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St. Charles cop trains for 485-mile race in Swiss Alps

St. Charles Police Sgt. Joe Cicci still has a lot of training to do before he packs up his bicycle and heads to Europe.

But how do you prepare for a weeklong race in the Alps when there are no mountains in Illinois?

"Wind," Cicci says. "High winds have become my mountains."

Cicci, 47, is one of 1,200 riders in this year's Jeantex Tour TransAlp, an intense, 485-mile road race across Europe's Eastern Alps.

The trek - which departs Mittenwald, Germany, on June 27 and ends on the 4th of July in Arco, Italy - involves a whopping 66,400 feet of climbing over seven days.

Cicci, a 22-year veteran of the St. Charles police department and a longtime cycling enthusiast, won his spot through a contest put on by TransAlp sponsor Sigma Sport, a German manufacturer of bicycle equipment that has its only North American store in Batavia.

He is the company's first sponsored racer based in the continental United States to participate, said Brian Orloff, managing director of Sigma Sport USA.

"It's a race in one aspect," Orloff said, "but it's also a huge personal challenge for some people."

Cicci said he has been enthralled by bicycling since he was a child and began taking it seriously about 25 years ago.

In the 1980s, he earned a reputation for cycling from his former home in Somonauk some 41 miles to his job as a DARE officer in St. Charles - and back again - three or four days a week.

But he has always wanted to race abroad.

"I think every American who road races dreams of going to Europe, which has some of the fastest and best racers in the world," he said. "I just hope I don't go over there and get embarrassed."

To prepare, Cicci has maintained a rigid training schedule, which consists of riding his bike pretty much anytime he isn't working a 14-hour midnight shift or sleeping.

He said "hill repeats," or going up and down Kane County's biggest hills over and over again, should give him an idea of what it'll be like to climb some 10,000 feet a day, though he estimates he can climb only about 4,000 feet a day in this area. Wind resistance helps, too.

"The training is paying off," he said. "I'm a lot stronger and faster than I was in my late 20s."

Another challenge will be adjusting to altitude. Cicci currently trains at 900 feet above sea level, but expects to be in the neighborhood of 2,000 feet above sea level at some points on his trip.

The thinner air could make it more difficult for him to breathe than some experienced European riders.

"That's the big unknown for me," he said. "I can train for everything else, but I can't be ready for that."

Orloff said Cicci is partnering with a fellow American racer who lives in Germany on a military assignment. Both men must finish for their team to place.

Observers can keep tabs on the team at sigma-transalp.com/tour-transalp-2010/james-a-joe.html, which will be updated with video of the race, interviews and even details on riders' heart rates, speeds and daily climbs.

Cicci asks that followers remember this is his first shot at such an adventure.

"It's not like I'm a racing champion," he said. "I'm just a guy who won a contest."

St. Charles Police Sgt. Joe Cicci is training for a 485-mile bike race across the Eastern Alps in Europe. Mark Black | Staff Photographer

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