{"id":1220,"date":"2017-05-05T20:24:13","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T20:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/?p=1220"},"modified":"2017-05-06T14:01:35","modified_gmt":"2017-05-06T14:01:35","slug":"sicily-bike-race-or-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/?p=1220","title":{"rendered":"Sicily: Bike Race or History?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Giro d\u2019Italia is Italy\u2019s answer to the Tour de France and one of the most famous bike races in the world.\u00a0 It lasts 21 days, covers much of Italy\u2019s extremely varied terrain, and, this year, traverses Sicily with Stages 4 and 5.\u00a0 This year also (like last year), Decatur\u2019s own Joey Rosskopf<\/a> will be racing the Giro for Team BMC, currently the 3rd ranked cycling team in the world.\u00a0 We are here in\u00a0Sicily to witness the Giro<\/a> and root for Joey.<\/p>\n

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Hampsten summits Gavia, goes on to win the Giro, 1988<\/p><\/div>\n

The Giro is famous for its passionate fans\u2014the \u201ctifosi\u201d\u2014who line the roads and cheer on the riders.\u00a0 It\u2019s also famous for epically steep mountain climbs, controversy (rivalries, cheating, doping), snowstorms in the Alps or Dolomites, and its champions (Fausto Coppi, Eddy Merxx, Marco Pantani).\u00a0 America\u2019s one triumphant Giro moment came in 1988 when Andy Hampsten pushed up the Passo di Gavia in a snowstorm to win a stage and propel himself to overall victory.\u00a0 We haven\u2019t come close since.<\/p>\n

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Italian tifosi rallying a Giro racer<\/p><\/div>\n

Our little group of aging Americans will pedal up the slopes of Mt. Etna in this year\u2019s Stage 4 of the Giro\u2014hours before the racers arrive\u2014to position ourselves high on the mountain as Joey\u2019s Tifosi.\u00a0 We plan to make good things happen for Joey and BMC; regardless, we know good things will happen for us.\u00a0 We\u2019re always happy on our bikes\u2014never mind the grousing about steep ramps and sore legs.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve come to Sicily for a bike race; we\u2019ve discovered an island rich in history.\u00a0 In fact, Sicily is home to no less than 7 designated World Heritage sites and we will spend as much time visiting them as we will chasing the Giro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Giro d\u2019Italia is Italy\u2019s answer to the Tour de France and one of the most famous bike races in the world.\u00a0 It lasts 21 days, covers much of Italy\u2019s extremely varied terrain, and, this year, traverses Sicily with Stages … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[53],"class_list":["post-1220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycling","tag-sicily-100th-giro"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/6AndyHampsten.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3QqGi-jG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}