March 20, 2005 – Milan-San Remo (MSR) is the first big classic on the calendar. Three days before the race we thought we had a team that could win the race but when we got to the start line things were a little different. We lost our two leaders, Max van Heeswijk and George Hincapie, to illness and several others on the team were either sick or injured. So, when we had our team meeting in the bus prior to the start the main goal was to try and get as many guys as possible over the Cipressa and Poggio and to cover any big breakaways (more than 10 riders) in the first part of the race.

MSR is the longest race we will do in the year and ended up being one of the longest rides I have done in my life at 300 km. All in all we were on our bikes for 7hr and 35min including the 7km of neutral riding that took us to the outskirts of Milan for the official start.

The first hour of the race was quite fast with riders launching attacks to try and get away in an “early” break. An early move in a long World Cup race rarely stays away as teams get organized behind and chase them down as the last kilometers of the race approach. The break acts as a carrot in front of the peloton. In Milan-San Remo it is important to many teams, especially the Italians, that they are represented in the break as the television time they will receive is crucial to their sponsors.

Most of Italy is tuned into the race for the day. The first half of the MSR route heads south to the sea and then the second half heads west along the coast to San Remo. When the peloton hits the coast the speed increases and with 80km to go we were consistently cruising along at 60km/h. The seaside towns are lined with park cars and spectators and we came through these towns at breakneck speeds dodging the cars, people and any other objects that might be on the road. It is quite insane how fast the peloton gets going. For three hours it feels like we raced the same way we would if we were only 20 kms from the finish.

This classic essentially comes down to the Cipressa and the Poggio – the two main climbs on the course which are both in the last hour of racing. A rider needs experience on the course to know when the climbs are coming to get positioned at the front and avoid any splits that occur in the peloton. Our team was fairly well placed in the bunch when a crash occured a couple of kilometers from the bottom of the Cipressa. Leif Hoste crashed and his race was over while Pavel Padrnos and I were completely blocked in the road as riders were all over the place.

We got going again but the race was over for us as the riders at the front were still cruising along at 60 km/h to the Cipressa and the gap was impossible to close. I was actually feeling much better than I had been during the rest of the week as my back was mostly healed and my legs were turning well. It was frustrating that the race was finished before we had a chance to get to the climbs.

In the end it was a bad day for our team as we only had one rider in the lead group, Roger Hammond. Hopefully, by next weekend we’ll have things back on track for the rest of the classics. It was really cool to be a part of a race with so much history. With the experience of knowing the race and how it unfolds I look forward to coming back in the coming years.