Conor Dunne was forced to pour hot tea over himself at the Giro to stay warm on yesterday’s epic stage 16.
He contemplated peeing on himself – as Paul Kimmage
famously did and wrote about during his career – but he found himself unable to
do so.
Luckily for the Israel Cycling Academy rider, he was
handed up bottles of hot tea to do the job.
Dunne joined a large group of riders marshaled by the
FDJ-Groupama team of points classification leader Arnaud Demare.
They grouped together from a long way out and even
stopped at the top of the Mortirolo - “probably the hardest mountain I've ever
ridden up” – to put on additional layers of clothing.
But having gone down the descent and then started climbing
the last long section uphill, he said they were all freezing on a day of cold
temperatures, rain and fog.
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“Even though I had more layers on, the wind-chill effect
of the half-hour long descent meant I was shivering halfway down it,” he said
of coming off the mountain.
He was writing in his Irish Independent Giro d’Italia diary.
“On the edge of hypothermia, I contemplated peeing myself
to stay warm but was so cold I couldn't go.
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“I tried to ride harder to get my body temperature up and
when the road widened enough the team cars came up with welcome bottles of warm
tea to share among the group.
“Instead of drinking them though, we poured them over our
legs in an effort to thaw them out enough to get us to the end of the stage.”
He described the Mortirolo as “steeper than Seskin Hill
in Carrick-On-Suir and goes on for 12km”.
Dunne added: “On a granny gearing of 36x32, I tried to
keep my tempo at about 350 watts average on the slope.”
However, he made it to the finish; in a group 41:50 down
and in 139th place. Eddie Dunbar (Team Ineos) rode for team leader Pavel
Sivakov, who took 16th on the stage.
The Russian retained his 9th place overall but gave up
his young rider classification jersey to Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana).
Dunbar finished in 42nd place, in a group 10:45 down on
stage winner and king of the mountains Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo).
However, on a day when the race blew apart, despite
losing time Dunbar only lost one place overall and is now in 22nd
position.
The big news in the overall battle was Primoz Roglic
(Jumbo Visma) losing more time to the other big favourites.
Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) rode an aggressive and
strong stage. But while he dropped Roglic he could no shake race leader Richard
Carapaz (Movistar).
They finished in a group 1:41 down on the stage winner,
who claimed victory from a breakaway. And they were 1:22 up on Roglic after 194km
from Lovere to Ponte di Legno.
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