May in Pienza is notable for two things:
The wild poppies are in full bloom.
...And Carol wears her pink hat to celebrate the Giro d' Italia.
The Giro is one of three grand tours on the professional bike racing circuit. Grand tours are three week races...twenty-one days of racing, covering 3,500 Km (2,100 miles).
The closest this year's Giro got to Pienza was 9Km away (6 mi), passing by the town of San Querico D'Orcia.
This day's stage started in Perugia and finished in Montalcino. It was notable for the four stretches of gravel road and the final stretch through the heart of Brunello wine vinyards.
Carol and Roger camped out at the mid-way point of the race just outside the medieval walls of San Quirico.
In past years, they had to rent a car, drive for hours just to get to the race, and then had to fight the crowds at the finish line. They had to get there hours early just to wedge in between the thousands of other race fans and then wait, and wait, and wait for the few seconds the racers took to sprint past.
This year was much better. Carol walked a popular hiking trail to San Querico. Roger rode his bike.
By early the morning of the race road closure signs we up everywhere.
Along the race route itself, the organizers had put up directions to make sure none of the riders took a wrong turn.
Roger and Carol met up in San Querico's main piazza, and found a great restaurant, where they had a leisurely lunch.
There, they met an American from Poughkeepsie, who played in a Milan chamber orchestra for 40 years and now runs the San Querico Summer Music Festival.
This was proving to be a much better way to see the Giro.
Instead of waiting for hours along the race course, we sauntered right to the perfect spot a few minutes before the race was scheduled to pass. Carol and Roger knew the spot well. It was right near the top of a steep rise approaching town.
We knew it was a good place to wait, because the Lotto-Soudal team van was right behind us, ready to hand out fresh water to their riders as they crested the hill.
It's always easy to tell when the race is approaching. The referee's car, with flags flying, pass by a few hundred meters ahead of the leading racers.
It's a common tactic in bike racing for a small group of riders to break away from the peloton...called la fuga (the escape) in Italian...and get far enough ahead that main body of racers, who are trying to pace themselves for the sprint finish, can't catch up.
The tactic rarely works. But today it did. The break-away group eventually stretched its advantage to 10 minutes and produced a stage winner in Swiss rookie Mauro Schmid.
After what seemed like a long wait, the peloton blew past. Nobody seemed to be breathing hard. When Roger rides this stretch of road, he's gasping for breath as he reaches the top of this rise.
One great thing about this spot, though. Never have Carol and Roger been this close to a professional bike race! It was a thrill.
For those of you wondering, race leader Egan Bernal finished two minutes behind the day's winner...but added half a minute to his lead over his main competitors.
The question of the day was, who was that bald guy taking photos of the approaching peloton?
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