BiciRace.com :: Marco Pinotti

29 August, Bernina Pass and Thoughts on Shorter Grand Tours

Marco Pinotti, Saunier Duval-Prodir

29 August 2006

Bernina Pass and Thoughts on Shorter Grand Tours

Pinotti races to 3rd in Giro Pontedera TT, photo: Makoto.Ayano/ CyclingTime.com

Hi BiciRace,

Sorry for not answering you before, but that day (11 august) I was leaving for Bernina Pass and I came back only last Sunday night after 16 nights at altitude (2300 meters) and almost 60 hrs of training. [BiciRace.com wrote Pinotti to get his opinion on Pat McQuaid's proposal to shorten the Grand Tours. Read: Shortening Grand Tours: Bad Idea]

I think that shortening Grand Tours would be a disaster because they are the heart of a tradition and cycling is based a lot on tradition. It cannot help fight doping because it is possible to ride three weeks in a row without doping, and I further add that it helps to improve your performance, even if some people do not think so. If they were to shorten the Grand Tours, we riders would ride in another race for our team and I do not think that the total amount of race days would change (my career it's about 85-95 average race days per year).

Anyway, apart from this stuff, I am very happy with the Bernina training camp with Under 23 national team.

After working a lot on the track in July, in August I resumed road training with the Tour of Germany where I began again to have confidence on the climbs. And then followed another camp, where we found cold and rain the first week but more sun in the last days. We stayed on Bernina Pass, with no TV and no distractions. I came out very focused and think that when the benefits of that big amount of training come out I will ride very well, hopefully because after the [Trofeo] Melinda and Tour of Pologne I would like to be selected for the Time Trial World Championship.

Of course if I will not be riding well I will give up, but it's not what I think will happen. It's the first time I've done this kind of preparation, and it is also a trial for the upcoming year and 2008 Olympic year.

Bye for now!
Marco

Marco Pinotti's website.