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In Which It's all About Biking, But The Kind With Pedals
May 18, 2008 by Mike
Follonica
A quiet, lazy Sunday morning and a lazy, quiet Sunday evening bookended a bit of fun this afternoon.
France has the Tour de France; Italy has the Giro d'Italia.
The fact that you definitely know the former and quite possibly haven't heard of the latter (unless, like me, you covered it regularly it when doing freelance shifts on slow news Sundays at IRN in the '90s) is a shame. The riders here are the same drug-free superheroes (*cough*.. or should that be *sniff*?) and the countryside is just as beautiful.
And today, the Giro rolled past Follonica.
(Incidentally, I'd been having trouble remembering the name of this town.. which I hadn't even glanced at on the map before I pulled in yesterday. It took until this afternoon to notice that it rhymes with "Colonic".. and now you, like me, won't be able to forget the name of this town even if you wanted to!)
Back to the race. It was scheduled to pass by any time between 3.31 and 3.56pm, depending on how fast the stage was being ridden. A good proportion of the residents of Colonica were.. oops, I mean Follonica.. were in place by the time I walked up to the roundabout at the edge of town, where we all assumed we'd get the best view as the riders slowed, bunched, and if we were lucky, crashed.
Old and young, thin and fat, men and women, they were sporting hats, flags and favours in a particularly insipid pink -- the colour of the Giro.
I found myself a decent spot in amongst a chatty family group who told me all about their favourite rider, some amusing moments from this year's race and the price of fish. Or it might as well have been, as they spoke nothing but Italian.. very quickly.
Meanwhile, I was in txt contact with my brother, 2,408 km away just outside Oslo, sitting and watching.. the Giro d'Italia on the telly. Good old Eurosport -- they have to fill the hours between tractor-racing and advertorials with something, don't they? So, of all things, and thanks to Nick's lightning quick txting, I was able to keep my neighbours updated with the progress and imminent arrival of the race. ("Two minutes away".. "One min!".. "NOW!!")
(While I was getting messages from Norway, the folk around me were noting the advance vehicles as they passed by, the arrival overhead of the TV helicopters and the cheers of fans a short way down the road.. but where's the fun in that?)
And talking of my big brother:
.. when he was about 8 years old, the Queen drove down a road close to our house. Things as unbelievably exciting as a middle-aged woman being driven past in a big car simply didn't happen in Norwich very often.. still don't, really, to be honest.. so off he went to see. I assume our lovely Ma was there too, which means I was probably in my pram ignoring all this monarchist baloney. My sister and Pa? Not sure. Perhaps they managed to resist the temptation. But Nick, history records, was there. There's proof.
Just as I did today, he stood in line at the side of the road, arriving well before the allotted hour to get a good view. Perhaps he was all a-quiver with excitement. Like me, he had a camera with him to record this historic moment but, in those far-off days, there was no such thing as a digital camera with Multi-Burst picture-taking option. Oh no. In fact, he would only have time to get one shot as the motorcade whistled past. Nick, no doubt, was primed and ready.
So it was to his parents' deep embarrassment when the black-and-white film was developed some weeks later and Nick had managed to get a picture not of Queenie bestowing her favours from her limo, but of the police motorcycle outrider.
So Nick, this one's for you:
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By karen | June 3, 2008 9:08 PM
Funny to hear that tale cos I had forgotten it - if ever I knew and I was down the road outside my school and recall the dustcart getting more cheers than HRH....they rolled past minnutes B4hand . . .
Keep on Truckin bro! KC