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FEATURES: BEING THERE: LIVING LARGE IN BEAUTIFUL BELLUNO
Tim Maloney
May 26, 2011
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Another race, another opportunity for the UCI to harass riders with their weight limits.
Photo: Yuzuru Sunada
Belluno, Italy, 50 miles north of Venice and the largest town of the Valbelluna is a provincial town of 35,000 people and is considered the gateway to the eastern Dolomiti Mountains. Well situated on a bluff above the Piave River, The name Belluno comes from the celtic belo-dunum, which means "splendid hill". Belluno was founded between 220-200 BC by the Romans and became an important military stronghold in Roman Venetia.
Belluno has hosted the Giro d'Italia five times before, the last in 1966, where native son Dino Buzzati was certainly inspired by the corsa rosa. Buzzati is one of Italy's most renown man of letters; novelist, painter, poet and journalist, where his epic writing about cycling and the battle between Coppi and Bartali captured the imagination of Italy as he followed the 1949 Giro as special correspondent for the Corriere della Sera. Road Bike Action visited the 2011 Giro d'Italia for the Stage 16 uphill individual time trial of 12.7km from Belluno's centro storico to the ski station of Nevegal and we thought you'd like to see firsthand some of what we saw on a beautiful race day in Italy.
Before Road Bike Action hit Belluno we stopped by Ponte nelle Alpi to visit Torrefazione Puertorico, a small artisan coffee roaster with fantastic espresso we discovered many years ago on our way to the World Cup Downhill mountain bike races once held atop Nevegal. Francesco Zampieri and his Zia Bianca still run the place that's been in operation for over 50 years and is still going strong.
Once we hit the team bus zone in Belluno, we ran into Giovanni Lombardi and his good friend Daniele Nardello. Lombardi was Olympic Gold Medalist on the track in 1992 and went on to a successful road career, most notably with CSC, while Nardello, a former Italian champ while on the mythical Mapei team is currently a director with the Geox-TMC squad.
Although he runs a fierce look, Faustino Muñoz is a great guy, albeit really intense. Alberto Contador's trusted mechanic and a wizard at setting up time trial bikes, Faustino is called the "worlds greatest mechanic" by some. Despite his wrenching talents, our friend Andy Hood of Velonews reported that Muñoz was thrown out of the Giro as race officials said he allegedly hit fans with the door of the team car.
Ciao Yaro. Despite the swirl of controversy and investigation surrounding the Radio Shack squad, who had their hotels searched by Italian anti-doping police that morning, Yaroslav Popovych was happy to give a smile to us before the TT.
Eukatel-Euskadi's Alvaro Gonzalez de Galdeano is all smiles at the Belluno TT. His orange clad Basque boys had just stomped to two consecutive stage wins in the tough Giro weekend stages on Monte Zoncolan and Gardeccia Val di Fassa.
All smiles from Carlos Sastre, one of the friendliest guys in the peloton. The 2008 Tour de France champion has not had a great Giro d'Italia. "I got sick in the first week and have had bronchitis since then" explained Sastre. "I'm feeling better now but I'm still tired." Sastre may surprise inn the next few stages in the Giro, but we won't see the likable rider from Avila at the Tour de France this year as his Geox-TMC outfit was not invited.
One of the fascinating stories at the 2011 Giro d'Italia is the comeback of Venezuelan climber Jose Rujano, who was 3rd at the Giro in 2006 but then fgot lost in the sauce. His career was resurrected by Androni team boss Gianni Savio, an elegant Italian know as the count who discovered Rujano on a coffee plantation in the Venezuelan mountains. Rujano has already won a Giro stage and had an excellent 4th place finish in the mountain TT to Nevegal. |
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