Recently on Cyclingnews.com |
 Dauphiné Libéré Photo ©: Sirotti |
 |
Time for a change: The Kimberly Bruckner Journal 2003
Last year the 2001 US Road Champion Kimberly Bruckner left the number one ranked women's team in the US after two years with Saturn and joined the growing force that is Team T-Mobile. With her sights firmly set on the Worlds in Hamilton and the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, Kimberly's diary is sure to provide compelling reading.
Giro d'Italia Femminile, part eight: A GPS called Susie
Stage 7a - July 11: 1a semitappa: Gabicce Mare (PU) - Cesenatico (FO), 47 km
Last night in Rimini was quite an experience. Our hotel was one of several located right next to a beautiful beach. Apparently, Rimini is quite a popular resort town in this area of the Italian Riviera. After dinner, us girls walked down to the beach to walk in the water and take some pictures. The water was so warm and the waves so peaceful. Hundreds of beach chairs were set up in rows all along the sand for tourists, but at this time of night, the beach was pretty empty. I felt so far removed from the racing. It was a nice break for the mind. On my walk back, I found a huge market going on in the streets right around our hotel. It felt like EVERYONE was out walking around, shopping, and eating. Bands were playing, people were dancing. Unfortunately, one of the bands was playing right outside our hotel windows and they were NOT good singers. Probably the worst out there. Back in our room trying to get ready for bed, Dotsie and I felt like we were in a bad Italian restaurant listening to this music. About 10:30pm, we decided we needed to go to sleep since tomorrow was an early day, but I couldn't quite shove my earplugs in far enough to completely shut out the bad singing going on outside. Finally my E-caps REM caps kicked in and I was out. But morning came much too quickly.
The first stage of the day started at 9:30am and we had 45km of racing along the coast again. The profile showed a 5 meter altitude change, tops. So we were guessing another fast and furious race, which is exactly what it was. Similar to the other day, we kept trying to attack but it's hard to attack of a pace of 50km/ hour. T-Mobile tried lining it up at the finish but we haven't quite got that line-up down yet, and we got swarmed with about 500 meters to go. We'll keep working on that one! Rochelle Gilmore, Acca Duo, took the win today so at least someone different won today.
After cleaning up a bit, we hopped in the car for our 100km transfer to the town of Cento for our afternoon "criterium".of another 45km. Jean Paul Van Poppel has this GPS system in his car which we're using as one of our team cars. We've named the voice to the GPS "Susie". And Susie never leads us astray. I'm not sure how they plug in our destination, but somehow they do, and Susie points out directions the entire way. Herwig, our German sports marketing manager, was actually driving the car with Susie during the transfer and he was convinced Susie was sending him the wrong way. He always thinks he has better instinct. So we ended up driving way out of our way on Herwig's "instinct." Us girls really gave it to him when we finally arrived at our new hotel. Women are always right… especially when she's a GPS system named Susie!
We hadn't realized we'd be seeing our new hotel before the afternoon stage, so that was quite a treat. The hotel had lunch (pasta... go figure) for all the teams, and then we were able to check into our rooms and shower. When we first walked into our rooms, we found them blazing hot. We were told the air conditioning would not be turned on until 5pm. They seem to do that around here. Anyway, a cold shower was welcome and then we pretty much had to start getting ready straight away for the afternoon stage.
Stage 7b - July 11: Cento (FE) - Cento (FE), 45 km
The 40km circuit race was about as close as we get in Europe to a criterium. The course was a bit less than 7km per lap and we raced 6 laps. One thing I still haven't gotten quite used to in Europe is the fact that I NEVER get a warm up in before the race start. And it's always floored from the gun. That first lap, I was positive I was going to be dropped. Just trying to stay on the group as we raced over the overpass was a feat in itself. I was redlined and hurting badly. But after a lap, I finally started to feel better. The pace was fast again for the first 3 laps, but after that it slowed up a bit. Finally a group was allowed to get off and we were proud to have Kim Andersen from our team in the break. This was a great move for Kim. I think there were about 8 girls in the break and since no one was an immediate threat to overall classification, up the road they went. We could hear our director, Jim, talking to Kim throughout the last lap as they were starting to line it up for the sprint. I was getting nervous for her just listening to Jim! I think Kim lined it up well, but got boxed in about 100 meters from the finish and finished 4th. Acca Due took the win for their second stage win of the day. American Meridith Miller from the Danish SATS team finished on the podium in third, which was a great achievement for her. The rest of us finished in the field with group time.
We had a perfect spin down during the few kilometers back to our hotel. It's so nice not to have a transfer tonight. And the longest stage of the tour is tomorrow with 147km. Lucky for us, it starts in the same place as this stage so we can ride straight to the start. I'll finally get my warm up in… like I'll need it for an almost 150km race.
