CAGLIARI, Italy (VN) — Life on the Giro d’Italia is not without its extremes. Crashes and victories on the road are often punctuated by boring nights in hotel rooms and long transfers.
For Trek-Segafredo, Saturday evening’s otherwise routine post-stage shuttle to the hotel added a new chapter of just how wacky the Giro can be.
Things started off just fine. A relatively short 15km route should have meant an early night for massages, dinner, and a good sleep. Instead, the 46-foot-long bus got literally caught in a jam. A similar incident was seen at the 100th Tour de France in 2013, when Orica’s bus lodged itself under the finish line gantry.
The WorldTour bus drivers are renowned for their driving skills and their ability to squeeze their big rigs in and out of tight spots, but there was no way out of this pickle.
Veteran Trek-Segafredo bus driver Danny In t’Ven explained: “The farther we went on the road, the narrower the road became. The big surprise came with a nasty corner. I tried a few times, but there was no way of coming through.”
That’s putting it mildly. Despite a double-rear axle to help turning, the team’s distinctive black bus was wedged in so tight on the narrow bridge there was no going forward and no going back. They were literally trapped.
The hotel was still more than 1km up the road, and the sight of an immovable WorldTour team bus soon drew a crowd, and most of the inhabitants of a local village of Bari Sardo turned up to check out what the commotion was all about.
Trek-Segafredo rider Peter Stetina posted a photo on his Twitter account revealing just how badly the team’s bus was squeezed in.
“You know it’s too good to be true when it’s only a 15km transfer,” Stetina explained. “The road got narrower and narrower, and then we hit some switchbacks, and then we saw a herd of sheep. We hit a bridge that was just impossible with the bus. Then all the locals came out and watched. The whole town of 200 people were there. The Giro always goes like that!”
Bus driver In t’Ven admitted his stress level was going through the roof, and anyone who’s ever driven on narrow Italian mountain roads knows how nerve-wracking that can be, in even in a car, let alone a 46-foot-long bus hauling nine world-class bike racers.
“There was a little bit of stress,” said In t’Ven, who puts in more than 100 days a year behind the wheel. Lesson learned: Never blindly follow the shortest route offered by the GPS in Italy’s hill country.
Team staffers poked around for some tools to try to pry apart the metal railings to open a gap for the bus. Villagers shrugged their shoulders, saying it would be impossible for the bus to climb higher even if they dismantled their beloved bridge.
And then a herd a sheep trundled past.
With nowhere to go, the riders were shuttled up to the team hotel by some soigneurs who had gone up earlier. In t’Ven then had the harrowing task of reversing the bus down the narrow, twisting mountain road.
“I had to go backwards for about 1km,” In t’Ven said. “But if I would have had to go through the switchbacks backwards, I would be there forever.”
One enterprising neighbor opened up a gate to a relatively flat patch of pasture land, and In t’Ven was able to execute what was described as a “20-point-turn” to get the nose of the bus heading back in the right direction. A relieved In t’Ven then drove the bus to more accommodating roads, and reached the hotel in about 20 minutes from another approach.
“I’ve been driving a bus for 10 years, and this is the first time I could not move anymore,” In t’Ven said. “The biggest nightmare would be if it were on the way to the start and we were blocked in. It was an experience … one I hope not to repeat!”
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