94th Giro d'Italia May 7 - 29

[Ryo Hazuki]

what does everyone think about the best young rider competition? does tiago still qualify? if so, i think he's the clear favorite. also will be interesting to see how duarte does in his first grand tour

machado is too old, it will be for duarte if they let him

 

[auscyclefan94]

Ah yes, because most teams generally practice a TTT??

They only do on the day the TTT is been held. They don't hold off-season meetings to practice a TTT..sorry to burst your bubble...

it is known that some teams go out to the course and practise on it before the giro or tour. There is a video of Sky going out to recon the giro ttt course last year before the giro. Generally those teams do quite well though you do need to have the 'cattle in the shed' to be able to do the good times.

btw, Saxo have a decent team for the ttt. None of the other favourites have overly good tt teams imo so the gaps won't be anything significant.

Over the whole race, Geox is quite impressive.

MENCHOV Denis RUS
SASTRE CANDIL Carlos ESP
COBO ACEBO Juan Jose ESP
BLANCO RODRIGUEZ David ESP
CHEULA Giampaolo ITA
KOZONTCHUK Dmitry RUS
DUARTE AREVALO Fabio Andres COL
ARDILA CANO Mauricio COL
VALLS FERRI Rafael ESP

Hopefully sastre also has good form. If that is the case and Menchov is firing then they have a great team of which they can play a few cards.

 

[Ferminal]

In an interview of 2 days ago, Pozzovivo said that Crostis will decide the Giro.
I'm beginning to think that they are ACTUALLY gonna attack there. If so, we have the stage of the century

The main favourites will probably just try and spend as little energy as possible.

But the next tier of GC riders and some of the better climbers who aren't necessarily chasing GC will try and get away, for sure.

I'm thinking the Androni gang, JRod, Movistar, Pozzovivo, Pinotti, Machado. Geox is an interesting proposition, who stays with Menchov and who attacks (hopefully one of them).

The attacks will shred the bunch, I wouldn't expect more than 3-5 of the favourites to be together at the top. Then across the top and on the descent attacks coming off the front, people giving it everything trying to get back on. They will arrive at Ovaro in a horrible state, and I don't think we can expect many groups to be together for more than the first couple of km of Zoncolan.

Hopefully it all makes for 2.5-3 hours of the most spectacular racing. There is huge potential for just one mistake to end up costing several minutes, and effectively ending GC hopes.

 

[hatcher]

Your eligible riders:

Acqua e Sapone: Cayetano Sarmiento
Ag2r: Julien Bérard, Mickaël Cherel, Ben Gastauer
Androni: Alessandro de Marchi
BMC: Chad Beyer, Matthias Fränk, Alexander Kristoff
Colnago-CSF: Gianluca Brambilla, Manuele Caddeo, Sacha Modolo, Stefano Pirazzi
Euskaltel: Javier Aramendia, Miguel Mínguez
Geox: Fabio Duarte, Rafael Valls
HTC-High Road: Patrick Gretsch
Katyusha: none
Lampre: Simon Spilak, Diego Ulissi
Leopard: Dominic Klemme*
Liquigas: Eros Capecchi
Movistar: none*
Omega Pharma-Lotto: Jan Bakelandts, Adam Blyth, Bart De Clercq, Gert Dockx, Klaas Lodewyck
Astana: Roman Kreuziger, Robert Kiserlovski, Francesco Masciarelli
Farnese Vini: Elia Favilli, Matteo Rabottini
Quick Step: Gerald Ciolek, Davide Malacarne, Kevin Seeldraeyers
Rabobank: Steven Kruijswijk, Tom Jelte Slagter, Dennis Van Winden
Saxo Bank: none
Sky: Davide Appollonio
Garmin-Cervélo: Jack Bobridge, Cameron Meyer, Peter Stetina
Radioshack: Ben Hermans, Ivan Rovny
Vacansoleil: none


* the startlist I am working from has not updated with replacements for the injured Daniele Bennati or Andrey Amador yet.

Pete Kennaugh for Sky also. Not that he'll be challenging.

 

[The Hitch]

i guess we can already start with the stage 1:TTT thread haha.
!

In an interview of 2 days ago, Pozzovivo said that Crostis will decide the Giro.
I'm beginning to think that they are ACTUALLY gonna attack there. If so, we have the stage of the century

I guess we can start with the stage 14 thread then

 

[Jamsque]

Your eligible riders:

Acqua e Sapone: Cayetano Sarmiento
Ag2r: Julien Bérard, Mickaël Cherel, Ben Gastauer
Androni: Alessandro de Marchi
BMC: Chad Beyer, Matthias Fränk, Alexander Kristoff
Colnago-CSF: Gianluca Brambilla, Manuele Caddeo, Sacha Modolo, Stefano Pirazzi
Euskaltel: Javier Aramendia, Miguel Mínguez
Geox: Fabio Duarte, Rafael Valls
HTC-High Road: Patrick Gretsch
Katyusha: none
Lampre: Simon Spilak, Diego Ulissi
Leopard: Dominic Klemme*
Liquigas: Eros Capecchi
Movistar: none*
Omega Pharma-Lotto: Jan Bakelandts, Adam Blyth, Bart De Clercq, Gert Dockx, Klaas Lodewyck
Astana: Roman Kreuziger, Robert Kiserlovski, Francesco Masciarelli
Farnese Vini: Elia Favilli, Matteo Rabottini
Quick Step: Gerald Ciolek, Davide Malacarne, Kevin Seeldraeyers
Rabobank: Steven Kruijswijk, Tom Jelte Slagter, Dennis Van Winden
Saxo Bank: none
Sky: Davide Appollonio
Garmin-Cervélo: Jack Bobridge, Cameron Meyer, Peter Stetina
Radioshack: Ben Hermans, Ivan Rovny
Vacansoleil: none


* the startlist I am working from has not updated with replacements for the injured Daniele Bennati or Andrey Amador yet.

Kreuziger has to be the favourite out of that bunch. Duarte might have a chance but he'll probably crash and lose time.

 

[Andre.J]

I'm picking Kreuziger and Anton to battle it out for the GC.

Andre

 

[aarnold517]

Your eligible riders:

Acqua e Sapone: Cayetano Sarmiento
Ag2r: Julien Bérard, Mickaël Cherel, Ben Gastauer
Androni: Alessandro de Marchi
BMC: Chad Beyer, Matthias Fränk, Alexander Kristoff
Colnago-CSF: Gianluca Brambilla, Manuele Caddeo, Sacha Modolo, Stefano Pirazzi
Euskaltel: Javier Aramendia, Miguel Mínguez
Geox: Fabio Duarte, Rafael Valls
HTC-High Road: Patrick Gretsch
Katyusha: none
Lampre: Simon Spilak, Diego Ulissi
Leopard: Dominic Klemme*
Liquigas: Eros Capecchi
Movistar: none*
Omega Pharma-Lotto: Jan Bakelandts, Adam Blyth, Bart De Clercq, Gert Dockx, Klaas Lodewyck
Astana: Roman Kreuziger, Robert Kiserlovski, Francesco Masciarelli
Farnese Vini: Elia Favilli, Matteo Rabottini
Quick Step: Gerald Ciolek, Davide Malacarne, Kevin Seeldraeyers
Rabobank: Steven Kruijswijk, Tom Jelte Slagter, Dennis Van Winden
Saxo Bank: none
Sky: Davide Appollonio
Garmin-Cervélo: Jack Bobridge, Cameron Meyer, Peter Stetina
Radioshack: Ben Hermans, Ivan Rovny
Vacansoleil: none


* the startlist I am working from has not updated with replacements for the injured Daniele Bennati or Andrey Amador yet.

much appreciated libertine. of course kreuziger appears to be the big favorite, but will be interesting to see how kiserlovski's form will be after his break and whether the team will turn to him if kreuziger fails. also will be interesting to see how kruijswijk does after his impressive giro last year

 

[dlwssonic]

nibali the shark must surely attack on the crostis descent or else he will lose time on the zoncolan

 

[fezzer]

Feillu replaces injured Bennati

 

[dlwssonic]

Feillu replaces injured Bennati

omg yea that freaking rocks. but does that mean he loses his tour spot?

 

[Christian]

Feillu replaces injured Bennati

Dammit don't know how you could get that info faster than me.

It comes a bit as a surprise to me, I had expected Denifl. I don't think we can expect much from Feillu though, he has been bad all season and recently getting dropped in the minor slopes of Romandie. I believe this is his first GT since 2009 so it'll be interesting to see how he does.

For the Tour chances I would think it is between him and Zaugg. So far Zaugg should have it in the bag

 

[theyoungest]

Dammit don't know how you could get that info faster than me.

It comes a bit as a surprise to me, I had expected Denifl. I don't think we can expect much from Feillu though, he has been bad all season and recently getting dropped in the minor slopes of Romandie. I believe this is his first GT since 2009 so it'll be interesting to see how he does.

For the Tour chances I would think it is between him and Zaugg. So far Zaugg should have it in the bag

Feillu sucked incredibly at Vacansoleil as well, maybe we'll just have to conclude that his Tour 2009 was just a fluke.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

You could see that one coming a mile away.

A rider who never really had any superb results, gaining a stage win in a long escape on Arcalis with sub-par climbers (Kern, Riblon, Martinez, Nocentini), gaining 'morale' and on that morale finishing 24th in the GC..

After that, back to mediocrity

 

[Christian]

Feillu sucked incredibly at Vacansoleil as well, maybe we'll just have to conclude that his Tour 2009 was just a fluke.

Well according to him it was because he couldn't ride the Tour ... I believe he will do nothing worth of note in the Giro, then say "just wait for the Tour", then not get selected, then whine for the rest of the season.

I could be wrong though

 

[roundabout]

There's no denying that he sucked but didn't he also lose interest at some point (when he found out that the team wasn't selected for GTs IIRC)?

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

There's no denying that he sucked but didn't he also lose interest at some point (when he found out that the team wasn't selected for GTs IIRC)?

And that's a brilliant excuse to not perform anywhere??
These guys get paid a fat contract you know..

 

[roundabout]

You could see that one coming a mile away.

A rider who never really had any superb results, gaining a stage win in a long escape on Arcalis with sub-par climbers (Kern, Riblon, Martinez, Nocentini), gaining 'morale' and on that morale finishing 24th in the GC..

After that, back to mediocrity

To be honest, at the time I didn't expect Feillu to beat those so-called sub-par climbers.

The real question whether it all got to his head afterward.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Like I said.. morale... in a shot for a stage win in the Tour de France, being French, many fans on the climb... -> morale

 

[roundabout]

And that's a brilliant excuse to not perform anywhere??
These guys get paid a fat contract you know..

Not sure about a fat contract unless Vacansoleil went full ***.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I would argue that Egoi Martínez isn't a sub-par climber. Nor is Rinaldo Nocentini. They aren't exactly front-line climbers, but they're both riders I would have pegged to beat Brice Feillu home. Egoi is a Grand Tour KOM (though I acknowledge that Anthony Charteau, Fabian Wegmann and Matthew Lloyd are too - though I'd expect Egoi to outclimb Charteau and Wegmann most days, and Lloyd at least 50% the time).

 

[Christian]

There's no denying that he sucked but didn't he also lose interest at some point (when he found out that the team wasn't selected for GTs IIRC)?

Typical French mentality ... "It's not because I can't but because I don't care".

Also I guess he was given the benefit of the doubt, as it is only his 3rd season as a professional

Not sure about a fat contract unless Vacansoleil went full ***.

"Never go full ***!"

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

much appreciated libertine. of course kreuziger appears to be the big favorite, but will be interesting to see how kiserlovski's form will be after his break and whether the team will turn to him if kreuziger fails. also will be interesting to see how kruijswijk does after his impressive giro last year

Kruijswijk did have a good debut GT.
But to be fair, last year's field was peanuts compared to this years. Getting in the top 20 will be a very difficult task for him. At the sam token he was constantly on the break last season and still managed a top 20 (despite only one break surviving, the mass break with half a peleton ). so if he conserves energy maybe he can do a bit better.
I didn't watch romabdie but his results in the climbs weren't very convincing (great tt tho), but maybe a low key approach to the giro is better for him.
time will tell. I wonder how slagter goes, I just hope he finishes. Very difficult debut GT.

I'm interested also to see how Ulissi goes, bit of a shame he is in a team with one of the big favorites, I think he is a good rider.

Duarte is very good. But I think he has little brains, if he rides like we've seen, he'll have no energy left in the closing week. Remember it is his first GT. Hope for his sake he rides a little more conservative.

I think Pirazzi could do ok too.

Kreuziger should take this tho.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Hah! Just been checking on Eurosport's coverage, currently showing up to stage 9.
A lot of switching between 1 and 2 to fit in the coverage.
Other than this Sunday's very brief coverage, anyone care to guess the ONLY 2 other stages that get the shaft from girlie tennis and motor sport?..............
..................that's right Stages 7 and 9: Montevergine and Etna.
Shortened coverage of both.
Well, if nothing else, they are consistent.

 

[theyoungest]

Kruijswijk did have a good debut GT.
But to be fair, last year's field was peanuts compared to this years. Getting in the top 20 will be a very difficult task for him. At the sam token he was constantly on the break last season and still managed a top 20 (despite only one break surviving, the mass break with half a peleton ). so if he conserves energy maybe he can do a bit better.
I didn't watch romabdie but his results in the climbs weren't very convincing (great tt tho), but maybe a low key approach to the giro is better for him.
time will tell.

He said the cold really got to him on that first stage in Romandie. His form seems to be okay, judging from his TT and his work on the front for Freire. And this time he actually prepared for the Giro, rather than being second reserve and called up two days before the start