The Giro d' Ville is one of three Grand Tours that happen for my biking crowd. This is the first, then Tour de Burg which starts when the Tour de France does and then the Fall tour for the Vuelta d'Espana. This is a four day tour/race on mountain bikes. This year the theme was John Deer riding a bike being Johnny Giro and "I love it when you call me big poppa in honor of freshie baby Avery Quinn, daughter of Jordanna and Marty(Il Director). This year we were based out of Montebella Campground right off of the magnificent Blue Ridge Parkway. The Giro is all about style. And styled we were with showers, flush toilets and beautiful leaders and DFL jerseys. The only thing that was missing was lattes in the morning, but there was plenty of bacon.
The first stage was shortened due to a lightning storm. It packed a wallop anyhow dishing out 12 minutes of real uphill pain. My effort was good enough for the White Women's Leader's Jersey! Goldmember took the win and cast his bid for Pink. We then foot traveled up to Spy Rock Overlook. If you ever get the chance to go there, do it. Incredible 360 views of all green mountains. I forgot the camera that day, unfortunately.
The basic gist of the Giro D'Ville is Pleasure Pace(PP) ride to a destination where the timed section will start. The fastest people take the watches and then time themselves and all who come after. There aren't course markings or anything was you have to pay attention good at the pre race meetings or try and hang on Buschi's wheel. The racing is fast, but not too intensely crazy. Then we regroup, chit chat, fix flats, eat snacks and then PP to the next timed section.
I don't remember all the timed sections but the highlights were: climbing up Torry Ridge...brutal, brutal singletrack climbing. Racing across Whetstone Ridge, Flying down rugged jeep roads with nasty rocks and very poor visibility and the TTT. The TTT was a ladies team with one day poachers Fudala and Carpong. This was a mostly flat road time trial which typically would be boring, but for some reason this was a cool bonding experience. I was very impressed with FOOF A beating out an on paper winner of the JV squad. It must have been Brian Hall's effort. He is so uber fit.
Then to finish off the weekend we PP up Vesuvius which is only Catagory 1 climbing home to a barbeque. Goldmember was resplendant in pink, T-pain was in pain in DFL, Young Nick Pence was in red(climbers jersey) Pistol Pete in sprint jersey(watch out Collindish, he is coming to the Tour de Burg) and me in my dirty white bella donna jersey(Yes ladies lets have a rematch at the Tour).
Even though Il Director is moving to Golden, CO he says He'll be back for the Giro next year...what class, what style.
