of the Mountains --- climbing well all day and was the lead descender too, flying by when I tried to gun it on the descents.
I was afraid of the 7th big climb (the Giau – 13-15% for the first 4KM, 8-10% for the next 6KM), so really took it easy. On the 8th climb, I felt like I’d left too much in the tank, caught a second wind and cranked it up the climb. It felt great. The 8KM descent on next pavement through about 20 bermed “Tornades” (sharp turns) was even better.
Then a nightmare 5K to the finish. Uphill. Strong headwind. All alone (I was too fast to pull the 80-year old men and too slow to catch the 70-year old guys). Finally to the finishing straight and a 3-up sprint for 3,577th place ;).
Brad Cobb and Kent managed to finish in the top 100. Steve felt great and took off on the first climb and finished in the top 10%. The rest of us finished in the top third. Pretty dang good for a 1% minority, huh?
The epic story of the day? – Eric. His crank arm decided to separate from his bike and dangle by a thread. That meant with every pedal stroke, he was not only moving the crank forward, but side to side. Somehow, he managed to climb the last two climbs and descend in that condition. He gets the Ironman award. Most of us, including me, would have packed it in.
What follows are pics and video from the course provided by the race – how’s this for organization? Sitting down to dinner, we get an email with our results, splits and 24 hours later, pictures. I wanna go back.
Here's the images that the race organization gave each of us on the day (sorry, I only got my pics, so way too many shots of the big boy): http://vimeo.com/26393462
And here's the video summary from the organizers:
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