A Wild Ride

Yours Truly is a cycling fan, but not big enough to go cycling himself, or sit for five to six hours a day just to watch how a stage race unfolds.

Last night, Yours Truly had time to watch Stage 5 of this year’s Giro d’Italia, and just as he was hearing his son complaining that cycling races are boring, he caught a huge break.

Because last night’s race was a doozy.

Yours Truly’s channel-surfing stopped when he saw cyclists racing in torrential rain in the latter part of the race where two cyclists, Spain’s Igor Arrieta and Portugal’s Afonso Eulalio, had broken away with some 20km to go.

Yours Truly is a huge proponent that all races, be it Formula One, MotoGP or the Iditarod, should run in rain artificial or not, as moisture is the biggest equaliser of all and helps pick out the best from the rest. He thought that something crazy would happen soon to the two breakaway cyclists given how bad the condition was.

And he was right.

Arrieta, son of former professional Jose Luis, was the first one to crack when we fell while negotiating a tight left-hand turn downhill. Eulalio, who was following closely, managed to take avoiding action and eke out a 30-second lead after overtaking the unfortunate Spaniard.

With the main contenders over eight minutes behind the pair, Eulalio, the better-placed rider of the two, was on course to pick up the Maglia Rosa, the pink jersey as the leader of the entire race. And it would be even better for him to pick up a stage win as well. With about 10km to go, his lead was about 30 seconds, and Arrieta looked spent and frustrated by his mistake.

Then it was Eulalio’s turn to fall. He also fell on a left-hand turn, albeit a less tight one when his ran over a huge puddle and slid all the way to the guardrail on the right side of the road. With his shorts ripped, Eulalio got up quickly, picked up a replacement bike almost instantly, managed to remount and start peddling again.

That gave a lifeline to Arrieta, who made a mess picking up a replacement bike in his earlier crash. However, he almost crashed a second time when running ran over a puddle as his bike started wobbling big time. Luckily, he managed to stay upright, and started closing in on Eulalio with 5km to go, and managed to catch his slipstream with about 3km to go.

Then with 2km to go, the pair arrived at a fork where you are supposed to go right, and the uphill road on the left is sealed off by cordon tapes at the bottom.

Just as Arrieta was about to launch an attack on Eulalio, he went into the fork too quickly, and couldn’t take the road on the right.

He ended up entering the road on the left, got tangled up in the cordon tapes, and was so lucky that he wasn’t travelling too fast to be strangled by the tapes. But he did lose valuable seconds freeing himself from the tapes and finding the right road, pun intended.

Now Eulalio was once again alone in the lead, with a 10-plus second gap inside the final kilometre. Surely the Portuguese would secure the double: a stage win and the Maglia Rosa.

But then Arrieta had other ideas. Amazingly, he managed to close the gap steadily and in the last 200 metres of so, managed to catch and overtake Eulalio and win the stage by two seconds.

Not bad for someone who crashed out of the lead once, almost crashed another time, and almost got himself killed by the cordon tapes just minutes earlier.

For Eulalio, while he lost the stage win, he did pick up the Maglia Rosa for his efforts, as well as the white jersey as the best young rider so far. Since he will be wearing the Maglia Rosa on the next stage, guess who will take over the white jersey?

Arrieta, of course.

And Yours Truly will never forget how stunned and happy he was when he crossed the line with his head buried in his arms bloodied by his earlier crash.

Amazing.