Dispatch: Two Wheels To The Top Of Austria For The Giro di Mankei

This is not a bike race. It cannot possibly be a bike race because we have all agreed that it would not be a bike race. And yet, here I am. 

Five bright red lights on my head unit flash the warning of an untenable pace; an unsustainable heart rate, and the familiar desperation of watching the invisible elastic holding my wheel to the wheel in front of me, begin to stretch and fray. The road bends gently to the left, aiming further skyward. We complete the turn, and suddenly the full scale of Austria’s ‘Hohe Tauern’ range unfurls itself from the clouds like a chiseled bicep of stone and glacial ice. The wonder is short-lived, replaced by the dread of losing the wheel and the grim realization that the suffering has only really just begun.

Translated as “big ride” in Italian, a ‘gran fondo’ is loose cycling parlance for exactly that: a big day in the saddle, usually with hundreds or thousands of fellow participants – most of whom have entered into an unspoken social, gentlemanly contract that this is in fact, a leisure ride, and *not* a race. But then there’s the tip of the spear. The one-percenters who abide by the counter-argument – a different unspoken agreement that this is absolutely, unquestionably a race. These are the types who use the neutral rollout to jockey for position, form alliances to create early breakaways, attack through well-stocked aid stations, and generally try to make the day as hard as possible for anyone who dares ride near the front.