Dreilander 2008

Here we go again, a year on and another dreilander. This is becoming one the classics for the LondonRanch... This year the partecipation was lower than last year.. The peleton reached Pfunds (same old Traube) in two different lots ... actually three. Thursday night RiderCali and RiderZinni arrived in Pfunds to find the hotel closed and had no other alternative than sleeping in the car untill the Traube bunch showed up at 7AM to open the door.. In classic Austrian hospitality they told us that we had to wait till 8 to get ou room and in the meantime we could get breakfast.. stuff yourself bloody foreigner and wait till 8... the plan was clear.. let's get some sleep and let's attack the Stelvio later on... So on day one we ended up riding for around six hours covering more than 120km with more than 2,400m of climbing... one thing was clear.. we overdid.. what was supposed to be a nice ride turned out to be a tough day... but it was worth it... the day was great, sunny, hot.. the Stelvio was just amazing.. and we both agreed that that was the best way to climb the Stelvio.. not on a race day... Saturday was rest day.. the day before the race RiderZinni and RiderCali decided to go for the short course as they had already done enough damage on day one. Saturday leisure time plus a little spin... again weather amazing.. went to see the lake just off Nauders then the rest of the Ranch arrived... Che.... RiderEasy was there, RiderHowe and RiderSpeedo and pumped up and ready to go for a spin... As usual we managed to lose RiderEasy after three minutes into the ride and RiderHowe, RiderZinni and RiderCali went for a 20km spin in Pfunds ... This is their Regents Park....Then RiderStemCell appeared just in time for dinner...The dinner conversation got a bit heavy to the point that guests around us started leaving the tables in disgust... RiderCali started to publicise some of his tastes and health problems and started thinking of his girlfriend whereabouts ... ect... Race day was very warm... even at 5 am the temperature was very high... the race was as usual very well organised.. The finishing times were higher than last year for most of us and i guess the road closures + high temperature didn't help... Overall a great w/e... RiderCali and RiderZinni rode for 270km on the w/e plus climbed 5.3/5.4km...