RACING THE CLOCK IN ITALY

From our great friend and teammate Mike The Iron Man Fox.  He is currently participating in 1600K Brevet in Italy.  The event web site is HERE

The first entry is when he first got to Italy

Dear Friends, Family, Peeps, Etc.

I arrived safely in Milan this afternoon and found an outrageously priced taxi to shuttle me to my hotel..  A bonus for the day is that my bike also arrived with me. I spent a few hours walking around the area and getting oriented.  I found the start/finish area for the event and saw a couple of suspiciously rando dudes cruising around.  I haven't started putting my bike together yet.  That's starting to look like a project for tomorrow morning rather than today.  I am a couple kilometers from a town called Legnano which is supposedly somewhat of an ancient city with a quaint feel and good cafes, restaurants, shops and whatnot.  I'll probably check it out this evening and find something for supper.  The weather forecast currently looks pretty good for the ride, prehaps warmer than ideal with highs in the low 90's, but that's not any worse than what I've been training in.  Well, that's my update for now.

Ciao,

Mike

More from Mike's big adventure

Another update from Italy,

Yesterday, I assembled the bike and went for a shake down cruise.  The bike seems to be performing as expected.  I ran into a few Americans and Brits in the morning and they invited me to join them for dinner last night.  We went to a nice small restaurant within walking distance of the hotel and had a fantastic supper.  One of the Americans forwarded me gps files for the ride that were developed by an Italian who works on computers for a living.  The files are very accurate compared to the cue sheet and way better than the route file that I had assembled.  Score.  Today, I got a lot of things organized, items ready for the start and I packed my drop bags.  Tomorrow morning I'll take my bike down to the start area to be inspected and pick up the official brevet card (card that must be stamped at the control points on the ride).  They pick up our drop bags from the hotel at 11:30am and then I'll try to take a nap until its time to head down the start area.  There is a briefing at 5:30pm, supper from 6:15 - 8:30pm, then we're off at 9pm. 

This will likely be my last update before the ride. 

Arrivederci,

Mike