Velominati Super Prestige: Giro d’Italia 2015

The Prophet crushes fools on the way to the Tre Chime in the '68 Giro

This is the most exciting thing that’s happened in Cycling since April. Yes, that’s a full two weeks with nothing exciting happening and its been killing me. I know its been killing you, too.

I love the Giro, the master alchemist of bad weather and big mountains that keeps the racing exciting from the first day through the last. You can generally count on enough climbing in the first week to see the leadership bounce around like one of those singing ping pong balls on Sesame Street. The race has its fair share of provenance as well, with many a legendary battle fought between legendary riders.

This year’s race is also remarkable for the fact that a GC rider is not only racing both the Giro and the Tour, but for Contador’s publicly stated objective of doing the Giro-Tour double, a feat not matched since Pantani crushed it back in 1998. That is an awesome goal, I just wish it was a goal set forth by a rider I could get enthusiastic about. A quick scan of the start list has me wondering who is made of the same stuff Bertie, and I’m coming up short. Uran Uran and Pozzovivo are the standouts; and I have serious doubts about Porte being able to come up with the goods, not to mention my boy Ryder who, despite having actually won the Giro, does not inspire confidence in his ability to repeat the feat. It is looking like energy bars may be Contador’s biggest rival for the title, like in last year’s Tour.

Now that I’ve given you three paragraphs of useless drivel that you’ve probably already skipped over, I feel comfortable getting down to Road Tacks. This is the Giro, people, lots of points at stake. And those points are going towards amazing prizes including a Jaeger frame and a Café Roubaix wheelset. There is plenty of time for you to Delgado the thing, too, so my advice is that you avoid doing that. Give yourself enough time to enter your picks so if something has gone amuck, you have time to hit “reload” or come back V minutes later to try again before the event closes. Remember, your procrastination in this matter will not result in the only Keeper with database skills diving into the backend to enter your picks for you. (And if you do encounter a problem, please be so kind as to take a screenshot and upload it as the descriptor “it didn’t work” doesn’t help us debug the problem.)

The scoring for the Grand Tours is a tad more involved than the one-day races, so look them over before making your prognostications. (One of the best things about the VSP is that I usually get to use the word “prognostication”, an opportunity one should always relish.)

So get your picks in before the countdown clock goes to zero, hit the go button, and good luck.

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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.

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View Comments

dyalander says:

May 23 2015 at 1:28 am

@piwakawaka

Let's not confuse Henderson's tweet for admirable omertà breaking testimony. It's one thing to tweet suspicion and innuendo (circumstantially supported though it may be) its an entirely different thing to provide direct testimony of wrong doing to the appropriate authorities.
piwakawaka says:

May 23 2015 at 1:57 am

probably not his best ever lead-out, but if guy's start thinking the peloton might call then out for using drugs it could be even more of a deterrent than a testing regime that can't even pick up micro-dosing, and I take your point, but his tweet out of frustration would probably say far more than some carefully measured piece of testimony delivered to the UCI.
Oli says:

May 23 2015 at 6:02 am

It's not like none of us have ever said anything that we probably wish we hadn't, amirite?
LeoTea says:

May 23 2015 at 6:23 am

Looks like Richie ain't winning anything. 1:57 down on Kiriyenka after just 17km.
oldensteel says:

May 23 2015 at 8:50 am

This has been a thoroughly unpredictable race thus far. Many ups and downs before the big ups and downs. Great stuff.
Harminator says:

May 23 2015 at 12:25 pm

Four Sky riders faster than Porte today. Someone said fuck the GC. We're hunting stages.
Daccordi Rider says:

May 23 2015 at 1:48 pm

Coonnnttttadooorrrrr!
Mikael Liddy says:

May 23 2015 at 8:22 pm

@Harminator

Four Sky riders faster than Porte today. Someone said fuck the GC. We’re hunting stages.

yup, have a feeling he's gonna phone in the rest of it (if he even does it) and concentrate on being in shape to help Froomie.
piwakawaka says:

May 23 2015 at 8:27 pm

@Mikael Liddy

@Harminator

Four Sky riders faster than Porte today. Someone said fuck the GC. We’re hunting stages.

yup, have a feeling he’s gonna phone in the rest of it (if he even does it) and concentrate on being in shape to help Froomie.

he should support Konig now @ 5.35, certainly he can save some matches for July but it would be great training!!
Mikael Liddy says:

May 23 2015 at 8:31 pm

@TommyTubolare

if you'd bothered clicking on the link I put in point 5, you'd see it's a story on cyclingtips written from within the peloton (albeit by an anonymous rider). To quote the relevant passage:

The whole Astana situation is something that’s been the talk of the peloton for a fair while now. I for one haven’t got a clue what the UCI were up to when they allowed Astana to keep their licence. The team and their situation pisses so many people off; they’re a joke really.

And as for Fabio Aru, well, I’ll keep my mouth shut. I’ll learn from the mistake made by Greg Henderson, a man I have huge respect for. To people who say the omertà is still alive and that riders should just speak out if they know something: get a grip. In this day and age throwing around accusations without evidence is tough; you can’t say anything for fear of getting sued. But I know after Greg Henderson put “that” tweet out many people made the effort to shake his hand and praise him for saying what he did.

In terms of whether or not Henderson should have spoken out about it, I think he's absolutely within his rights to do so. Given the ability of the UCI to deal with Astana so far this year, I can understand why making a comment via official channels perhaps didn't fill him with confidence about something being done...