Race Across the Alps: and they're off!

The Race Across the Alps is underway! Even as we speak Mad Mike Cotty is piloting one of his two Cannondale SuperSixes along the valley to the foot of the mighty Passo del Gavia in a very creditable ninth place, 30 minutes or so behind the leaders.

If you're having trouble working out what's happening at the live tracking site than you're not alone: it took some head scratching on our part before we ralised that the little cyclist icons on the map are the checkpoints (showing everyone's time as they pass) and not the riders themselves. Even then it's not as straightforward as it might seem, as rider's names are only at the last checkpoint they passed, so you can't see what position riders were in as they passed. So it's not a few bunches of riders spread out along the course, like we thought when we first logged in.

Mike's aiming to finish in about 24 hours (read about his attempt in this story on road.cc and at www.mikecotty.co.uk) and we'll catch up with him once he's finished to get the lowdown on how it all panned out.