Velominati Super Prestige: Giro D’Italia 2013
Twiggo is dreaming of a Giro-Tour double. He has sent out mixed messages about his Tour ambitions. Will he use the Giro as the ultimate Tour preparation or will be burn all his matches in May and hope he can find another pack for July? He has abandoned his successful 2012 Tour run-up strategy of winning every stage race he entered the previous spring. Now it’s the seclusion of Mount Doom of Tenerife, his coach and his watt meter his only competition. Team Sky is supporting Wig with a very strong squad, including superman, Kanstantsin Siutsou and with Cav no longer a teammate, it’s all the knights of the round table for Sir Twig.
Will the curse of the god-awful Astana kit continue to haunt non-Kazahk riders? Can Vincenzo’s Italian mojo overpower its powerful pale blue and yellow aura? Roman Kreuziger was finally able to win a big race once he shed that kit and pulled on one of Bjarne’s Saxo jerseys. Maybe it was more Bjarne and less jersey that made the difference.
Ryder gets no respect as the defending champion. His little dance at the end of Liége-Bastogne-Liége showed he is fit and ready for a fight. He can time trial, he can climb. Personally I have to back the local boy. And I always hate the overpowered, overwhelming favorite (read Team Sky here) in any race, unless that racer is Fabian Cancellara. No one can say Fabs has won a race this year surrounded with a team as strong as Sky’s. The Shack is just the Shack or a shack. Once Cancellara leaves for the Swiss “I AM” team, it’s lights out in the shack. Frandy, don’t forget to turn out ’em out when you leave.
If Cavendish wins the first day’s sprinter’s stage he will be in pink. He may be out of it after stage two, a team time trial.
But this is the Giro: crazy, unexpected, beautiful things can happen. The spinning wheels of fortuna are less predictable in Italy as they are in France in July. The betting window is now open. The complete start list is not yet available, an incomplete one is here and shall be updated soon. So sleep on your picks, wait for all the teams to make it official, unless you want to go with the obvious all Sky podium. The race begins Saturday so don’t Delgado away a Grand Tour opportunity.
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Santambrogio will be back…I can feel it….
Wow. Even with my monumentally stupid picks that include 2 abandons (Wiggles and Ryder) and Van Garderen not even on the same continent, I’ve still got more points than Bretto.
Any chance of getting bonus points for TJ winning a separate race while the Giro is on? Who said Stupidity didn’t have any rewards.
Talk of snow and -14 C at the Stelvio later this week. Looks like further route changes afoot. Too bad.
Sicilians are taking it to the Giro big time. 2 stage wins and the pink jersey. Fucking sweet.
So Visconti bridged the break before sharting them out the back!? Effervescent!
I’ve been really looking forward to todays stage since I first looked at the stages in detail. Hope it lives up to expectations.
@Joe
I am not one for conspiracy theories normally but let’s call this a strange coincidence. From 50kms out the commentators (Eurosport – Sean Kelly et al) were waxing lyrical about Campag (this is a good thing, I ride it and love it). They covered the history, the innovation, the quality and all this I was lapping up thinking….bloody right this is Italian shit is great stuff.
Then a lone Italian breaks away. The peloton spectularly forgets to chase in a timely manner and ensure his solo break succeeds.
So on the 80th anniversary of Campag, in their home town, a lone Italian spectacularly rides away from the Peloton on a largely techinically free finish, on an Italian bike with Campag gruppo with the commentators giving Campag thousands upon thousands of pounds of free advertsing..
and this does not seem like an incredible coincidence….er little bells are going off in my head…
christ on a bike – I just took a photo of my screen for posterity. pure joy.
@Deakus The chances of an Italian on an Italian bike with Italian gruppo winning any stage are fairly high in the Giro.
In any case Visconti had been tipped as a possible stage winner yesterday.
And it wasn’t as if the peloton forgot to chase – they had got less than a minute from the break when Visconti went away and actually there was a very technical section where it was always going to be hard for a big bunch to chase.After that it was downhill mostly, again favouring a breakaway.
The group was made up largely of GC riders and the few others who had ideas of winning were on their own with no teammates to lead the chase. It kept starting and breaking down.
And then of course there was Navardauskas who didn’t even realise Visconti was ahead and thought he was sprinting for the win. ooops.
Finally, if there was a conspiracy then surely the Shimano and SRAM teams would do everything possible to disrupt it.
Nothing to see here…
@ChrisO
Now you have just gone and spoiled a perfectly good theory! I do however feel the peloton made a bit of a hash of chasing him down…especially with race radios to hand, but then I guess they did not see him as a GC threat and so didn’t focus enough…after all it was meant to be a sprinters stage right?
@ChrisO
Erm…I’d have to check but how many teams run Italian bikes with Campag on? (I’m thinking of the main teams not so much the wildcard entries) I thought it was only Movistar..?
@Deakus Vacansoleil and Androni are riding Bianchis with Campag. And Bardiani ride Colnago.
You’ve got 4 teams (at least) riding all-Italian bikes, and two of those are Italian teams.
That leaves 15 teams with a range of Italian, French, German, American, Taiwanese and Swiss bikes coupled with Shimano or Sram.
So, statistically higher odds.
@ChrisO
Thanks I stand corrected….so many teams and people that have not see the true path!
Nibbles going like a rocket on the ITT!
This is looking good for a Nibbles, Evans, Scarponi podium. That would so wonders for my VSP.
Hmmm… rider holds off all challenges in mountains with ease then smashes time trial by massive margin.
I’m staring to get a sense of deja vu.
Nibbles over 4 minutes clear on GC.
He must be doping…
WIth Uran now only down 10″ on Evans the next 2 days should be very fun. Especially since Evans is showing that he is in trouble. I really hope they keep the next 2 days in the mountains and don’t get snowed out.
They call the timed trial the ‘race against truth.’ So true! #giro #passion
@ChrisO
I’m going to remain hopeful….I find it inconceivable that in the modern era the lead riders would still dope when they are tested out of their skins…surely there is more scope for larger time margins on a hilly ITT and that he did have a very quiet first week with little excess expended energy but even as I type this I have quesy feeling in my stomach.
I just hope my gut feeling is wrong and that we are able to celebrate his stonking form….
Yikes, Nibbles on a monster. Too bad any suspense in this year’s race is gone. He’s racing like a 2006 Basso.
Interesting commentary on my (and I presume others) view on our culture; I considered him clean at Liquigas, and his move to Astana (which I don’t consider clean) and a performance like this puts him squarely in the suspicion category. The alternative is that they’re all clean and he’s rising to the top because of it, but I put as much stake in that as I do that as being the reasoning for the Great Columbian Ascension.
No change on the GC from the VSP perspective, but 2/3 could shuffle and personally I’d be grateful if Scarples fell to 5th..
@frank
I too would appreciate Wee Scarpo falling to fifth as it looks like that’s my only realistic change of getting any of the top 5 right. Looks like Evans had a bad day which I was sad to see – I think he’s ridden a great race. OTOH, his low finish helps keep the red jersey on Cav which I want. He was robbed of it last year by being taken out in two sprints in which he would have scored points – in the end he lost it by 1 point.
@frank
Will be rooting like mad for Uran to make this happen… that way I could at least salvage 8 points.
Of course with my luck Evans will completely crack tomorrow and saturday, drop down past 3rd and I’d be back to 1 point again.
Oh well, either way can’t wait to watch the next 2 days of racing. Hoping the weather is good enough to run the race, but bad enough to make it epic. Here’s a shot from the Stelvio webcam at 12pm local time today:
@frank
I’ve been quietly pleased with my outside bets: Santambrogio and Intxausti, both of whom have now fallen out of the top five, but have taken stage victories. I’m rather hoping for an epic collapse from Scarponi and Evans to put them back in the money. But that might be asking a bit much.
@ChrisO
The team of climbing domestiques were also quite strong collectively the day after the rest day…
On the other hand, I’m looking forward to the various excusing which should be forthcoming from Cuddles any minute…
@frank
I logged on specifically to voice my suspicion about Nibbles but I see you’ve beaten me to it. I trust Astana about as far as I could throw them (I wouldn’t want to try; too much risk of building some muscles mass on my arms) and I can’t help but look on this with a degree of suspicion.
Obvioisly the same could be said of Sky at last year’s TdF; is their abject failure (by their standards) at the Giro proof that they’re not ripped off their tits on uppers or merely trying to make it look less suspect? Personally I believe it’s the former…
@frank
Well this was Evan’s tweet just now
“Uphill TT done here at the Giro: Nibali in a class of his own. Evans -if I may say so myself- abysmal….”
@motor city
Does this UKCyclingExpert know how a TT works? His last two posts on it earlier…
Whatever Nibali is doing, it’s not working! He’s dead last at the moment! Needs to start overtaking other cyclists!
Wow! Vicente Nibali finishes last but still wins according to the Italian tour operator!
I guess he thinks that the riders have to cross the line first to win. Unless I’m missing something here, in which case I’m the twat…
christ, I’m dense
@moondance Could it be sarcasm?
Or maybe he’s a REcycling expert?
@ChrisO Kudos for calling himself out. Looks like he needed yesterday’s help …
Anyone else noticed the new “thing” on the podium – draping oneself in the respective rider’s flag? What’s up with that? I can’t imagine sponsors are too pleased as the flag often obscures logos/names etc. Kinda like Jordon draping the US flag over the non-Nike logos at he 84 Olympics. Mind you, that was very deliberate. At the Giro, maybe not so much, but still, if I was sponsor and my guy had won a stage, I’d be pissed if my logo was covered in a flag.
@G’rilla
‘merkins huh?
@the Engine
it’s the time difference…
@Tartan1749
Wonder if he has the virus that got twiglet and Ryder?
Wake me up when this is over…
As for Nibbles’ domination, well, look at the competition… hardly a class field he’s up against. This ain’t the Tour.
@minion
System is flawed. I should be -25 at least after swapping all my riders for ones starting with ‘M’…
@brett
…Says the guy with the lantern.
If this was the Tour, we wouldn’t have had a reason to watch after the first weekend…even a bad Giro like this one stays interesting until the last few days.
@frank
This has been over since the first week…
@brett
Hey, you can only compete against those who show up or stay until the end. Too many coulda, woulda, shouldas if you start saying, “we;ll, if Wiggins haad stayed in” if Contador/Froome/etc was riding” As unhappy as I am about it, Oscar Pereiro won the Tour. Shoulda? No. But he’s in the books as the winner. Nibbles is a damn fine rider. He showed up, has raced smart and stayed healthy. So long as he doesn’t fail a test (and he’ll begetting tested every day as Maglia Rosa and as a stage winner) he’ll be as worthy a winner as there could be.
Gaaaahhh!
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gavia-and-stelvio-cut-from-stage-19-of-the-giro-ditalia
Looks like Cuddles is saved by the storm.
“RCS Sport confirmed that Saturday’s final mountain stage is also at risk.”
Booo! Was really looking forward to watching them duke it out up the Gavia.
Say it ain’t so…
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gavia-and-stelvio-cut-from-stage-19-of-the-giro-ditalia
@brett
Still got the lantern. Cant waif for Contador to do the same all over the tour and Bretto to be wildly ecstatic over every stage.
*can’t*
@brett
This is how it is designed, actually. You are ranked by how negative your points are (thats how we get the order between the “tied” donuts) but scores don’t actually go negative. Same things goes for the overall GC.
I’m glad you were paying attention during our design sessions on this stuff.
@Steampunk just sent in some very interesting ideas for next year. Cool stuff.
@minion
What cracks me up the most is the way he chucks Cuddles into the “classless” can one day and then the next he’s the greatest ever Tour champion in the history of time. Then back into the “classless” bin and so forth.
@brett
Last weekend’s World Cup XC MTB race, though. Wow! ‘Strayans take U23 women’s and elite men’s races.
There was an Absaloncopter. More of a slam straight onto the ground, breaking the RD. Mud, rain. Excitement! I’ve watched it three times this week.