Eroika Rosa first edition!

A long travel for a very unique experience! The men’s Eroica over the «strade biance» in Toscany is well known and this year saw the first edition for women, the Eroica Rosa. 117km overall of which 40 led over «strade biance», in the beautiful landscape around Gaiole in Chianti (near Siena). Only 46 riders took the start early sunday morning (many riders being in Australia for the worlds) and only half of them actually crossed the finish line.

Suzie and Trixy signing in while Buba is waiting for the pictures

At 9 o’clock on a still a bit chilly Sunday morning, the start was given. The first two uphills warmed the engine up before we entered the first 12km long section on «strade biance».

... Dust in the wind ... Team-cars following the groupe

At that moment of the race, I was still in the front group of around 20 riders, but in a steep part the group was split, and we had a front group of 9 and a second chasing group of 10 riders.

Suzie leads the chasing groupe ...

I didn’t have the time to enjoy the magnificent sight on Siena and the landscape, because riding on «strade biance» is like cyclo cross and I had to stay concentrated to avoid crashing.

... and is following Gloria Presti in a very steep uphill !

I was still in the same group when we had 50km more to go, but it turned out that it was also now the last group, because all of the others had been taken out.

At kilometre 30 from the end, I got a puncher on an offroad section, but fortunately I caught back the group I had been in.

And a puncher in a steep dowhill (by a girl from System Data)

The last section of «strade biance» before the «castello di Broglio» was very tricky, some girls got off their bikes, but after that, we only had 10 more km to go on nice asphalt roads. And on this very nice road that led calmly to the finish-line, in a downhill on a slightly wet road I missed a turn and found myself flying through the air into the grass next to the road.

Happy after arrival!

The group was long gone when I finally checked myself and my bike and I had to finish the race on my own (which I did carefully, shocked by my crash). This explains why I’m last in the classification, but I am very happy to be among those who actually finished this race.

It was a good transition to cyclo cross, that’s for sure!

Here is a small report from a other Internet Site: