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On the Friday morning after a beautiful dinner the night before, we said our good-byes and arranged to meet in Milan the following day.

Saturday arrived, but Bjarne didn’t. Confusion and rumors began to spread through the team. Where was Bjarne? What had happened? Had Oleg had enough? At dinner in the team hotel that night, the news broke officially: Bjarne had been fired and removed from his post with immediate effect.

At the team meeting, the riders were like a cross between a bunch of old women wailing and wringing their hands at a funeral and kids in the school playground after somebody has kicked the ball over the fence into the garden. “What are we going to do? What are we going to doooooo?”

“Guys, come on,” I said. “It’s just a bike race, you know? Che cazzo? It’s not like Bjarne was going to ride our bikes for us. We get up in the morning. We put warm clothes on. We ride up over the Turchino Pass. We get down to the Riviera. We take our jackets and legwarmers off. We ride over the capi. We sprint into San Remo. It’s pretty simple.”