Velominati Super Prestige: Giro d’Italia 2017

Vincenzo Nibali won the Giro going downhill.

I spy with my little eye a certain Michele Scarponi, who sadly lost his life while out training near his home two weeks ago, in there amongst his teammates after his captain, Nibbles, won the race. I’m torn about a death like Michele’s – we subject ourselves to similar risks every time we climb aboard our bikes and we accept it as part and parcel of our craft. Yet, while every day members of our tribe lose their lives to their trade, it takes a high profile rider to remind us how real that risk is.

But onto lighter topics, Nibali won the Giro last year going downhill, and it happened on the one stage I managed to sleep through which is another way of saying I missed it. But I love waking up to a that WTF feeling only a reshuffled GS can give you.

The race starts Friday morning, which is sooner than I expected, so I’ll stop typing so you can start picking. Get them in by the time the clock goes to zero, and remember that our Grand Tour scoring rules are a little different than the smaller events. So jump on that start list and get prognosticating!

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

MangoDave says:

May 16 2017 at 2:00 pm

@RobSandy

@RobSandy

Best Giro-related quote I’ve seen in the last few days “Bauke Mollema- a man who sounds as if he was naked underwater”.

NAMED. NAMED underwater. Oh FFS.

I got a good laugh of of that!
Cary says:

May 16 2017 at 5:04 pm

Doom may have won today as expected, but Thomas was the real story, to me at least. it is indeed true that the Giro cannot be controlled nor predicted!
KogaLover says:

May 17 2017 at 1:15 am
My face muscles ache from grinning (smug face); am as happy as any Dutch cyclist can be!
- Tom Doomoulin (new one for the Lexicon) dishing out doom against V-tana (Quint= five in ancient languages) and looking good for the overall win
- Confusion around Bauke's naming. "Bauke Mollema" (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈbʌukə ˈmɔləmaː] BOW-kə MOL-ə-mah) is Frysian, which is a province in the upper part of the Netherlands. (Me is from the very south Limburg, where Tom also stems from). Koga bikes are also made up there. "Mollema" has a "soft" ring to it, since "molle" means soft in Italian.
VSP PICKS (2nd Rest Day Swaps):
1. Nairo Quintano
2. Vincenzo Nibali
3. Tom Dumoulin
4. Steven Kruijswijk
5. Geraint Thomas
Rick says:

May 17 2017 at 12:10 pm

@stooge

It’s on! Movistar and the other teams with climbers with hopes of GC glory are gonna have to go at Dumoulin pretty hard in the hills. They sure wouldn’t want him to close behind going into that 2nd TT. What a ride…

Great to see Thomas put in such a good ride. Yates was good, too. He went better than I thought he would, even before the crash. Pozzovivo did well in the windy conditions, so I reckon Quintana’s ride was sub par. Pinot doesn’t look much chop – I think he was slower than Pozzovivo. Will we see van Garderen in another grand tour?

@stooge

Wow, van Garderen lost an additional 21.20 on Stage 11 today.
wiscot says:

May 17 2017 at 12:51 pm

@Rick

@stooge

It’s on! Movistar and the other teams with climbers with hopes of GC glory are gonna have to go at Dumoulin pretty hard in the hills. They sure wouldn’t want him to close behind going into that 2nd TT. What a ride…

Great to see Thomas put in such a good ride. Yates was good, too. He went better than I thought he would, even before the crash. Pozzovivo did well in the windy conditions, so I reckon Quintana’s ride was sub par. Pinot doesn’t look much chop – I think he was slower than Pozzovivo. Will we see van Garderen in another grand tour?

@stooge

Wow, van Garderen lost an additional 21.20 on Stage 11 today.

I'll confess, TJvG is a better rider than I could be in my dreams (ok, maybe not), and he is, by most measures, a very talented athlete. But he's just not GT material. BMC need to look elsewhere for a rider to fill this role. Put TJ in the week-long races and the ToC, but in the GTs, he just doesn't have it.
Paul Molnar says:

May 17 2017 at 1:46 pm

@wiscot

Have to agree. BMC needs to accept that he peaked with the Best Young Rider Jersey, and Fifth overall at The Tour in 2012, and move on. T. J. is a good rider, but he doesn't have the consistency, or strength for the Grand Tours.
stooge says:

May 17 2017 at 9:03 pm

@wiscot

@Rick

@stooge

It’s on! Movistar and the other teams with climbers with hopes of GC glory are gonna have to go at Dumoulin pretty hard in the hills. They sure wouldn’t want him to close behind going into that 2nd TT. What a ride…

Great to see Thomas put in such a good ride. Yates was good, too. He went better than I thought he would, even before the crash. Pozzovivo did well in the windy conditions, so I reckon Quintana’s ride was sub par. Pinot doesn’t look much chop – I think he was slower than Pozzovivo. Will we see van Garderen in another grand tour?

@stooge

Wow, van Garderen lost an additional 21.20 on Stage 11 today.

I’ll confess, TJvG is a better rider than I could be in my dreams (ok, maybe not), and he is, by most measures, a very talented athlete. But he’s just not GT material. BMC need to look elsewhere for a rider to fill this role. Put TJ in the week-long races and the ToC, but in the GTs, he just doesn’t have it.

I agree. I feel bad for for him. It looks as though he's been misled, and perhaps pushed by commercial interests, in his racing focus. We'll never know, but it seems to me like he could have been a top all rounder and quite successful at the week long tours and big shorter stage races. If he loses his GC spot at the GTs, I hope he switches focus to them and has some success before retirement.
ChrisO says:

May 17 2017 at 11:42 pm

@Rick

@wiscot

The second ITT also appears to be downhill. That should work to the climber’s advantage.

Surely the other way around. At higher speeds the advantage will be to the heavier, more stable riders and also to those who have a much better aero position.
Rick says:

May 18 2017 at 2:09 am

@ChrisO

Of course that is the case, I was thinking faster than I was typing. What I should have said is that a downhill ITT would somewhat negate Dumoulin's power advantage.
ChrisO says:

May 18 2017 at 2:26 am

@Rick

Possibly but I think he'll more than reclaim that with his aero advantage.

I did a little experiment of my own last week on our club TT course. I'd done it the week before on my road bike with 60mm wheels and normal kit and clocked 32:36 on a 12.7 mile 'sporting' course at an average (normalised) of 332 watts.

The following week I did it on full TT rig, pointy helmet, speed suit, shoe covers and all and clocked 31:20 despite my normalised power being 319 watts. And I'm not a super-aero rider either.

So someone with a good position like Dumoulin who can stay in it the whole time could probably pick up a couple of percent advantage before power even comes into it.