Finished!

We made it! It was an interesting night before the race. Of course a concert (it was classical music) had been scheduled right outside of the gymnasium that we were staying at. This concert also didn't begin until 9 pm! Italians are apparently crazy for that sort of thing and the crowd was pretty rambunctious. Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, they started to sing around 10 pm. The concert lasted until 11 pm and I was so relieved when it was over! Thoughts of streaking through the gymnasium to the quad flashed through my mind (noone in the gymnasium would have even noticed since that really wouldn't have been out of the ordinary with how the week had been!) but I didn't summon up the courage and really didn't feel like being in an Italian jail in the morning. Cutting the power would have been a decent fix as well...

It was an interesting night. The race the next day was also interesting. They started us up a climb that narrowed so quickly that we were all hiking up paved roads. Not exactly the best choice for the route but oh well, there was some fun singletrack throughout the day and for the most part we enjoyed the day. There was about 30 km of down/flat after the final climb and we were able to create a pack of about 15 people and share the work to the finish. The sun was even shining when we arrived!

Oskar's parents met up with us in Riva del Garda and we packed up and left to head back home. It was a long day and a half of travel back to Sweden, however, I will not bore you with any details.

Both of us are getting better with rest (the colds are going away) and we are happy that we took on the 2011 Bike Craft TransAlp but neither one of us has plans to do it again...ever.

Thank you for reading the blog. I will try to continue to post some more pictures as I have time and a competent internet connection.