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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View Comments
@RobSandy
I got a good laugh of of that!
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!
My face muscles ache from grinning (smug face); am as happy as any Dutch cyclist can be!
VSP PICKS (2nd Rest Day Swaps):
@stooge
@stooge
Wow, van Garderen lost an additional 21.20 on Stage 11 today.
@Rick
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.
@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.
@wiscot
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.
@Rick
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.
@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.
@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.