No food or water for last 85km says rider
Stannard enjoying life with Italy-based team
Having now completed the first two weeks of this year's Giro D'Italia, Castlethorpe's Ian Stannard is experiencing for the first time in his career just how tough bike racing at the top level really is.
Last Thursday saw Ian take part in the first decisive stage of the race, a near 62km time trial which saw each rider set off at one minute intervals and racing against the clock.
But despite the strain, the British cyclist described the event as 'absolutely awesome.'
"There was nothing in this stage that reminded me of old time trials back home in the UK," the team ISD-NERI racer told the Citizen.
"At one point there was a huge 10km climb andevery time the course went uphill the rider behind me would start to catch me up. But on the descents, wow, nothing at all was catching me then."
The stages on Saturday and Sunday proved particularly difficult for the 22-year-old, and were made even more so by a fall after a tyre came off a wheel during Saturday's stage.
"It meant I lost contact with the other riders," said Ian.
"The team cars were made to follow the main race leaving me with no food or water for the last 85km."
Riders have to finish within a certain percentage time of the stage winner. So having lost contact with the main field, Ian had to knuckle down to some hard riding to avoid being disqualified from the day's race for finishing outside the time limit.
"I caught a couple of French riders but they were suffering more than me so they just sat on my wheel and I ended up dragging them to the finish," he explained.
But having raced for such a long distance on Saturday without vital energy replacing food, Ian suffered even more on Sunday's equally draining stage.
"A lack of food on Saturday wasn't helped by the weather on Sunday," he said,
"It was 38 or 39 degrees C all day long and all around you there were riders suffering.
"The team went through over 80 bottles of liquid during the stage alone."
And while acting as 'helper' for his ISD-NERI team leader Giovanni Visconti, Stannard was responsible for going to and from the team car to keep the leader refreshed throughout the day's stage.
"It's been really hard so far and yet the big mountains are yet to come.
"The more experienced of the riders are telling me that they have never known a Giro as hard or as fast as this year's race.It's full on every day, but I'm still loving it."
The three-week race finishes with a 15km time trial around the streets of Rome.
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Weather for Milton Keynes
Friday 25 May 2012
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