Wide-eyed and pale as a night poacher, I was able to say only, ‘Oh.’
Back on the mountain, we rounded a corner, the car just starting to splutter, and came upon a mountain lodge restaurant with a host of race vehicles parked outside. Sanctuary!
‘Right, this’ll do. Thank you, gentlemen.’ I flounced out of the car and dragged my bag from the boot. Tapping the roof, I said, ‘Off you pop! See you in the morning.’
I could hear the sound of the restaurant through the double-glazed windows. As I climbed the steps, the door flung open and a wobbling barrier guy exited, guffawing with laughter as he made his way over to a tree. He couldn’t be bothered to battle for the loo through the mayhem inside. There must have been 200 covers, and not a seat was free. Production crew, barrier guys, and promotion caravan teams of all descriptions were theatrically engaged in a food festival. The mood was buoyant to say the least; rowdy even.
Doing the world television feed on-site is a privilege. You are a member of a big but tight production team and thus very much part of the gang. So they knew who I was. ‘Ciao, Carl-toni!!!’ echoed around.
I asked a harried waiter who among all his clients was about to finish? He pointed to a table of trolls. These guys needed a bath. I didn’t care because they were kind, going my way over the mountain and apparently had space in the cab of their heavily laden flatbed truck stacked with hundreds of aluminium barriers. They also reflected the diverse heritage of the barrier crews, whose job it is to secure the race route with a line of shiny aluminium. My new mates were, it turned out, Italian, Slovakian and Sicilian.
Espressos necked and cigarette butts flicked, we got on board. It was tight. They said they had room, but this was clearly for the size of an arse that belonged to Farina. His arse, meanwhile, was heading down the mountain in a dance of death with hairpins and oncoming TV trucks. I didn’t care.
With the smile of an escapee in sight of freedom, I wound down the window and hung an elbow into the cold air just to give my shoulders some room. There were four of us on the bench seat of the cab. We were as cosy as four grown men can be.
It’s hard to pass sweets when your shoulders are compressed to the side of your face. With arms out front in a begging position, we passed around a plastic box of Tic Tacs and launched the sugar pills into our mouths as if we were tossing pancakes.
The road got progressively steeper and more broken. The municipality had not got around to fixing the winter frost damage and the truck was duly being troubled by the uneven surface. On we bounced for around 20 minutes before we rounded a headland to be met with a terrible sight: red warning flares were firing their powder into the night. It looked like an emergency chopper landing site from Apocalypse Now. This was serious.
Out of the hellish fog came a policeman. I imagined Verdi’s Requiem as the smoke billowed and wafted about him as he walked towards us.
We turned our engine off to hear the fizzing fireworks as the officer drew near.
‘Landslide?’ I enquired sympathetically.
‘No . . . no, no, no,’ said the policeman with a huge grin on his face. ‘Party!!!’ It was then I noticed the very faint thrum of rock music. I think it was Lynyrd Skynyrd.
‘You park here and walk around the big hole . . . 200m you find the party.’
‘Thank you, officer.’
We found the big hole alright. Clearly a pothole that had once been covered, as we discovered, by a 5cm (2in) thick sheet of iron to accommodate rolling trucks. The bolt holes were fresh in the road. So was the air temperature as we marched on towards what looked like a Native American encampment.
A huge teepee revealed itself, located next to a massive bonfire. It was apparently still dinner time. Over the fire was an arrangement of wooden poles, from the centre of which hung the metal sheet now missing from the road. It swung gently on its chains with piles of meat on board sizzling away about a foot above the log pyre. This was mega!
I can honestly say I’ve never seen so many dangerous looking men gathered together in such a happy mood. ‘Ciao, welcome,’ said a man with a huge two-litre bottle of something boozy. ‘We are the Giro Mountain Guard.’ It was a Biker Gang.
Basically, if you are a mayor, in hard-pressed times, and you want extra security for a one-off event, then the Hells Angels are a handy bunch to befriend. Apparently the local police force would struggle to secure a race such as the Giro without them.
So here we were in a mosh of hairy men with lots of food, a fire to keep warm . . . oh, and alcohol. Booze-a-go-go.
‘You like grappa?’ said a man who resembled Father Christmas’s tubby brother. He displayed a bare belly, curtained at the sides by a leather waistcoat that had buttons but no chance of them ever being fastened.
He handed me a pottery demijohn with a finger loop at the neck, from which I was clearly expected to swig. I pulled a long cork and went to take a nip. ‘No, no, you drink it like this,’ and he showed how to balance it on your elbow and tip it up. Under his excited gaze. I took a hearty
