Trittico Lombardo (Tre Valli Varesine, Coppa Agostoni and Coppa Bernocchi) and Trofeo Melinda used to be the races where the Italian World Championship team would be selected, back when Worlds were in August.  If you performed well here you would likely be part of the Squadra Azzurra. Now, even though these races play a minor roll in the Worlds selection process, they are still raced as if the rainbow jersey itself was on the line.  After Dan Martin (Garmin-Transitions) won Tre Valli Varesine the other day you would have thought it was the end of Italian cycling if you had glanced at the newspapers the following morning.  Italians are expected to shine here, and dominate these races in their home country.

The following day in Coppa Agostoni, the Italians blew the race apart from kilometer-zero, allowing only thirty-five riders to reach the finish line in Monza.  I was one of the many to hop in the team car in the feed zone, with my race long over before then.  A feeling I would like to soon forget and I hope to put that performance behind me come Saturday during the Trofeo Melinda.

Trofeo Melinda is held in the Trentino region of Northern Italy, and there isn’t a flat road in sight.  Maurizio Fondriest and Gilberto Simoni are from this area if that helps paint a picture of what kind of rider you’d be if raised here.  On our easy spin today we knocked out 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) in the flattest 1.5-hour loop we could find.  The race on Saturday will be more of the same, always going up or down.  Racing through endless fields of apple trees with only tiny hillside villages separating one from the next will make for a beautiful day.  I am just hoping to see more of the race from the bike than from inside the team car behind.

In the afternoon we drove down the valley and alongside the famous Lago di Como (Lake Como) and then up to the top of the Madonna de Ghisallo.  There the church waited for us with open doors and a surprising amount of tourists.  We gazed at its walls, covered in cycling memorabilia, just trying to soak in as much of the history around us as possible.  But for that you would need much longer than a few minutes.  Every inch of the church is covered with bikes, jerseys and any and all things cycling related.  It was truly amazing to see this firsthand and a must for any cycling fan.  I was also very surprised and happy to see so many tour buses park outside with their guests interested in learning the history of cycling.  Cycling is defiantly growing at the moment, I feel.

The rest of the ride we basically spent bar hopping.  A couple cappuccinos at this bar and a few pastries at another in a town down the valley.  Not a bad way to spend the day, but I believe when I am back here in a month’s time I will be missing those opportunities for coffee stops.  We also made another quick trip up the Passo Santa Christina and it didn’t get any easier overnight.  We are hoping to get in one more solid ride tomorrow, but with rain in the forecast it is not looking likely.

Our ride today took us to the unexpected.  Snow covered roads diverted us from our original plan to climb the Mortirolo.  Instead we ended climbing up the Santa Cristina.  Brendan thought it would never end, and I had to agree.  I even said “I am glad we are not racing up this in the Giro.”  Once we returned home, after almost six hours on the bike, I checked to map to see where we had gone.  I realized that we would be in fact racing up the Santa Cristina this year!

Tomorrow we will once again try the Mortirolo, hoping that a new route will bring us to the bottom of the climb.  And if the snow stops us again there are plenty more mountains just waiting for us to tackle.  Being in such a beautiful area makes the training so easy.  Even though the computer read six hours, to me it felt like thirty minutes.  For now though it is time for dinner.  Brendan is in desperate need of more pasta!

My mind was made up.  I would pick up the car in Girona, drive to Belgium and race through Liege-Bastogne-Liege, then drive down to Italy to pick up Brendan Quirk for a few days of training on the Giro d’Italia course and finally bring the car back to Girona in early May.  I am tired just from writing about all of the driving ahead, but at least I know I will get to where I need to be.  The outrageous bike charges and the countless security screens that come with air travel will not be missed either.

Driving in Europe is not all that bad either.  I am amazed at how much the scenery changes in such short distances.  Being from America I am use to driving hours on end before I was out of the deserts of the West, or the mountains of North Carolina.  Here in the space of a couple hours you go from the arid landscape of Provence, past the high mountains of the Alps and you are in the rolling pastures covered in yellow mustard seeds that make up central France.  The scenery defiantly keeps the drive entertaining, but I was more than excited to pull into our team hotel late last night.  It was a long trip that took some thirteen hours from door to door, but I am happy I did it.  It is great to be back with the team and where I belong.  I hated watching Amstel on TV, and I didn’t want to be in that same position the rest of the week.  These races are some of the best of the year and regardless of how I feel after the long drive I can’t wait to race tomorrow.

For 2010, Fleche Wallonne has had a pretty significant course change.  As always we pass the infamous Mur de Huy three times.  With its slopes kicking up above 20% it has always been a deciding factor, but probably never more than it will be this year.  In past editions we would pass the Mur two times before the finish on the third trip up, but those first two times were always far out from the finish so the pace was calm.  This year the 2nd passage comes just twenty-nine kilometers from the finish, so it will play a vital role in the race.  The run-in to the 2nd passage will be chaotic, as we all know the race will be decided there.  HTC-Columbia’s goal is to have some riders up the road by then as with a finish like tomorrow it is always good to be a little ahead of the game.

It has also been nice to sit back and watch some of the racing action this week, with Flanders and Roubaix taking place.  There is no better way to get motivated for my races ahead than by watching these guys battle each other over the cobbles.  I really have an awesome couple of months ahead of me.  The Ardennes week is fast approaching.   I will be racing in all three, Amstel Gold, Fleche Wallone and Liege-Bastogne-Liege.  These are three of the biggest and most exciting races of the year for me.  The crowds and the courses make this week special.  Then it is off to northern Italy where I will check out the courses of the last week of this year’s Giro d’Italia.  A close friend of mine, Brendan Quirk, will be joining me in the Dolomites for a great week of training.  Then it is the Giro itself.  My first Grand Tour, I am not sure what else you can say about that!  As always in life, there is much to look forward to.

Now it is time to rest they body and mind and recharge everything for a great 2010 season.  The road bike will collect some dust as I hit the mountain bike trails and the tennis courts for a few weeks.  I am sure this time will go by faster than ever, I will just try to make the best of it.

The days prior to the race Thomas Lovkvist and I rode on quiet one lane roads and up and over countless hills, some gradual and some way over 20% grades!  We past vineyard after vineyard and village after village and hardly ever came across any traffic, something that I thought would never be possible in northern Italy.  I am not sure if it is the food, wine, culture, sights or scenery, but I am always excited to be in Italy and to race through one of my favorite regions, Piemonte, was even more special.

We took the start in Novi Ligure just outside of a cycling museum named after the great Fausto Coppi, who was from this area.  From what I hear, it is very much worth a visit if you are ever in the area, unfortunately we didn’t have time today.  The race didn’t disappoint today, and started full gas just as every other day here.  I was hoping things would settle down quickly so I could take in the sights.  After a couple of hours, and with two guys up the road, we made our way into the hills.  We rode a good tempo up each and every climb, passing through the towns of La Morra, Barolo, Monforte d’Alba and Novello.  If you know a thing or two about wine, you will easily recognize these names as they appear on some of the most sought after bottles in the world.

We spent last weekend in the food capital in Italy, Bologna, and this week we are in the wine capital, Piemonte.  Here wine is everything and it’s easy to see.  Every sign on the road either points to a vineyard or to a wine bar, and close to 70% of the land is covered in grapes.  I had to control myself when racing through, as I wanted to just hope off the bike and head to one of the many wine bars that looked so inviting.

I guess you could say that my head wasn’t quite in the race today.  That’s not completely a bad thing.  This race is primarily an opener for the big one on Saturday, Giro di Lombardia.  Most guys keep things pretty relaxed, and are focused on just staying fresh for Saturday.  If you look at it that way, that’s exactly what I did.  The speed was good the whole day, never too taxing.  We did have a very technical finish into Fossano, something you would expect from the organizers, RCS Sport, the same people who run the Giro d’Italia.  That forced all of the splits in the peloton and Philippe Gilbert continued his impressive string of victories.

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.

The race was full gas most of the day. The first 100 kilometers, through the fields of Lambrusco grapes, past in a quick two hours. A solid tempo was set as we entered the hills. Up and over two mountains and then things really started ramping up as we charged into Bologna. The thing I really like about a race like this is that if you are good and strong you will always be at the front.  If you are really strong, then you’ll be fighting for the win.  Tactics take a back seat and only the best of the best finish.

Today Tommy was our strong man. He rode a great race, and was there at every important moment. The climb didn’t seem to phase him too much. He was like a diesel engine, turning over the gears at 50rpm and always looking rock solid. He even put it in the big ring during the final 350 meters. Trust me, that is very impressive, but probaby was his downfall as two guys rolled by him by the line. To come out of this race with a 3rd is a great result for Tommy and the team. Coming into this week we didn’t know what to expect, now we know we have some good chances.  The moral is much higher now than in the morning, we even lucked out with the weather and only saw a few drops of rain.