Velominati Super Prestige: Giro d’Italia 2012

Vittorio Adorni crosses the snow-covered Stelvio pass

After a winter of long training rides that offered more in the way of numb extremities than it did in acute enjoyment, I have to say that the warming of the air and brightening of the skies have served to remind me that while I love riding in bad weather, I certainly don’t have anything against riding when its nice out.

But dont think for a minute that this quells my desire to watch the Pros battle the elements as well as each other and, quite frankly, after a Spring Classics campaign that gave us only fleeting tastes of Rule #9 Glory, I welcome the arrival of the 2012 Giro d’Italia which holds the distinction of being held in the worst weather and over the worst roads. Come July, I’ll get just as wound up as anyone about the biggest racing spectacle of the year, but in my heart, the Giro d’Italia is the best Grand Tour of the three.

All that said, I’m a little disappointed to see that the Giro starts in Denmark. Not that I have anything against Denmark – lovely place – it’s just that this choice takes us away from the classical Giro opening week involving a mountaintop finish or two and gives us a Tour de France-style opening week of flat stages and crosswinds. We’ll have to wait almost two weeks before we start seeing the riders cross the highest passes and hitting the uphill finishes, though the final week does appear to set us up for considerable fireworks as the second-last stage will see the riders cross the Mortirolo and finish atop the Stelvio.

What does this mean for the VSP? Quite a bit, actually. Bearing in mind the changes we’ve made to the Rest-Day picks from the years past, it means that as the race settles out, those who have made changes to their lineup on the first rest day will not have the opportunity to do so again on the second rest day. And, those who wait for the second day will see steep penalties tallying up against their totals. But on the line is a Symbol Pack, the chance to post for the rest of year with the Maglia Rosa VSP Badge and, of course, the grand prize of the personalized Shop Apron. Check the start list and with any divine beings that you might be able to influence, and then get your picks in by the time the countdown timer goes to zero at 5am Pacific on the 5th May.

For reference, please review the new Grand Tour scoring and penalty guidelines. Also note that since these new rules required new coding and this represents the first Grand Tour, there is always the chance that there are defects in the code. Watch your picks and your points as we move through the event and alert us of any anomalies. If your points seem wrong, use the dispute function to alert us of the matter; complaints in the posts feed to this effect will be ignored. Finally, don’t leave anything to the last minute so we have time to fix any problems before its too late. Good luck.

Scoring:

Readers who wish to enter shall enter their predictions for the top five placings on General Classification of each Grand Tour by 5am on the day of the first stage or prologue.

Points

Points will be scored as follows: 20 points for first place, 15 for second, 10 for third, 7 for fourth, and 5 for fifth; plus 3 points per rider in the top five regardless of the rider’s placing, but riders are not scored twice.

Changing of the Picks*

Contestants are allowed to make line up changes on one of the rest days of the Grand Tours but not both. These changes will come with a point penalty.  You will be allotted one (1) rest day to make swaps in grand tours. You pick either the first or second rest day. The penalties for swapping will be lower for the first rest day than the second. This will allow you to swap out a rider(s) who gets caught in some first week nervousness with a 5 point penalty for each swap. Or make some go for broke/doomed to fail break-away swap on the second rest day for a 10 point penalty per swap. You make one swap or five on either rest day for the corresponding 5 or 10 point penalty per swap.

Additionally, if one of your riders crashes out, DNF’s, or DNS’s, you may swap them out on a rest day with corresponding penalties if you haven’t already used up your one rest day swap. The only exception to this is riders who are booted from a race for a positive test; if your rider is on the juice and gets chucked off the race, you get a free swap of that rider within 24 hours of the disqualification.

[vsp_results id=”15814″]
[/vsp_results]

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

View Comments

  • Why does this feel so wrong? Sitting in Germany, drinking an American beer, watching the Giro d'Italia being held in Denmark.

    At least it's a Leinenkugel.

  • @Jonny

    Ok, I've heard of the wisdom of crowds and you lot seem to be picking very similar people so perhaps I should listen. But en Enfer with it, I won't:

    VSP PICKS:

    1. Rigoberto Uran
    2. Enrico Gasporotto
    3. Marco Bandiera
    4. Stefano Pirazzi
    5. Thomas De Gendt

    Well played. The herd think is incredible. I fall to it myself, except I manage to engineer a subtle change to the picks that results in zero points. So there's that. But a tip of the helmet to you for breaking from the herd. And picking absolute crap riders.

  • @Bill

    Why does this feel so wrong? Sitting in Germany, drinking an American beer, watching the Giro d'Italia being held in Denmark.

    At least it's a Leinenkugel.

    WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GET A LEINIE IN GERMANY? I grew up on that shit. When they came out with the bock, we all freaked out because it had actual flavor.

    Just went to their site. They have all weirdo beers now. Used to just be Lienie and the bock.

  • @taon24

    Any chance we could have a summary of picks (A top 3 or 5 most frequently chosen riders for each of the five prediction slots, with their frequency?)
    Would be interesting to see who the popular choices are, and whether people agree on who is definitely a podium contender or not!

    Interesting question, so I ran a few queries. Not 100 sure I did this right, but the numbers seem to add up correctly and it is close enough to at least give you an idea of who few of us pick unique riders.

    Two ways to look at this data; by pick count by rank (i.e. how many people picked Scarples for first, Basso for first, etc...) or just by frequency of picks across all ranks.

    First, we'll look at count by rank:

    Rider Rank Count
    SCARPONI Michele 1 57
    BASSO Ivan 1 34
    KREUZIGER Roman 1 18
    RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joaquin 1 10
    HESJEDAL Ryder 1 5
    POZZATO Filippo 1 4
    CUNEGO Damiano 1 4
    SCHLECK Frank 1 3
    PINOTTI Marco 1 1
    RUJANO GUILLEN Jose 1 1
    Unknown Rider 1 1
    FLECHA GIANNONI Juan Antonio 1 1
    URAN URAN Rigoberto 1 1
    SCARPONI Michele 2 39
    BASSO Ivan 2 38
    KREUZIGER Roman 2 24
    RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joaquin 2 11
    SCHLECK Frank 2 7
    CUNEGO Damiano 2 5
    HESJEDAL Ryder 2 5
    GADRET John 2 3
    RUJANO GUILLEN Jose 2 2
    GASPAROTTO Enrico 2 1
    POZZOVIVO Domenico 2 1
    BALLAN Alessandro 2 1
    GOSS Matthew Harley 2 1
    POZZATO Filippo 2 1
    URAN URAN Rigoberto 2 1
    KREUZIGER Roman 3 36
    BASSO Ivan 3 21
    SCARPONI Michele 3 18
    RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joaquin 3 18
    CUNEGO Damiano 3 10
    HESJEDAL Ryder 3 9
    SCHLECK Frank 3 9
    GADRET John 3 5
    POZZATO Filippo 3 4
    RUJANO GUILLEN Jose 3 4
    PINOTTI Marco 3 2
    URAN URAN Rigoberto 3 1
    BANDIERA Marco 3 1
    DE GENDT Thomas 3 1
    VISCONTI Gianfranco 3 1
    SCHLECK Frank 4 27
    HESJEDAL Ryder 4 22
    KREUZIGER Roman 4 17
    RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joaquin 4 16
    SCARPONI Michele 4 9
    RUJANO GUILLEN Jose 4 8
    CUNEGO Damiano 4 8
    BASSO Ivan 4 8
    POZZATO Filippo 4 4
    PINOTTI Marco 4 3
    GADRET John 4 3
    NIEVE ITURALDE Mikel 4 2
    BALLAN Alessandro 4 2
    NIBALI Vincenzo 4 2
    VISCONTI Gianfranco 4 2
    URAN URAN Rigoberto 4 2
    PIRAZZI Stefano 4 1
    SZMYD Sylvester 4 1
    POZZOVIVO Domenico 4 1
    BELLETTI Manuel 4 1
    GOSS Matthew Harley 4 1
    SCHLECK Frank 5 19
    HESJEDAL Ryder 5 16
    RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joaquin 5 14
    RUJANO GUILLEN Jose 5 12
    GADRET John 5 11
    BASSO Ivan 5 11
    KREUZIGER Roman 5 10
    CUNEGO Damiano 5 9
    POZZATO Filippo 5 8
    PINOTTI Marco 5 5
    VISCONTI Gianfranco 5 4
    SCARPONI Michele 5 4
    VANDEVELDE Christian 5 3
    URAN URAN Rigoberto 5 3
    DE GENDT Thomas 5 3
    THOMAS Geraint 5 2
    PHINNEY Taylor 5 1
    POZZOVIVO Domenico 5 1
    BOBRIDGE Jack 5 1
    SAGAN Peter 5 1
    TIRALONGO Paolo 5 1
    GARATE Juan Manuel 5 1

    Now for just how frequently they were picked, ignoring their rank.

    Rider Count
    SCARPONI Michele 127
    BASSO Ivan 112
    KREUZIGER Roman 105
    RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joaquin 69
    SCHLECK Frank 65
    HESJEDAL Ryder 57
    CUNEGO Damiano 36
    RUJANO GUILLEN Jose 27
    GADRET John 22
    POZZATO Filippo 21
    PINOTTI Marco 11
    URAN URAN Rigoberto 8
    VISCONTI Gianfranco 7
    DE GENDT Thomas 4
    POZZOVIVO Domenico 3
    BALLAN Alessandro 3
    VANDEVELDE Christian 3
    NIEVE ITURALDE Mikel 2
    THOMAS Geraint 2
    GOSS Matthew Harley 2
    NIBALI Vincenzo 2
    BOBRIDGE Jack 1
    PHINNEY Taylor 1
    BELLETTI Manuel 1
    GASPAROTTO Enrico 1
    BANDIERA Marco 1
    SZMYD Sylvester 1
    Unknown Rider 1
    FLECHA GIANNONI Juan Antonio 1
    GARATE Juan Manuel 1
    TIRALONGO Paolo 1
    SAGAN Peter 1
    PIRAZZI Stefano 1
  • @Netraam
    A quick look into the database does show that a number of people picked just "schleck" and the system mapped that name to Andy, not Frank, since it doesn't give a shit who's on the start list.

    I'll fix those, but that should be a reminder of our oft-mentioned point: be specific enough in your picks, certainly when there are people with same last names that it is clear who you mean.

  • @frank

    WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GET A LEINIE IN GERMANY? I grew up on that shit. When they came out with the bock, we all freaked out because it had actual flavor.

    Since I don't brew my own, I get mine at a store. Isn't that the preferred method?

    The Germans know how to make their beers. But they also appreciate other beers. It's not difficult to not only get the easy beers (Belgian, Irish, Czech, etc.), but those from further out (American, Japanese, etc.).

    This one is the Honey Weiss. Not their best, but not their worst. Certainly much better than their Berry Weiss, which is sickingly sweet.

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