The GP Beghelli is the final race in a series of the same name.  Starting with Coppi Bartali in the spring, a few one day races in the late summer and finishing with the Giro dell’ Emilia and GP Beghelli this weekend.  We actually started at the Beghelli factory today just outside of Bologna.  From what I could piece together they make security systems.  Regardless, they are obviously big fans of the cycling world so I support whatever they are making.

The race started in the loading zone area of the factory, yet just ten feet across the other side of the road were rows and rows of grapevines.  I always find it surprising in Europe to see how they somehow blend industrial areas with farmland, using every piece of land to its fullest.

As with every other Italian race I have done, once the flag dropped for the race to begin the attacks started left to right and we constantly hovered in the 50-60kph range.  Today was a little strange in that we never really came out of that range.  A small group did mange to get away, but we kept them on a short leash and that made the race quite difficult in the end.

The finish was very sketchy.  All of the pure sprinters had been dropped, so no team really took control for the lead out.   That left a fairly unusually bunch of fifty guys to fight it out in the final.  We still had Kim in the group, a very fast finisher in his own right, so we tried to do what we could for him.  We might have lacked a little experience in that area in the end.  Most of us are considered climbers over guys doing the final lead outs, so we were a little out of our element.  I tried to take Kim from 600 meters out, but was immediately pushed towards the barriers on the left and the real sprint started on the right.  From that point we just held our positions and that was that.  A missed opportunity, yes, but I can at least say I learned a lot from it.