Giro about to start in Amsterdam

In two and a half hours, one of the biggest bicycle races in the world, the Giro d’Italia, will start in Amsterdam, and the action is all taking place at a stone’s throw from my house.

As you may imagine, I will use the opportunity to walk around with my camera to soak up the mood and give you a report later. With luck there will be room to watch. I have good hope, because as you can see in the photos, the weather is quite dreary here. Also, let’s be honest, this is not the Tour de France—which will start in Rotterdam later this year—so interest is likely to be lower. (Two out of three Grand Tours, though, not bad.)

There is also a garbage collectors strike going on, so the stalls selling Giro paraphernalia are standing anthropomorphised shoulder to anthropomorphised shoulder with piles of trash.

The riders seen in this photo are members of team Milram out for a leisurely reconnaissance of the parcours on the Olympiaweg, 800 900 metres from the finish.

See also:

• The day the grown men cried

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 8th, 2010 at 11:40 am and is filed under Bicycles, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: bicycle racing, Giro d'Italia