Stage 16

In article
<[email hidden]>,

Bob Schwartz said:

The Giro visits Monte Bondone:

The Giro has not been here since 1992 when Giorgio Furlan got
to the top first. But the most significant stage win here was
the first, in 1956.

1956 was a year of transition. Coppi and Magni had battled for
the win the year before, but time catches up with everyone,
even the giants. Abandoned by his longtime sponsor Bianchi
he had a new team and renewed hopes. But his Carpano Coppi
squad would finish 10th in a short TTT, and his career was
clearly waning.

Not so for Charly Gaul.

Pasquale Fornara had taken pink on the stage 13 time trial,
and had held it into the mountains and over the Stelvio. 89
riders finished Stage 19 in Merano. Ahead they faced three
passes and a Stage 20 finish on the nasty Bondone climb. It
was a day that the Gazzetta dello Sport called 'Dantesque'.
But it was snow they faced, an inferno would have been welcome.

Gazzetta has it right. See Cocytus, aka the ninth circle
of hell.

Canto XXXII

....

I heard a voice cry: 'Watch which way you turn:
take care you do not trample on the heads
of the forsworn and miserable brethren."

Wherat I turned and saw beneath my feet
and stretching out ahead, a lake so frozen
it seemed to be made of glass. So thick a sheet

never yet hid the Danube's winter course,
nor, far away beneath the frigid sky,
locked the Don up in its frozen source:

for were Tanbernick and the enormous peak
Pietrapana to crash down on it,
not even the edges would so much as creak.

The way frogs sit to croak, their muszzles leaning
out of the water, at the time and season
when the peasant woman dreams of her day's gleaning--

Just so the livid dead are sealed in place
up to the part at which they blushed for shame,
and they beat their teeth like storks. Each holds his face

bowed toward the ice, each of them testifies
to the cold with his chattering mouth, so his heart's grief
with tears that flood forever from his eyes.

....

Thanks for researching and writing these travel guides.

Quoted message said:

Gaul took charge from the beginning, leading over all three
passes and finishing 7:44 ahead of second place and over 12
minutes ahead of Magni in third. Only 43 riders would survive
the brutal storm. It was a day in the Dolomites that would
create a legend as Gaul was rewarded with a pink jersey that he
would carry to Milan, 50 years ago.

--
Michael Press

Wow that was a good one today.