Tuesday morning when we woke, up and opened the curtains, we saw why it was so cold outside.
As far as I remember, on the Tuesday we just stayed near the hotel still recovering from the travel. I was a bit jealous when Juan and Gary went for their first rides. But as they are less disabled and ride normal cycles, it is a bit easier for them to go for rides than for us on tricycles.
The afternoon’s mission was to just pop down to the shops quickly and get a few things that we want and needed for race day. We had spotted a supermarket near the hotel and thought we would just take a walk and see the scenery. So I, Anet, O’ryan, Ahmed, and Goldy set out. After just a few moments we decided to use the gps on the phone that the car rental had given us. With Anet pushing my wheelchair we gave the gps to Goldy and trusted him to get us to where we wanted to go. After a while of walking sites that should have been new to us, they became more and more familiar and we wondered why. None of us had ever been in this town before. There was only one conclusion – we were walking in circles - or as we nicknamed it, Goldy’s Golden circle! I still don’t know how many times we walked the same roads. Goldy was certain he was following the gps correctly but after a group decision was made Ahmed took over pushing my wheelchair and we asked Anet, who works for a gps mapping company, to take over the gps and the directions. Quite soon she got us to the shop and safely back to our hotel. Goldy would hear about the Golden Circle a few more times during the days to come!
By the Tuesday night we were starting to hear rumors from other athletes that the route wasn’t as great as we had hoped from a UCI course. It had been said that the course had one steep downhill and that it was quite difficult and dangerous for the trikes to cope with. The reason that athletes ride trikes to begin with, is because we have balance and coordination problems - so add a very steep downhill to the mix and you have a dangerous situation. I still hadn’t seen the route for myself so to hear the stories going around from quite respected trike riders was quite unnerving. I also made contact with my friend from Australia, Carol, who also rides a trike and she gave me some tips on how to negotiate the downhill section safely.
Wednesday was quite a big day for me as I had an appointment with the classifiers to certify my new adaptations to my bike. In the weeks preceding the trip I had received two new set of splints that I could cycle with and I was hoping that they would approve the second pair of splints. The second pair were attached to my tricycle so I wasn’t too sure if they would allow it. Thankfully after a few questions and with both Anet and O’ryan in the room with me the classifiers approved the pair of splints that I wanted them to approve. With everything cleared I was good to go. Walking out of the room I wondered if I should have just had the other pair of splints approved while I was there. It is a decision I still regret not doing. Maybe I should have just had both splints approved just in case one day I have to make a quick change and then I have a second option.
With my splints approved all I wanted to do was go see the course and decide if i should do a training ride, even though the route wasn’t closed to traffic, but when you are with a group you can’t always do what you want to. The group decided to spend some time walking around the town of Corridonia (not the same town as where our hotel was and the Golden Circle). We had an interesting time exploring what seemed to be the older section of the town. I loved the narrow streets with the cobble stones as well as how the locals of the town had entered into the spirit of the event and decorated all the shop windows and outside of some of the houses with ribbons that were the colours of the UCI, and other decorations that celebrated cycling. It was really awesome to see how the town’s people had embraced the event and we felt supported, celebrated, and welcomed.
After a few hours of playing tourist tourist, I raised the issue of driving the course with our van and the rest agreed. To say we were shocked at the route was an accurate assessment. None of us riders or support staff had ever seen anything like this for a para-cycling course. The downhills were intense and I could now understand why several trike riders were thinking of withdrawing. Because at that stage so was I! We could now understand why some riders on bicycles were saying they could easily clock around 80-100 km/h going down certain sections. After we arrived back at the hotel, there was just one topic of conversation: the course. O’ryan told me separately that he wasn’t even sure whether he wanted me on the road come competition days. Had I just spent a lot of other people’s money for nothing? Had I just traveled all the way to Italy just to watch other people race?
Below is a video of the downhill section we recorded for preparation purposes.
For me it was rather special that the Giro d’italia bike race was on during the time that we were in Italy. I had watched the race last year on tv and here I was this year in Italy while we were going to do our own races. There was a brief thought amongst the team whether we could go watch a bit of it, but the closest stage to where we were was a few hours away on the day that two of our guys were racing, so we just could not go. I was certainly struggling to relax during my down times and especially before going to sleep. The uncertainty of whether I should take on the course as well as another situation which was causing me a lot of stress and frustration led to me having difficulty switching off my mind and my emotions. I would be watching television or lying with my eyes closed but my mind was elsewhere, and I could feel the tension and spasticity in my muscles running high. There was nothing I could do about the one situation but I had about 36 hours to decide whether I would race.
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