Van Bon enjoys Italian life

Leon van Bon enjoys riding in Italy. There is usually a quiet start-up phase at the beginning of a stage, giving the riders a chance to, among other things, enjoy the scenery.

"Sardinia is quite a beautiful island by the way. More beautiful than I had expected it to be," he wrote on rabobank.nl. "I can see that from the bus but in the last part of the course I did not have time to even think about that. I had time in the first hours of the course, though."

The Giro d'Italia's second stage started out with an example of typical Italian organization, he said. "We had been shot away at the start when it was found out that there were some 30 cyclists still in the sponsor tent. As a group we then decided to wait for them for a minute.

"I think something like that can only happen in Italy. Everything usually works out in the end and there is also lots of hilarity at such a moment. But still."

It has its negative side, too though. "Now we will have to take a 160 kilometre bus ride which will probably take us about three hours. And that on an island like Sardinia."