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I am Ted King: Cinque Terra TT in hindsight
I'm going to start by tooting my horn a bit here and saying that I'm a fairly handy time trialist.
Furthermore, I'm lucky enough to be riding the finest, fastest, and one of the most heavily sought after time trial machines on the market, the Cervélo P3. That might stir up a lot of questions to the tune of, "Hey when are you going to get the P4?!" Well that's for me to know and you to find out.
Since you're reading this, you are A) probably a fan of cycling and B) probably have either read or heard a thing or two about the today's time trial course. For a quick summary, it was respectably long at just a hair over 60km, mighty arduous with nearly half the distance covered uphill, and arguably more technical and circuitous than Sunday's controversial race through Milan.
After last year's notorious super-steep, dirt road, uphill time trial, the race organizers were going to be hard pressed to outdo themselves for the Giro's 2009 edition. Well, here's the inside scoop from someone who just finished racing it mere hours ago (that is, me). They succeeded.
So to address the opening sentence of this column, unfortunately for me, my time trialing prowess is best complimented by more traditional time trial courses; namely, flat ones.
That said, I'm certainly not going to disrespect the race. While I may have had some choice words during my hour and forty-four minutes of heinously self-inflicted pain, I can safely say that no one who raced today had an easy day on the bike. You see, typically the individual time trial stages are a test for perhaps a quarter of the peloton, since it is just the GC contenders and time trial specialists who give it full gas, whereas the rest of the peloton happily get some semblance of a recovery day. But given the very unique nature of the race today, it was basically anybody's guess what the winning time would be. Moreover, it was rumored that the average speed could be as high as the mid-40kphs, and therefore to just make time cut, everyone was going to have to go nearly full-bore! Like I said no one had an easy day today.
The race organization in this centennial anniversary of the Giro set out to create a spectacular course and they succeeded in that regard as well. With thousands of crazed fans lining the course from start to finish, enough knife edge corners taken at absurd speeds to give you a few gray hairs, and more than a few breathtaking views (yes, I had time to take in a few vistas, although I think the effort of the time trial was the culprit of being breathless), this race was definitely memorable and one for the ages.
Editor's Note: This year Ted King is making his professional European racing debut with the upstart Cervélo TestTeam. While first getting a taste for the European peloton with the U.S. espoir national team in 2005, King returned to the United States for three successful years of domestic pro racing. King, 26, is a native of New Hampshire and despite his affinity for hearty servings of coffee, he is slowly adapting to the smaller European portions. Slowly. His diaries will appear on VeloNews.com every few days during the Giro, alternating with diaries by Columbia-Highroad's Michael Barry. When he's not racing the Giro, you can follow Ted at www.Cervelo.com/team and www.iamTedKing.MissingSaddle.com.
