By Phil Penman

“Stop thief!”

I am running at full speed, heart racing, sweat pouring off my face, through the back alley of a hotel in the Dolomites of Italy.  A fat chef is chasing me, shouting, “That is for Alberto!”

As I run by the hotel I can see Contador dashing to the window of his room after hearing the news that someone had taken off with his nightly steak dinner. In a panic I drop the plate and run for the shelter of my hotel just up the road. With sweat pouring off me, I thought to myself, shit! All I needed was a small piece of the beloved Spanish meat to get me through the next 10 days of grueling pain on the annual Thomson Bike Tours sufferfest.

This was to be my fifth consecutive year with Thomson and my second time at the Giro. Last year I had the little Passo Zoncolan crush my dreams like someone telling you your kid is ugly. Months earlier I had told my team mates on BH/Garneau that this trip would do wonders for your reality check of contemplating going pro. Alas, one night in a bar David Anthony, who happened to be the most drunk at the time, said, slurringly: “Hell, yeah. I’ll do it with you.” I took full advantage of this and had contracts drawn up, indicating a full year of leadouts for me if Anthony backed out.

We arrived in Venice and took to training right away by finding a nice bar by the water. This proceeded with a nice bottle of wine and we started to do our intervals with the wine glasses watching the thousands of tourists trudging around the streets. The next day we met the group. About 24 happy faces with no idea of the pain about to be inflicted onto them by the group organizer Peter Thomson, who’s idea of a wee bump (imagine it being said with a wee Scottish accent) is a 15km climb of 5 percent leading to a 6km at around 8 percent climb. A very sick man indeed.

After having checked into our hotel in Auronzo di Cadore, we stocked up on free gels and recovery drink from SIS (if the pros take it, it must be good! Or could it be that it was FREE?) and then put our Orbea Orca rental bikes together and set off on a gentle warmup ride.

Now if doing 4000 feet of climbing in 25 miles is your idea of a nice warm up ride, then Thomson Bike Tours is for you. But if keeping brain cells and getting through life is your choice,  then you’re better off staying the hell away. We climbed the Passo Zovo, around 7.1 percent average for 5.5 miles, and Danta di Cadore, a 7 percent climb for 3.7 miles. The warmup ride usually is like a race, with everyone gunning it to show off their climbing prowess and be first up the climb. I learned my lesson the first year, so I opted for staying the hell away from this and just riding my own pace. I knew the climb I like to call "son of a bitch," the Passo Zoncolan, was to be the next day.

As if we didn’t have enough fun racing up Dante di Cadore the first day, we were given the opportunity to race up it again on the way to watch our first stage of the race — and climb the Passo Zoncolan.

You know when you’re approaching the Giro d’Italia. Pink becomes the color of the day and those of you with lycra jean shorts (you know who you are) suddenly do not look out of place. The locals were kitted up in every color combination imaginable and with their bib shorts pulled up so high that any chance of having kids again had gone out the window. The sweet smell of the Giro was upon us.

Having done this climb last year I knew just what a beast this was to be. Armed with my mighty triple crank and The Who lined up on my iPod, I took off.  The only way I can possibly explain the feeling to anyone who has not done this climb before is: remember Frodo in The Return of the King part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. As he looks up at the fire-ridden mountains and knows he has to go there and drop off the ring into the fire, he conveys the sense of what I am describing.

On climbs like this your fastest speed is often your slowest speed as well. The key is to not let your heart rate blow up, and just spin as best you can. It’s pretty much physically impossible to ride together on this. To make the climb even harder you have to dodge past the thousands of riders doing uphill skiing impressions as they zig-zag their way up. And just when you are mentally about to break, a five year old kid in jeans and a backpack comes spinning past you.

For me, this year was much better than last year. I did the climb in one hour . I think my success came partly from  sniffing Contador’s steak dinner and partly from mental training visuals from the Karate Kid fight championship scene. “Come on, Danny!”

For the geek numbers guys, climb is 9km at average of 11.5 percent, with 1 km stretches in middle averaging 20 percent. The middle 6km section averages 15 percent.

I hit around 170 bpm and stayed there. My max heart rate is 197 so figured this was a good number for me rather than blowing up in spectacular style like last year. We then watched the pro riders come by with what I was told by the Omega team riders (more on them later) in about 42 minutes for the fast guys and 56 minutes – 1 hour for the domestiques. Bear in mind they had just raced for probably 5 hours beforehand. Those of you that dismiss triple: be assured more than a third of the pro guys had triples and even Contador was riding a 34 x 32.

In what was to be a daily afternoon occurrence, the skies opened up and we got completely pissed on riding back to our vans. None of us was even remotely interested in doing the 60 km of hills back to are hotel in a torrential rain storm, especially with over 7000 feet of climbing in the legs already on just day 2.

Day 3 entailed only three major category one climbs, basically a few small wee bumps, the Passo Tre Croci, the Passo Giau, and the Passo Fedaia, of which the pros would be coming up the last two. We managed to notch up 10,000 feet of climbing while the pros did a lousy double that on what was the queen stage for them.

Fedaia was the hardest climb of the day: 8.8 miles long at an average of 7.5 percent grade with a grueling 4km section straight road to nowhere at around 10  – 15 percent. It finishes with some nice 18 percent switchbacks for those of you still needing more appreciation of just how hard this race is for a professional rider. However if you are a woman you can get up this climb pretty fast as it appeared there was no shortage of Italian guys every 20 feet volunteering to give you a push up. Whoever said Italians aren’t friendly? (Note to self: blonde wig and fake breasts for next year’s trip)

We then descended into the town of Alleghe to stay at our lakeside hotel. When we got there we noticed a so-called pro team (alright, it was Garmin-Cervelo) had decided to come get our autographs. Scratch that; word was out that I had been able to get a sniff of the forbidden steak and pro teams were keen to discover the secret.

The town of Alleghe had turned into a little pro team haven. You could see the race was taking its toll on the teams. Garmin were very subdued at dinner and hardly a word was spoken. You dared not say anything to them for fear of them snapping at you. Dave and I were afraid to even talk loud in the room as Christophe Le Mevel was staying in the room next to us. I could imagine the press conference with Le Mevel the day after: “I could not get any sleep and rode like shit because two guys next door were shouting while getting hammered on cheap wine.”

The next day for us was to be our rest day just like the pro riders, rest being 43 miles with 6000 feet of climbing. The Passo Duran is 7.9 percent for 7.8 miles and Forcella Staulanza is 6.7 percent for 7.8 miles, followed by a nice gentle descent back to Alleghe. As we were riding back I hear “Yeah, that’s the guy.” We looked over and it was Contador riding with a teammate. We said hi but got no response. One hundred meters down the road was his team with team car behind: Contador had successfully attacked his own teammates on the rest day.

On arrival at our hotel it appeared that the young guys of Omega Pharma Lotto had decided to steal our lakeside seats to have their team meeting about the pain to come over the next few days. As we sat down the meeting quickly stopped. They must have thought we were spies dressed up in BH/Garneau kit. We decided they needed wisdom accumulated from the message boards of nyvelocity, about the many excitable ways to win. It was so funny chatting with them and realizing that even pro teams conversations end up being fart jokes and stories about bodily fluids on the face.

While Dave distracted them with talk of power data on Zoncolan, I decided to try and swap out their nice clean Canyon bikes for my rented Orbea. Alas it was a no go and the best they would offer was a swap of sunglasses. I had to decline: no way I was swapping my Oakleys for lime green Rudy Projects.

I finished the day with the usual feast of five courses and vino and some much needed rest .

Day five began with the traditional wee bump. It has many variations of names from “WTF,” to “which  stupid f–k put that there,” to “my ex wife.” This was to be an epic ride, taking in some stunning views on the climbs of Passo Pordoi, Passo Sella, Passo Gardena, and Passo Valparola — around 9,100 feet in 70 miles. For me this was probably the highlight of the trip. The views are simply stunning.

Important note. If you wanted to get some flat riding in, you won’t find much of it. Everyday is up and down, with very few flats, the lead out to the sprint at the Alleghe town sign being about it.

Also nice today was Gregg Bleakney, photographer for Velonews, and Richard Pestes from the cycling blog Pezcyclingnews. Both were on hand to record our efforts. Greg put up some beautiful shots on Velonews of us riding if you want to get an idea of the spectacular surroundings.

Day six. At our nightly briefing we were told we would only have two climbs today, which produced a great sigh of relief from everyone. Relief held until we started the first climb, the Passo San Pellegrino. It was to be a mere 11.3 miles in length at an average of 6.3 percent. It sounds nice on paper (my warped brain kicking in again, lack of oxygen, etc). However, there is what I called mini Zoncolan in the middle, where it ramps up to 15 percent for quite a while. This really cracked me and thankfully those nice gentle 8 percent sections (feel like false flats) came again so i was able to get into the drops and accelerate an entire 1 kph faster. We only had to climb Passo Valles, a mere 8.2 percent for 6km. However Peter Thomson had failed to mention the unnamed climb of 15km at 5 percent to get to what he called the actual climb. The road surface was rough and you could feel every bump.

I came across an uphill traffic light and decided to stop on the red influenced by NY cops ticketing cyclists this winter and spring. Most bikers just go through. However from my experience, while descending, the cars and motor bikes choose to take the racing line going the opposite way rather than staying in their own lanes. After a few close calls already I decided to err on the side of caution. But I did not know the red light would be five minutes long. I ended up having to hammer it just to catch back on.

This was not to be the steady tempo climb scheduled on my training for the day. By the end of the day we had clocked up another 8000 feet of climbing in 70 miles.

Day seven was to be by far the hardest day (give me a nice climb any day ), six hours on a bus in transit to Sestria to catch the end of the Giro. It hurt for us. God knows how it must be for the pro riders. They have to complete a grueling race then jump in a bus to head to the next town, often two hours or more distant. We settled into our hotel at over 2000 meters high and hit the wine, knowing that we could get drunk for a lot cheaper with the altitude taking effect.

Day eight. Woke up to pissing down rain and contemplated a nice wet day of riding, or a nice day of bed and television. Thomson the Scotsman decided we would give it a couple of hours, wise move: the sun came out and all looked great. We started our descent of  the mountain and as we were going down we saw Andy Schleck, brother Frank and a couple of Leopard Trek guys coming up with a team car tailing them shaking their heads at us. The first thing I thought was they considered us way too excitable, but sure enough, a couple of kilometers later the skies opened up and we got soaking wet.

As we continued our 30 kilometers of descent with zero visibility I contemplated the sag van drive home, but knowing that we had three climbs to do in soaking wet clothing, who could resist that kind of suffering?

Thankfully the weather cleared up and we did the Col de L’Echelle at 5.5 miles at 5.4 percent, the Passo del Monginevro 4.8 miles at 6.4 percent, and the Colle de Sestriere 7.1 miles at 5.9 percent. The last was  my favorite climb of the day. As I was ascending Frank Schleck decided to wave hi to me whilst taking a tight turn, with one hand in the drop and the other to wave at high speed. I was mighty impressed. Had this been me I’d have ridden off the side of the mountain. I got home completely shattered, having hit the climb a little too hard and knowing what was to come the next day probably not the smartest move in the world.

Day nine. Colle de Finestre. An absolute mammoth climb: 5900 feet up in one shot, 18 km long at an average of 9.1 percent, with the last 8km on dirt track (think of Battenkill). It is not to be taken lightly. It  took me 1 hour 44 minutes at a steady tempo. There was no way of hammering this as it was relentless. Just when I thought I was toast I hear “Cruel Summer” by Bananarama, a nice cheesy Euro house version and I see thousands of Italians dancing around in their white tight bib shorts and all is right with the world again.

We descended back along a tight narrow roadway with cliff drop edges. We were careful to mind the ever-present zig-zag mountain bikers coming up for a full on cheesy Euro house party on the mountain. Just the one last climb up the Colle del Sestriere from the back side and Dave and I crossed the Giro finish line.

A beer and a pizza later and we got to see the pro field come through at a mind-blowing pace. We stocked up on pink t shirts, pink ties and various other crap that will never see the light of day again. Trip completed and with thoughts of where to go next year I realize that until I have the tan marks where the helmet straps go I will never go pro.

At the top of Passo Zoncolan (refresh if video doesn’t appear):

At the top of Colle di Finestre: