NOTE: Scroll all the way to the bottom for today’s photos.

Ah . . . . Today was our rest day. I slept in, had a leisurely shower, met the group for breakfast at 9:00 and was generally lazy until our Maratona briefing at 10:00 with Enrico. He gave us tips on what to bring with us (no van support? what?!?), where and when to eat (“if you’re hungry or thirsty, stop in a local bar and have a coffee and a strudel” — no, really), what to expect in the start area, how to avoid crashes, etc. In general, though, he encouraged us to enjoy the ride. Good advice, if you ask me.

After the briefing we sat at the hotel’s outdoor cafe and enjoyed some more laziness. This time with cappuccino.

Enrico had some wrenching to do, and when he was done we all headed down to the expo area about 10 km down the road. The Maratona organizers should be commended for their logistics. Instead of contributing more traffic to area, they have free shuttle buses to take people from town to town. Considering the number of people who have descended (ha!) upon Alta Badia (no, not Strong Badia), many of them on bikes, these shuttles are a great idea.

All participants in the Maratona get a nifty, colorful, Euro-style bike jersey. Knowing that this would be in European sizing, I ordered a XXL (which is still a bit tight), but many of the other participants needed to make an exchange, so we headed for the registration building. While there Enrico pointed out a really nice Maratona cycling vest from a previous year’s race that was on clearance for just 5 Euros. Yes, I bought one!

The expo was small considering the size of this event, so we were soon headed back to the shuttle and back up to Corvara for a much-needed pizza lunch. It was at lunch that we met up with our amigos de Venezuela (they’re at a different hotel) who had just returned from a spin up the Passo Campolongo.

After lunch, it was back to the hotel for some more rest (it is a rest day, after all) and to catch Stage 8 of Le Tour de France. I watched the Eurosport feed and found their commercials just as frequent, repetitive and annoying as those on Versus back in the States. I got tired of the repetition so decided to go shopping for souvenirs instead, but not before someone sent me this link to the Skoda ad that is appearing during Tour de France coverage. I kinda like that one.

Now I’m back in my room getting my stuff ready for tomorrow’s ride. I’m going to post this now so that I don’t stay up blogging all night. I’ll update again on Sunday night or some time on Monday, depending upon how much time I have available. I will try to tweet from the start, the top of each pass, and from the finish so be sure to follow me on Twitter (@fredcast).

Wish me luck!