The Giro

I woke up yesterday with sore legs and smile on my face when I realized that I was going to be able to see the Giro Prologue. The prologue startded in the south of Belgium near the city of Liege. There will still be another four days in Belgian before the tour moves to Italy. There were only eight of us going so we took the team mini bus. The drive took us about two hours before the long canal where the race was based stretched out before us. We found a parking spot about one kilometre from the start where thousands of people swarmed around. It was sunny, which was quite surprising and there ws a nice tail wind for most of the course. The were quite a few stands selling a variety of clothes, every single team clothing too. I was about to buy a Euskatel shirt, when the wind blew the price tag in my face, displaying the numbers 55. I quickly put it back and continued with the rest of the group towards the riders village. We walked another kilometre through a narrow ancient street before the team busses came into view. The first thing I saw was the Discovery mobile home, I didn't even know they had those. Then I saw the rest, the orange Euskatel bus, the black space age CSC bus with dozens of electronic features, the two expensive T-mobile busses parked next to eachother, and the most popular Quickstep Bus parked in the corner of the courtyard.

As I enterd the courtyard, a rider exited the Rabobank bus and got onto his non time trial bike. He was tall and angular with pale skin, Rasmussen. Excited, I whipped out my camera but only managed to get a rear shot as rode off into the distance. We then went to the Discovery bus to see if we could get a glimpse of anybody there, a tall man with large glasses and dark gray hair sttod talking to the fans, I asked on of my friends, "who is that?"
"Thats Sean Yates." I quickly took out my camera and manged to get a picture of him. We strode round some more, past the loud Spanish Euskatel bus, when a Saunier Duval car arrived. For some reason the crowds swarmed towards the car like hungry zombies, when out popped Simoni. He seemed like he was in a rushe because he refused to sign any autographs for the speechless children.

I was hungry, and since it was a once in a life time moment, which happened to fall on a rest day, I decided to stuff my head in some double deep fried Belgian bowl stirring Frites, smothered in mayonnaise and tomato sauce. I didn't feel as sick afterwards as I thought I would. We then went to the start line where hundreds of people squeezed to get a glimpse of the riders taking off.
On the way there I saw McEwen warming up, I was really surprised to see how small he was. When we a got to the start line a spanish rider was getting ready to go, in his Discovery skin suit. I was stunned when his lungs started to take in air, his whole abdomen doubled in size, exposing all his ribs. We watched a couple of the riders go off when we realized that we needed a higher spot to watch. We walked round and found a nice elevated spot on a high wall that lined the race course.

I eventually learned that the best time to whip out the camera was when the crowd was at its loudest. The crowd made a huge roar and I could make out, "Ullrich". There he was, much more bigger than any rider there and a chest almost half a metre wide, big enough to house a pigeon tree house. He was amazing to see, so much power and speed. Seeing him in real life was so much more better than on TV. Finally the shouts wouldnt stop as the top riders went off, and eventually Salvodelli shot off the podium, the screams reaching an all time high.

With that, everybody started leaving, before us amazingly, the busses of the teams were already driving out. We walked back to the car and drove off, leaving one of the most memorable days of my life.