We had the luxury of leaving our bags in the hotel room, as we’d be returning for another night. The race start, at which we arrived by bus, was at the Macau Tower: a huge pointy structure (which reminded me of a similar one in San Antonio, Texas). It had the atmosphere of a deserted fairground; again, no spectators besides the race personnel. Some lion dancers danced (by the way, I don’t know where I got the idea that the dancers represent lions: I just think that’s what they are. Please set me straight, someone, if they’re supposed to be something else, such as, possibly, dragons). Then the horn blew and they were off.
I caught a ride to the start in a minibus, while Pollo sneaked into the neutral start of the race and just rode along with the peloton to the start of the circuits. I spent most of the race using Louis’ phone (poor guy, but he was very generous about it!) trying to change Pollo’s ticket to return to the US, in which I was finally (mostly) successful. (My ticket’s to return on 1/15, and I could only change Pollo’s to 1/22 (with waiting list status for the 15th). So Pollo may be stranded on his own in China for a week! No, if I have to change my ticket I will; but I’m not sure that we’ll want to be gone so long.)
Eugene had a rough day, and we saw him on the sidelines pretty early on. The cumulative effects of a stage race at this point in the season (that’s to say, really the off-season) must be brutal. So now it was just 2 Mengoni guys left: Alberto and Amaurys. This stage was comprised of moderately hilly circuits, followed by a heinous ascent, the last 2K of which were at grades reaching 15%. So it wasn’t really a stage for Amaurys the sprinter (especially not with the 11-21 cassette he had). Alberto was going fine, but we’d taken one look around at the legions of skinny, young Asian riders and realized that for the team, the final stage was a formality. Which was how it turned out. I’d caught another minibus to the top of the climb, and hearing the bus whine its complaining way up made me realize just how steep it was!
The guys rode back to the hotel, and I took yet another bus. We met up for lunch, which we enjoyed at a Portuguese-style restaurant (steak for Eugene and Amaurys, and soup for Alberto, who decided to start trying right away to lose the weight he’d gained during the race!). Then Alberto headed to Hong Kong to meet up with his family, who’d traveled there to do some sightseeing over the Christmas holiday. Eugene headed to bed for a nap, and Pollo, Amaurys, and I took a taxi into downtown Macau to see some sights.
Wow – the whole downtown was totally packed with people. I don’t know how many were tourists and how many natives, but the streets of the old town district were just crammed. We finally made our way to the Ruinas de São Paolo. This cathedral had been built by Japanese Jesuits, who’d fled to Macau to escape persecution in Japan. They then proceeded to be kicked out of Macau too, and their church converted to a barracks. All that stands now is the façade, which is impressively somber, especially against the twilit sky as we saw it.
We spent half an hour looking for a taxi, getting increasingly worried as 6:30 got closer and closer (we were supposed to catch buses to the awards dinner from the hotel at 6:30). We finally found one and arrived at the hotel at about 6:40, just in time to get the last bus to dinner. The dinner was in one of the casinos (a place with a fake mini volcano outside). The spread was incredible – really 5 star!! We felt spoiled and very stuffed by the end.
We shared a table with the Omnibike (Uzbeki) mechanic and director. Although the director had not so much as glanced in our direction the whole week, he got quite friendly over dinner, even asking my permission to take a photo with me. Then he asked me, in halting English, if I knew Sergei Lagutin from the Navigators team. Although I don’t really know him personally, I knew him by sight and name, and remembered a few races he’d won last year. The director told me proudly that Lagutin had signed with Unibet, a ProTour team, next year. We tossed around a few other names of Russian and Uzbeki guys that had ridden for the Navs, and I told him that I live very close to the home base of the team in New Jersey. Funny how small the world is, especially in cycling.
For me, however, the best part of the evening was hearing (from Gus) that Cacoñema had somehow read my blog mentioning his jerkiness! Apparently, his muttered comment had been, “You’d better tell that girl to watch out. I have friends all over.” Ha! I felt supremely vindicated in my effort to bring him to shame, even though I’d never suspected my blog would reach that far. Sweet!
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