If we do nothing, nothing will change

May 21/22 Stage 13 / May 23 Stage 14 / May 24 Stage 15 / May 25 Stage 16 / May 26 Rest Day

May 27 Stage 17 / May 28 Stage 18 / May 29 Stage 19 / May 30 Stage 20 / May 31 Stage 21

May 30, 2009   Stage -20

Today’s stage finished about an hours drive from our hotel in Rome. After breakfast we walked down to the coliseum, which is just a few blocks away from the hotel, to scout our plan for Sunday’s time trial. The weather is looking like a possibility of rain (boooo!), but we’re going to be there anyway, so it really doesn’t matter. We walked around the coliseum, which is totally amazing to think about how this was built so long ago. The crowds were lined up way too long for my patience and it was surrounded by the same people selling junk souvenirs and people trying to beat us out of our money as other big cities we’ve been in, only they’re standing around this amazing piece of history. We decided on a plan for tomorrow, based on what was already setup, so we’ll come down early in the morning and see if it works, or we need to adjust.

It is a stunning site. I recently saw a documentary comparing it to modern day stadiums

We decided to drive on to the finishing city today because it was a bit of an uphill climb to the line and only an hour away. Mainly, Angie wanted another pink Giro umbrella, because her fell off the bike on our climb up Vesuvio yesterday. We got to the city and immediately made a wrong turn. I had downloaded Google Maps to my Blackberry, which will then work as a gps to help you with directions. I must admit it works better than I expected and Angie, even with her distrust of technology directions, loves it. Highly recommend it and it’s free! Anyway, as we were turning around a couple that was walking along the road hollered at us, Giro? Giro d’talia??? We said yes and it turned out they were from the UK and had taken a train down to see the Giro. After a bit, we squeezed the bike over and loaded them up in the car to drive them to the finish. Hey they seemed like a nice couple. We ended up splitting up after we parked, but told them we could give them a ride after the finish. Angie found her replacement umbrella and we began looking for a place to set up. I confess I didn’t do as much research on this stage because I wasn’t sure we’d make it here today. My lack of planning shined through as we walked around way too much and the route had the center of the town hosed up so we ended up walking back down the hill around the crowd, then back up the hill, so we could walk back down and away from the crowd. That’s sounds screwy because it was. We barely got our banner up when the first riders came by, then the large group with Lance and Levi. We laughed at our busted day and started taking everything down, when the people whose house we were standing in front of asked us if we knew about the second lap they would do. Now we really had to laugh at vour bust because we had already taken everything back down. We hurriedly put the signs back up before the riders passed back by. A couple of guys off the front, then a large group, then Lance and a small group was soft peddling to the line. He waved and gave us a big smile, which made up for our screwed up day by our standards.

Camp LiveStrong always raised a smile and a wave from Lance

When we got back to the car I started packing up our bike, since we were probably done riding, and our British friends showed back up at the car. At first they wanted a ride back to the train station, but we talked them into just riding all the way back to Rome to our hotel, which wasn’t far from theirs. They were big cycling fans, so we had good conversation and interesting perspectives about different riders and the state of the sport.

We dropped our car off at the train station, which is always my favorite part of these kind of trips because driving and trying to find our locations and hotels is one of the most stressful parts of these trips.

We ate dinner at a street café and yet another British couple approached us asking about Lance. We chatted a bit and they were going to look for us tomorrow. We are a bit of a giveaway when it comes to Lance and LiveStrong because every shirt and hat we brought has LiveStrong across it. Of course, that’s the point of us being here in the first place. Yes, it’s fun, but I assure you it’s not a restful vacation chasing a cycling tour around Europe.

Finally, I want to give a big shout out to many of our friends at Cycling Combatting Cancer www.ridetolive.org . Today is our ‘Round the World, Ride Against Cancer.  Many members around the world were doing bike riders of various types and distances, all in the spirit of raising awareness and funds in the fight against cancer. This has been a tough year for the group because we’ve suffered many losses recently. Done for today! Tomorrow is our final day of the centenary Giro.

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