After a great night’s sleep, we had a nice breakfast and then went on an 86K ride with just 1500 feet of climbing. Yesterday we rode without Max but today we were towed around by the man himself. After Ryan and Matt each took a turn beside Max at the front of the group, I ended up pulling for a good 30 minutes next to Max. While Max was trying out his mini-aero bars, I was riding at a Tempo Heart Rate most of the time. Still, it felt good to be able to lead the group with Max for so long as last year, I rarely pulled for much time at all, being generally conservative due to being less fit.
We rode on a freshly paved road up and down some smaller hills near Max’s place and then headed for the Mediterranean Sea coast. On the flatter coastal roads, we did a little rotating pace line work at 40kph and then followed behind Max as he did a 10k, or so, effort.
After lunch we packed our bags and said goodbye to Il Raduno (Max’s place) and headed for our ferry to take us on an overnight trip to the Island of Sardinia where our stage race would be held.
I think that this ferry was largest ship that I’ve ever been on. The ship held semi trucks and trailers as well as passenger cars and had many overnight cabins as well as a large restaurant, coffee shop and seating areas. Even with a cabin, we didn’t get as much sleep as we would have liked due to an early 6am arrival on Sardinia as well as some pretty serious rocking on the rough seas at around 3am.
