Bingen Fernandez’s radio calls are more urgent now. His driving is sharper. The 43-year-old Cannondale director sportif has his left hand on the top of the steering wheel, his right wrapped around the team radio. Twenty-five kilometers to go and Moreno Moser is riding for a stage win at the 2016 Giro d’Italia. I’m in the passenger seat, 10 feet off Moser’s rear wheel as he churns up the final climb of the Giro’s stage 8, through the white roads that give Strade Bianche its name. Dust is everywhere. Ahead, Gianluca Brambilla and Matteo Montaguti have a small gap. Behind, a recently dispatched Alessandro De Marchi suffers, his head down. There is no TV camera here, not for third on the road. Just Moser, alone, ticking his legs over 90 times a minute between two walls of fans, his rear wheel skittering a bit on the white gravel surface. And Bingen, yelling out the window and into the radio.
“Vai vai vai, Moreno! Today is the day! Oggi! You f—king do it!”
Stage races have a script. Establish an amenable breakaway. Let it go. Chase it. Catch it. Let the big boys out to play. Nine of 10 stages go like this. One in 10 stages doesn’t.
These one-in-10 days are circled in the road book months in advance. They often look much like today. Lumpy, but not hugely mountainous, with a climb near the finish so the sprinters’ teams have no incentive to work; narrow roads with lots of curves that make it hard to organize a chase; at least a week of racing in the legs and a week of time loss, too, so that the GC men don’t feel threatened. Even with all these ingredients there’s no guarantee a break sticks. But at least there’s a chance.
Today is one of those days. Today, there’s a chance.
A team meeting is convened inside the Cannondale team bus as an announcer’s voice booms 300 meters away. Moser is the man for the break, the directors decide. It’s not a difficult decision. Today’s route features a sharp final climb up the white gravel roads used in Strade Bianche, a race the Italian won in 2013. Simon Clarke, also well-suited to the route, will stay in the main group and execute his role as road captain. The rest will protect Rigoberto Uran and his general classification hopes.
I’m told to meet Fernández at the team car at noon. Roll out will be at 12:20. “Don’t be late,” he says. The Giro waits for no man.
A WorldTour team car is a rolling communications hub. A TV sits embedded in the dash in place of the navigation system. A fancy, brand new Garmin GPS is stuck just above it. Two different radios — race radio and team radio — crackle intermittently in a mix of Italian, French, and English. Fernández has two phones and one pair of Apple headphones that he moves back and forth between them. The message service Whatsapp is used by the team to send updates on the course, weather, potential dangers, the severity of climbs, or anything else the riders should be warned of. Updates come in frequently before the stage starts as soigneurs drive out toward the first feed zone and mechanics make their way to the next hotel.
“Raining at 10k,” one message says, followed by a photo of a rain-splattered windshield. Fernandez grabs the team radio and calls out to his riders. “Storm at 10k, guys. Come grab clothes.”
We’re parked behind the peloton, wedged down a narrow roadway in the middle of Foligno. In ones and twos, the green jerseys of Cannondale make their way back to the car. Joe Dombrowski pulls up alongside, leans in the passenger window. “Vest rain or jacket rain?” he asks. It’s jacket rain. Torrential, according to the soigneurs. They dig through rain bags in the back of the car and pull out what they need, stuffing jackets not in back pockets but slipped under the lower elastic of their jerseys, for easier access. Uran doesn’t come back to the car. Uran never comes back. That’s what domestiques are for.
As predicted, big splats of rain begin to hit the windshield 10 kilometers in. The race is on. Move after move flies off the front, only to be reeled back. The composition has to be perfect. The first hour of a stage like this can be the hardest of the day. Everyone knows there’s a chance for the break, so everyone wants to be in it.
Only a few can be, of course. Moser is one of the strong and slightly lucky 12 now rolling in a genial rotation with 100km to go. One by one, they drop off the back for a chat with the director in the car behind, looking for final orders and a bit of food and encouragement.
“BMC a la fuga,” the radio crackles, calling the BMC team car forward.
“Ag2r pour l’échapée.”
“Cannondale to the break.”
Moser spins up next to the car, grabbing the windowsill for a moment. “Brambilla and De Marchi. You watch them,” Fernandez says, handing a few gels over. Moser nods and stuffs them in a pocket then grabs the bottle held out by his director, slinging forward and onto the back of the group.
There will be a moment, somewhere down the road, when the bike race will be won or lost. We haven’t reached it yet.
Fernandez was right. Brambilla and De Marchi are clearly strong. Montaguti too. As the stage enters Tuscany and hits the first section of strade bianche the four — Moser included — splinter the break. These climbs are steep, loose, and unrelenting. No more hiding.
The 6km gravel climb up to Alpe di Potti begins and Brambilla moves to the front. He puts in a dig, and then another. His shoulders are steady, the body language of a rider on form, exuding confidence. He goes again. DeMarchi falls back. Moser is distanced too, just slightly, and his shoulders begin to roll.
Fernandez pulls up just behind him and leans his head out the window. “Vai vai vai, Moreno! Today is the day! Oggi! You f—king do it!,” he yells. He’s squirming in his seat, smacking the steering wheel as if it will propel Moser forward, alternating between yelling out the window and yelling into the radio. This is their shot. It’s the right route, the right rider, the right finale. Everything went right.
Moser is 30 seconds down at the top of the climb, with only a fast, narrow descent to go. Pointed downhill, he’s far faster than us. The Cannondale Skoda’s tires screech as Fernandez chucks it into corner after corner, barely able to keep up.
It’s a daredevil pursuit, down into the valley through a tunnel of trees then into the finish laps around the ancient city of Arezzo. A steep climb through stone streets greets Brambilla and then, 40 seconds later, his chasers. Moser is flat-out, giving it everything.
It’s not enough. Third. Brambilla is just better today.
The finish call comes over the radio as Brambilla crosses the line. Fernandez winces. He picks up his team radio. “We were close, boys,” he says. “Great work today.”
He holds the radio up.
“People think I can just tell them to do more watts on the radio,” he says. He points to his legs, let’s out a little smile that says you can’t win them all. “I wish I could. I wish. But it’s not like this. Racing, bike racing is human.”
The post One in ten: The story of a Giro d’Italia breakaway appeared first on VeloNews.com.