Cam’s Giro Diary

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The Zoncolan. Yes everyone had been looking forward to the famous mountain that I must say is the hardest in the world in my books. The talk of this stage was even more public sized with the descent and climb of the Crostis removed from the stage.

Let’s just say with the way my legs felt today I have no complaints about how we went around a 14km mountain instead of over it. I really paid for my breakaway yesterday and my legs turned up to the start line feeling like bricks.

The hardest part of the whole day was finding the bus after the stage which was 3km down the other side of the Zoncolan and with it raining, temperature dropping to under five degrees, one hundred thousand people to get through and having done over 5 hours on the saddle already this was not the best scenario I wanted after the finish.

Peter Stetina had a great ride with. A 15th place and Christophe not to far behind him. Tomorrow is going to be an epic day. We are predicting the stage will take around 8 hours with over 6000 meters of climbing to do and a distance of 230km. I’m taking a big packed lunch that’s for sure.

A few facts about the Zoncolan climb today. We rode mountain bike components to get up it with a cluster on the back that was an 11 to 32 with a front chain ring of a 36. I was still doing 5km hour up it and at one point my garmin head unit auto paused on me because I was going to slow. This almost made me cry and I took this as a sign that really Its telling me to get off and walk. That Garmin head unit has been replaced with a new one.

Ciao

Cam

Final Kilometers

3Dtour:

courtesy of cyclingthealps.com

Monte Zoncolan Streetview Tour

Photos

courtesy of Veeral Patel, Sirotti, and RCS

Stage 14 Results

1 Igor Anton Hernandez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 5:04:26
2 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Saxo Bank Sungard 0:00:33
3 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:00:40
4 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Lampre - ISD 0:01:11
5 Denis Menchov (Rus) Geox-TMC 0:01:21
6 John Gadret (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:38
7 Mikel Nieve Ituralde (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:01:52
8 Hubert Dupont (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:55
9 Kanstantsin Sivtsov (Blr) HTC-Highroad 0:02:05
10 José Rujano Guillen (Ven) Androni Giocattoli 0:02:11
…
90 Richie Porte (Aus) Saxo Bank Sungard 16:13
141 Brett Lancaster (Aus) Team Garmin-Cervelo 18:56
158 Matthew Wilson (Aus) Team Garmin-Cervelo 20:28
170 Cameron Meyer (Aus) Team Garmin-Cervelo 21:49

General Classification after Stage 14

1 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Saxo Bank Sungard 54:45:45
2 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:03:20
3 Igor Anton Hernandez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:03:21
4 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Lampre - ISD 0:04:06
5 John Gadret (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:05:23
6 Kanstantsin Sivtsov (Blr) HTC-Highroad 0:05:37
7 Denis Menchov (Rus) Geox-TMC 0:06:06
8 Hubert Dupont (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:06:12
9 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Pro Team Astana 0:06:40
10 David Arroyo Duran (Spa) Movistar Team 0:06:43
…
105 Richie Porte (Aus) Saxo Bank Sungard 1:33:38
137 Cameron Meyer (Aus) Team Garmin-Cervelo 1:53:46
164 Brett Lancaster (Aus) Team Garmin-Cervelo 2:17:46
173 Matthew Wilson (Aus) Team Garmin-Cervelo 2:36:10

Stage 16 Preview