In the 1990 Giro, a relatively unknown cyclist named Gianni Bugno lit the cycling world on fire by winning the first stage, thereby taking the Maglia Rossa. That wasn’t so surprising in itself; what was surprising was that the little bugger managed to hold the jersey all the way to Milan, a feat previously only accomplished by Binda and Merckx postwar, and prewar legend Costante Girardengo.
This all happened in the age before smartphones and social media; while these days a stealth strike on the World’s Most Wanted Dude gets live-tweeted, in 1990 it took until well after I knew Greg LeMond had won the Tour de France before I found out that Bugno had won the Giro. Reading about the feat in Winning magazine, Bugno instantly became one of my heros and went on to cast himself into a bronze statue of Rad by being one of the few riders able to challenge Indurain in the following years. (He also possessed the mental frailty that seems to be common among my favorite riders. There’s something Shakespearean about heros with flaws that I simply can’t resist.)
The Giro d’Italia is just prestigious enough to be the maker of champions. It’s isn’t made up of a downgraded field like the Vuelta, but it also ins’t as popular as the Tour where only the best riders on the best teams seem to stand a chance. Every Giro produces a revelation that goes onto great things; that’s one of the key reasons this is my favorite Grand Tour: the field is strong enough to have serious contenders, but weak enough to let an outsider play. It’s perfect.
Aside from a well-balanced field, the geography of Italy lends itself to a better three week race than do France or Spain. Many European companies are defined by natural borders such as mountains or water, which generally means the mountains and great bodies of water lie at the borders with plains in between. (Or, as is the case with the Netherlands, beneath.) Italy is unique in that it is narrow and has mountainous terrain in nearly every region. Whereas the first week(s) of the Tour and Vuelta feature mostly flat stages suited for the sprinters and little else, the Giro’s first week generally contains several mountaintop finishes. The difficulty of a typical Giro’s first week means that riders who ride strongly there typically fade towards the end, while riders who were weak on the first climbs may come on strong as the race closes down. The result is a tight race from start to finish with regular changes in leadership. Except in 1990. And whatever years those other three guys who did what Gianni did.
This year’s Giro will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy by making strong men cry. Forty major climbs, and 7 mountain top finishes, one of which involves climbing Mount Etna twice. (Welcome to Sicily, assholes. You get to ride up the most active volcano on Earth twice.) I have it on the excellent authority of a man down the pub that Contador is stocking up on extra drugs even as I write this in an attempt to quiet the rattle of his skinny little bones in his spanish boots.
With that we kick off the best Grand Tour of the year, and the first test of our Grand Tour VSP Software. The other VSP editions have been a piece of cake. Grand Tours include free “swapping of the picks” logic whenever a rider in a contestent’s pick list drops out. We have rest day swaps for 2 or 4 points each, depending on which rest day it is. Our system is supposed to handle all of this smoothly and seamlessly. We’ll see.
Read the scoring guidelines, work out your strategy, dope up on clairvoyance drugs (alcohol) and chuck your picks up. As usual, the winner of this VSP edition will earn an “Obey the Rules” bumper sticker and all reader’s points qualify towards the final prize of the free personalized Velominati Shop Apron. If you are inclined to enter, simply post your predictions for the top five placings in the designated area above the posts section, bearing in mind that entry/modification of picks closes at 5am Pacific time on the day of the race. You are eligible to swap picks at no penalty for your picked riders who drop out; rest day picks each come at a 2 point penalty for the first rest day, 4 points each for the second.
Good luck.
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@G'phant
Sorry, Frank - on re-reading I see that I implied (inadvertently) that the VSP points are frequently wrong. Not what I was trying to say. Perhaps my point could be better expressed as "C'mon, lads - it's a shop apron". (I would add "let's all just get a grip on ourselves", but then JiPM would link to some further icky page from Livestrong and I'd feel sick again...)
@Oli
@mcsqueak
You are on a roll
@Oli
These are all good questions - and I'll reiterate that I'd love any feedback on revising the layout so it makes more sense. I'll be making revisions to it fairly soon - hopefully this week, so if someone has any ideas I'll look at that, otherwise I'll just steam ahead and make it Dutch. (Not the language - Awesome.)
For you, Oli, we're looking at this - I hope you don't mind me breaking down your score for Merckx and Country to see:
Scarponi: 1 point for getting him in the top five, but in the wrong place. You have him in third place, and you made changes to third place on the first rest day for two points as well as on the second rest day for 4. That's a total of 6 penalty points, giving you 1 - 6 = -5.
J-Rod has the same scenario, except he's not in the top five, so no points. 0 - 6 = -6.
Kreutziger: he's also not in the top five and you only changed him in the first rest day: 2 penalty points with no points cuz he ain't in the top five.
Hope that helps. I think at the minimum, I might just add a link that explains the scoring, or break down the math somehow on the screen. I'll also add something that shows who your rider is mapped to.
Would it make sense if that information was provided via a popup when you hover over the rider and score? When you hover over the rider's name, it would show the rider we mapped it to, and with the score, you'd see the math that made it up?
By the way, I love fact that Ron has become our punching bag for anyone questioning their score.
@il ciclista medio
Well when you're relativity new to cycling and don't have much to offer in the way knowledge of historic riders, etc. at least you can try and entertain folks with witty quips and quick Photoshop hacks.
@frank
Frank, I think it would be interesting to know what exactly has caused my score to fluctuate by almost 15 points between days, because the scoring system for the VSP is rather complex. I'm sure other people would like to see it as well.
On the other hand, I understand this is all for fun, and you're doing this during your own free time so I almost don't care if the time is spent to make it more clear or not.
Maybe the easiest way would be a page (perhaps when you log into your Velominati account), where you can see a running tally of your score day-by-day, that way you can kind of figure out the math yourself - "oh, this day I got 5 pts because of Contador, and this day I lost 3 pts because of J. Rod, etc."
I'm not a programmer, so I'm not really sure what a truly elegant and easy-to-implement solution would be, and I'm not sure it would be worth the time. But that's your call.
Thanks for the explanation, Frank. I guess it's just that the penalties are difficult to come back from.
@all
Ok, I overhauled the appearance of the VSP scoring. You may have to hit reload or clear your browser cache in order for this to lay out correctly, but here's the new layout, so have a look and give me your feedback.
Click the little arrow next to "Race Results" to see the results, plus the maximum possible value you'd get for correctly naming a place. Click the arrow next to each of your picks to see the rider we mapped them to, plus your score, along with a detail on the value and penalties accrued.
The default view
And the view when I've expanded the Results and one of my picks:
@Oli
Yeah, that's certainly the case. It emphasizes that the advantage goes to the contestant who can predict it correctly at the start of the event, and rest-day swaps are really only worth making if you will gain more points than you lose. There's definitely some strategery involved.
@frank
Mate, that's a great effort. When do you find the time for all of this? I am beginning to suspect that Seattle has a reliable supply of high quality amphetamines, and that we'll need to keep buying V-gear so you can afford to keep your supplier happy. But at least that's old-skool doping, not any of this modern blood-boosting nonsense. Thanks for all the hard work.
@frank
Your a legend!