Velominati Super Prestige: Giro d’Italia 2014
For the simple reason that the Cobbled and Ardennes Classics are behind us, I have not alternative but to get back on my soap box about the Giro being the best of the three Grand Tours. Well, usually, at least. Last year’s race sucked the big one (even if it was supremely Rule #9), but for the most part it is the race that is the most closely contested of the three. There are mountains everywhere Italy meaning there are less bunch sprints, the weather is completely unreliable, and the slightly lower calibre of rider seems hungrier. Or maybe the reduced pressure means riders aren’t quite as stressed out and are able to funnel that extra energy into the race.
My favorite Giro is a hard one to pick out, but its either the 1988 Giro when Andy Hampsten took the win after freezing himself stiff with Erik Breukink on the Gavia or when Pantani took his in 1998. I’ve been watching the ’98 Giro during my morning turbo sessions and Merckx-oh-me, that was an All-Drugs Olympics nail-biter. ’98 is also an interesting contrast to ’88; in just a decade, the technology had changed so much but more than that, the doping atmosphere in the sport transformed completely. From Hampsten’s Giro, EPO went from just being dabbled with on the fringes to being abused by leaders and domestiques alike by the time Pantani won. Hampsten wrote a nice piece about racing against dopers in Tyler Hamilton’s book, The Secret Race. He described the various side-effects that the popular drugs of his era had, such as bloating and a tendency to make the user over-estimate their abilities. Amphetamine made the riders do stupid things, cortisone made them retain water, and steroids made them heavy; a clean rider could use those factors to their advantage. A far cry from the rocket fuel that allowed humble domestiques to big ring up major alpine passes.
Why am I talking about drugs? There’s a race starting in a few days, people! This is our first Grand Tour, and the picks are worth more points, not to mention that strategy starts to play into things with the chance to swap your picks out on either of the rest days – at a certain point penalty. Remember that points are not accumulated; the standings on the last day of the race are what kinds, so keep the long game in mind.
Any points you win count towards the overall prizes plus the winner of this event also gets to post for the rest of the year in the pink jersey badge. So check the start list, review the VSP Grand Tour Scoring Guidelines and get your picks in by the time the countdown clock goes to zero at midnight PDT on Friday, May 9th. If you think we mapped one of your picks wrong, use the dispute system and we’ll review it. Also remember to be precise enough in your description so we know which rider you mean; in other words, if you enter “Martin”, we will use our discretion (read: wild guess) to decide if you mean Tony or Dan – and that choice will not be negotiable once the the countdown clock goes to zero. There has also been a recent scourge of people putting a rider in more than one place. Two words: Piti Principle, people! Don’t make me do a bunch of extra programming to keep you from being allowed to submit such an obviously unsportsmanlike set of picks. We will mercilessly clear out all your entries should we find you have attempted this.
Also don’t forget we’ve got three major prizes for the season-long VSP:
- First place overall wins a Veloforma Strada iR Velominati Edition frame in addition to the customary VSP winner’s VVorkshop Apron
- Second place overall wins a set of hand built CR Wheelworks Arenberg wheelset in a custom Velominati paint scheme laced to orange Chris King hubs. (CR Wheelworks is Café Roubaix’s new wheel goods brand.)
- Third place overall wins a full Velominati V-Kit with accompanying custom orange Bont Vaypor+ road shoes.
Good luck, have fun with it, and don’t lose your Rule #43 spirit.
[vsp_results id=”29781″/]
Unfortunately for Cataldo it looks like he forgot about Battaglin & assumed it was his once he got passed Pantano…great stage.
What the hell happened to the flag marshall that got hit by the camera moto ????? Anyone, Anyone
@Barracuda
from Matthew Keenan
” Angelo Leone, 58, hit by camera motorbike in yesterday’s “ª#”ŽGiro”¬ stage is in ICU in an induced coma. Fingers crossed. Get well. “
RU in the break [live].
RU not in the break [sorry].
Rigo attack; Evans attack; Uran just went with an attack and dropped Evans
Uran went with Aru and Fabio Aru wins the stage!
Aru was really giving it the berries there.
Great finish! good to see Quintana attacking. What an amazing finish for Aru… he was deep in the pain cave on that one.
@DCR
Quintana. Quintana. Quintana. Stage 16. Tuesday could be an amazing day. I am stoked.
@Minnesota Expat
Told y’all so, dopest profile evaaar! Pain written all over it!
@Minnesota Expat
what I don’t get (if I’m reading those symbols right) is why would the TV coverage only start at 104k in after both the Gavia & Stelvio? Surely if ever there was a stage that deserved full coverage this is it…
@Mikael Liddy Shirly, ‘TV’ is the sprint!
@Mikael Liddy
I hear you, SBS may get some nasty twitter action if “TV” is in fact “TV !
@Beers
It looks like an Italian medieval torture device.
@Beers
Check this out, no graphic, but a brilliant account of Stage 17 of the 1949 Giro by the Italian journalist Dino Buzzati. 254 kilometers, starting in Cuneo (500m), going over Maddalena Pass (1996m), the Col de Vars (2108m), through Briancon (2540m), Montegenevre (1860m), Cesana (1354m), and finally Sestriere (2035m), finishing in Pinerolo (376m). And you know the roads in post-war Italy were poor at best.
@piwakawaka
you could well be right, doubt there’ll be many sprinters around at that point though!
Pretty pumped to see how these next few days play out. Stelvio and Gavia followed by Zoncolan in one week is some kind of viewing heaven! Still hoping the old man toughs it out whist each of the young uns suffer a bad day. With the cold and damp a great pair of decenders like Cuddles and Sammy could play hell.
@Daccordi Rider whatever happens it ain’t gonna be pretty, they haven’t even decided to run it yet, it will suit those who carry just a little more weight!
@Barracuda @piwakawaka one of the SBS producers just tweeted that they’re expecting the stream to go live from about 8.50 Eastern. From some rudimentary calculations that looks like it’s about 20 minutes after the stage starts.
Here’s what Stelvio looks like at the moment:
c/o Inrng
Darn it – got to go into the office today, will have to watch the replay tomorrow.
Can you not hack into Eurosport somehow? – that said, only showing the last 3 hours, so will only see the second half of the Stelvio presumably
Shame, as having climbed both the Stelvio and the Gavia Pass, I reckon the Gavia is the one to see, as much more pitchy and has all the terrains available on the planet, short of a set of cobbles, definitely one of my favourite climbs ever – Stelvio is just a beast, a ride into oblivion mentally and phyically, though cycling though a tunnel of 20 foot deep snow with skiers whizzing down either side above you is a fairly whacky experience
Hope you get to see as much as they bless us with – maybe @Frank could sort out some Velominatiliveoutsidebroadcast.com channel and a helicopter for the grand tours?
Dear keepers,
something has gone wrong with my picks. On page 4, May 8th I can see my picks posted, but the system is not showing them and is giving me 0 points. Can this be fixed? Not that my picks are doing that well but points arre points
Adverse weather on the Gavia – no live / helicopter coverage possible. Wouldn’t want to be a moto camera today! I sure hope we can get some vision retrospectively. Rule #9 for the skinny men today. I would not be surprised to see Cuddles make up some time on Uran in the descents!
@Dr C
Scratch that, they are actually climbing from the other side and descending the way we went up and down – hell of a descent in that case! It is soooo fast on the bottom 1/3 just before Bormio – yikes….. brown trousers
Yuk, in a nice Rule #9 way
Yep it’s a proper Rule #9 day – Flemish mirror on the Stelvio.
Cataldo takes Cima Coppi, well I guess it was him, it’s hard to see in a snow shower…
Fairly apt lead picture to choose Frank. Epic/Stupid day today!
Name checked on Eurosport… famous for 15 seconds !
Quintana seems to be two minutes up on Uran heading for the last climb? Mixed messages about a neutralized descent? Will Rigo say he took it easy because he and a bunch of teams/directeurs sportifs thought there was no racing on the downhill?! Why does the Giro insist on confirming stereotypes every year?
Questions, questions.
Virtual GC standings suggest Quintana will take the pink jersey if he can take 40+ seconds on the final climb. After the last couple of days, I wouldn’t bet against that.
Epic Rule #9 conditions. Unfortunately things seem to be even worse here and my Sky Box spends more time telling be about the loss of signal than it as bout the race! From what I’ve managed to gather, the virtual on the road placing has my picks in first and second. How it ends who know but what an awesome race.
Hope Cataldo stays away…
Quintana is with Pierre Rolland and I believe Hesjedahl and Rabottini. His advance is 2 minutes, since descending for the Stelvio. There’s was no neutralisation.
Has anybody seen Cuddles?
@Mirko
Which means Quintana of all people put in a monster attack on the pink jersey group on a seriously Rule #9 descent — his team looks to be supporting him brilliantly, and Rolland and Hesjedahl are doing well out of the move, too.
@Mirko
I think they just showed him in the maglia rosa group; bit hard to tell with the crap on the camera lens and the cold weather gear.
@andrew
Thanks!
C’mon the Lumberjack! This is the day big Ryder gets top 5 for sure.
@Mirko
Maybe he stopped to build one of these?
@wiscot
He’s not looking too happy as Quintana and Rolland put in a serious dig just as it gets properly steep…
@andrew
But he’s in the mix! Damn that crash on the first day – that really screwed him . . .
Did y’all hear the reference in the broadcast to Cafe Roubaix in the shoutout to Hesjedal?
Is anyone having any luck with any of the web feeds from cyclingfans? I was happily watching and then the feed I was using went out and now none of them are working for me.
I’m watching a Euro Sport feed right now. Ads pop up and you have to be patient until you can close them. Try one of the Euro Sport options – some will get you there, some won’t Hit or miss.
Go Ryder!!!!
@wiscot
I’m on an iPhone using Skyfire so unfortunately I don’t have that option from what I can tell.
FUCK’IN Quintana, that creep can ROLL!!!
Holy FUCK!!! What a STAGE!!! Dyin’ heya at work having to follow it on the live ticker and not a live feed. I have yet to find a way to get live feeds at work. Cannot WAIT to watch this later on youtube or at home!
Rolland dropped, Hesjedal hanging… Majka attacking, Evans barely holding on, Uran losing pink. Epic. Hesjedal a bit like 2012, no? Everyone always wondering when he was going to crack in the third week, and always somehow finding something extra.
@Buck Rogers
Quintana is indeed on an impressive ride, though Ryder just attacked and passed him. I’ve had decent luck this Giro with the cyclingfans feeds on my phone.