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.

[vsp_results id=”32941″/]

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

rfreese888 says:

May 14 2015 at 12:16 pm

@frank

a brief note as to how to check your scores in the rules section of VSP would do it
unversio says:

May 14 2015 at 12:40 pm

@rfreese888

@frank

a brief note as to how to check your scores in the rules section of VSP would do it
The Grande Fondue says:

May 14 2015 at 4:58 pm

@razmaspaz

@wiscot

Feasible, yes. Likely, no. Pros want their bikes as light as possible. These add too much weight. Not impossible to spot or check for – just remove seatpost and shine a light down there. To say it would be embarrassing for a pro to get caught would be an understatement. A lengthy ban would be in order.

Are you talking about drugs or motors? Because this is the exact argument used for drugs, easy to detect, not worth the risk, etc, but that argument has proven positively false. Plus as far as I know a motor has only ever been checked for once, so the risk of being randomly checked seems low. I don’t actually think it has happened, but the risk reward seems favorable, and the ability to do it is certainly there. I have to think someone in the peloton has considered it.

They regularly check bikes for motors and have been for a while. Eg, stage 2 http://velonews.competitor.com/2015/05/news/motors-revving-at-the-giro-ditalia-the-uci-investigates_369718
Barracuda says:

May 14 2015 at 11:43 pm

@frank in the tradition of articles along the lines of Awesome (insert nationality here) Guys/Girls, and having scrolled back through the archives, perhaps one for Adam Hansen is in order.

Vegemite for us Aussies is a wonderful national dish and its obviously served Hanseeno well, given the consecutive GT's he's done.

Just a thought.

Or not.
PT says:

May 15 2015 at 12:51 am

@wiscot

Whoa! Great win by Geipel today but what’s up with Bertie? Can’t lift his left arm to put on the maglia rosa? Not looking good.

Dislocated shoulder. He is going to press on but its not promising.

Nasty crash that one. Second spectator-originated crash in week.
Daccordi Rider says:

May 15 2015 at 12:56 am

Bertie, starting the next stage despite a dislocated shoulder. Guess the stage is only 264 km so it should be fine. He is a tough bastard!
RobSandy says:

May 15 2015 at 1:50 am

@PT

@wiscot

Whoa! Great win by Geipel today but what’s up with Bertie? Can’t lift his left arm to put on the maglia rosa? Not looking good.

Dislocated shoulder. He is going to press on but its not promising.

Nasty crash that one. Second spectator-originated crash in week.

Is it just my perception or do spectators seem to cause more crashes than they really should? And a high proportion of pro race crashes have spectator involvement.
wiscot says:

May 15 2015 at 5:20 am

@RobSandy

@PT

@wiscot

Whoa! Great win by Geipel today but what’s up with Bertie? Can’t lift his left arm to put on the maglia rosa? Not looking good.

Dislocated shoulder. He is going to press on but its not promising.

Nasty crash that one. Second spectator-originated crash in week.

Is it just my perception or do spectators seem to cause more crashes than they really should? And a high proportion of pro race crashes have spectator involvement.

My two cents is that it's indicative of life in general - some people just don't give a shit about decorum or appropriate behavior. "I need to get a good photo for my facebook page" seems to be the dominant way of thinking. "I don't care what I have to do to get it either." "I've paid to see this movie/band and that gives me the right to talk loudly, eat loudly and generally disturb everyone else in the room." Me, me, fucking me.

Now get orf my lawn.
rfreese888 says:

May 15 2015 at 5:23 am

@Daccordi Rider

Bertie, starting the next stage despite a dislocated shoulder. Guess the stage is only 264 km so it should be fine. He is a tough bastard!

Big cajones for sure. Climbing out of the saddle tomorrow will be the real test if he sticks is out today.
RobSandy says:

May 15 2015 at 5:59 am

@wiscot

@RobSandy

@PT

@wiscot

Whoa! Great win by Geipel today but what’s up with Bertie? Can’t lift his left arm to put on the maglia rosa? Not looking good.

Dislocated shoulder. He is going to press on but its not promising.

Nasty crash that one. Second spectator-originated crash in week.

Is it just my perception or do spectators seem to cause more crashes than they really should? And a high proportion of pro race crashes have spectator involvement.

My two cents is that it’s indicative of life in general – some people just don’t give a shit about decorum or appropriate behavior. “I need to get a good photo for my facebook page” seems to be the dominant way of thinking. “I don’t care what I have to do to get it either.” “I’ve paid to see this movie/band and that gives me the right to talk loudly, eat loudly and generally disturb everyone else in the room.” Me, me, fucking me.

Now get orf my lawn.

Why make the effort to go and watch a bike race and be so fucking dense you manage to get in the way? What the hell do they think will happen.

Note, that as I'm writing this I keep thinking "Frank. Don't mention Frank. Fran's incident was different. Yes."