With the first ‘Grand Tour’ of the year the Giro d’Italia to start only 6days later, the Tour de Romandie is usually seen as a good indicator of form for many top riders. Set amongst some of the most amazingly picturesque scenery in Europe the tour started in Fribourg with a prologue. Followed by four days in the mountains, and finishing with a time trial in the beautiful setting of Lausanne.

I went into the race with the sole goal of finishing, plus getting in some good, tough mountainous race miles in my legs as prep for the Giro. Generally I felt quite underdone form wise going into this race, and a little nervous of how I would fare, especially being my first Pro-Tour race in the mountains.

I stepped into the opening prologue with full gas, but unfortunately not the form I would like to be able to tackle the relatively short (3.5km) though very technical course (15 corners). With a tricky descent and very nasty climb to finish, it was not a great day for me, 24 seconds down on Paolo Savoldelli (Astana) already…. Never mind, I’ll nail it next year! (See pics from the prologue below)

The first road stage started under grey skies, and cold temperatures, but that didn’t slow the racing. However, the barriers at a train crossing did, they came down midway through the peleton, leaving about 40riders stuck on the other side, luckily we hadn’t gone far, and the race was stopped so we could catch up. The racing intensity really increased after this, as we passed over four categorised climbs. My heart rate was Maxed for most of these, as the leading teams set a quick pace. By the last few kilometres of each climb I would find myself swinging on and off the back of the pack within the last few riders, all the time praying the top of the climb would come quicker than my heart rate would pass its threshold. I finished the day in a group of riders often referred to as the “grupetto” (last riders on the road) nice not to be alone and even better, have the company of fellow kiwi Greg Henderson + a few Aussies to boot!

Day 2 brought slightly easier terrain, not that that necessarily meant an easier ride. The major event of my day came when I found myself slamming into the barriers on the side of the road with 30km to go. As we came into the start-finish circuit, the road set up changed, and was lined with barriers (nasty looking metal fences) unfortunately I got no warning from the riders in front of me, and clipped my handlebars on the first one. 20 metres later I looked down to see my front wheel folding in half under me, nice!! I managed to pick myself up off the road relatively quickly, though a bit shaken from the experience, I was most fortunately physically unhurt by it. Got my spare bike from the team car, and I was off again! Pursuiting my way back to the bunch tucked behind the car. Taking a few ‘’sticky bottles’’ (hand sling off the side of the car) along the way, to get back onto the last group on the road after the peleton had split up on the final climb.

The next day the bunch rolled at nice easy pace. Three riders got away to contest the stage, and since the overall lead was not threatened by the break, Astana controlled the bunch and took us home.

As we rose for the final road stage, the hotel was being pelted by rain, with the forecast for a lot worse in the mountains! We all got a great treat that morning, a very timely hot leg, feet and back rub!! Choice!! Today would be a day where moral an motivation would get you to finish. I was determined to keep good bunch position today. After only 15km I was having other thoughts as the peleton hit the first col at full gas, and I was tailed off with many others well before the summit. We regained contact on the next climb and the pace was a little steadier after that. Though this was a real mountain experience, riders were often loosing control on the slippery descent, with vision being particularly limited by the conditions as we raced down hill at over 90kph at times, a few millimetres of rubber between you and black wet tarmac. Coming into the final climb of the day, and after some risky descending I was almost in contact again with the leading bunch, only for the cars to be pulled off the road, leaving an agonising 200-300m’s between us and the bunch. This left a 15km climb at tempo to the finish, not entirely comfortable. However, I marched on in the knowledge that with only tomorrows 20km time trial to go; I would complete my first Pro-Tour race.

I gave the TT a full warm up and hit it hard to try and set a good time. During the TT I quickly realised that four days of mountain racing had taken its toll in my legs. With little to spare, I hit the 15% pave climbs at the finish of the course, and almost came to a stand still. They certainly don’t make things easy for bike riders over here in Switzerland!

All in all I left the race feeling pretty good, and more confident heading into the Giro. So, its feet up for a day or two before travelling down to the Island of Sardinia off the western coast of mainland Italy, where the Giro will commence its first three stages.

I will work on keeping you all posted every few days at the Giro, just the reports may get shorter as the race gets longer and my legs get heavier.

Thanks for reading
Tim