Giro d'Italia Feminin July 2-11

[Roland Rat]

The biggest women's stage race starts at the same time as some other men's event, and will see the world's best women competing over 10 stages. The decisive stage should be stage 9, which finishes with the Stelvio pass. I'm hopeful that Emma Pooley can maintain her form and lead the field up the Stelvio to secure a third stage-race victory this season and confirm herself as the dominant female cyclist of the season. Others believe that Mara Abbott could be the woman to stop her.

More information, including stage maps and profiles here:

http://www.procyclingwomen.com/Giro-Donne-2010/Giro-Donne.html


p.s. if you're not interested, you don't need to read or reply to the thread. ACF, that includes you.

 

[L'arriviste]

What an incredibly awful website! Is this a "bible" of women's cycling, RR?

 

[Roland Rat]

What an incredibly awful website! Is this a "bible" of women's cycling, RR?

Yeah, it is pretty crap! But it is the most detailed Giro site in English. Even the official one is only in Italian or French:

http://www.girodonne.it/portale/

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Cervélo have all the tools to take this home, because if Häusler can't retain Pooley should be able to win this. Abbott is strong, but doesn't have too much élite level racing in her legs this year. Arndt has been showing some good form recently, and Eleonora Patuzzo has really stepped up this last few weeks, so I am keen to see how she goes.

 

[Anonymous]

What an incredibly awful website! Is this a "bible" of women's cycling, RR?

Yeh, i found that website the other day during the now closed womens cycling on cn debate. If thats the flagship site for womens pro cycling someone needs to sack the webmaster. its pretty awful. not a good advert for womens riding.

As for the race, Im hoping some feeds will turn up even of highlights. I assume it gets some coverage in italy.

 

[L'arriviste]

Yeh, i found that website the other day during the now closed womens cycling on cn debate. If thats the flagship site for womens pro cycling someone needs to sack the webmaster. its pretty awful. not a good advert for womens riding.

As for the race, Im hoping some feeds will turn up even of highlights. I assume it gets some coverage in italy.

I think it's just a very dedicated enthusiast, hence the animated GIFs. Feel a bit awful for saying that now.

Anyway, yeah, I'll be following it via CN. Emma Pooley FTW! Hope she's doing the Nat RR because she would give Nicole a run for her money.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yeh, i found that website the other day during the now closed womens cycling on cn debate. If thats the flagship site for womens pro cycling someone needs to sack the webmaster. its pretty awful. not a good advert for womens riding.

As for the race, Im hoping some feeds will turn up even of highlights. I assume it gets some coverage in italy.

Until then, get up to speed watching last year's race:
http://www.youtube.com/user/girdon2009

 

[Anonymous]

I think it's just a very dedicated enthusiast, hence the animated GIFs. Feel a bit awful for saying that now.

Anyway, yeah, I'll be following it via CN. Emma Pooley FTW! Hope she's doing the Nat RR because she would give Nicole a run for her money.

there is loads of information in there.. just not a great layout. but obviously someone has put a massive amount of effort into it.

 

[Roland Rat]

there is loads of information in there.. just not a great layout. but obviously someone has put a massive amount of effort into it.

The additional pages too are a mass of information - history of women's cycling, profiles, galleries of loads of races from the last few years. Very impressive.

Just needs your design and layout skills!

 

[BBRoberts]

site layout

Funny how people spent months and months ragging on CN new site layout, while the old site reflected simplicity, ease of use. Site design is a matter of taste, plus being designed to handle what demands are placed on it. I have rarely seen anyone post that they were fans of any site design. Ragging on site design is a national past time.

 

[Anonymous]

Funny how people spent months and months ragging on CN new site layout, while the old site reflected simplicity, ease of use. Site design is a matter of taste, plus being designed to handle what demands are placed on it. I have rarely seen anyone post that they were fans of any site design. Ragging on site design is a national past time.

I think people are just more likely to point out poor site design. Good site design, at least easy navigation should be the norm, its 2010, people should have figured out easy navigation by now. No site is ever perfect, but the bad ones will always get highlighted. As far as CN goes, very easy to find todays results, bloody difficult to find anything else.

 

[BBRoberts]

Website design

Colors, flash modules and laberinth designs can be annoying as ads can be. I don't use ads which I consider a distraction to content. That should be marked in my favor. As for navigation, it's not bad at all. All revelant pages are linked in simple text from every major content page. As long as you can get to any point in a site from any other point in a site, that's reasonable navigation. Using java and any number of scripts for various websites functions is anyone's choice, although I think simple html stills works very well. There are no navigation issues, only a preference for taste or clutter. Clutter can be cut down by cramming everything into a very tight area. I'm not interested in doing that. It's not a professional business, only an a sports entertainment site, and as someone else suggested, it's doesn't really matter how techincally proficient it is, since it's my niche, and a fairly small one at that. That are only a handful of people doing the same with any reasonable content in women's pro road cycling, and while some do some nice work out in the field, their sites are actually worse then mine. Nobody is pouring a lot of cash into website design cause the cause wouldn't match the interest right now. If the sport grows on the pro women's site, then possibly in time you might see something very nice in terms of a real nice site that appeals in every aspect, from layout, colors, navigation and ease of use. Even the biggest site for women's cycling who traveled to most of the world cup races has a horrible design in my opinion, and the colors are much worse. However, like I said, colors can be a matter of taste, and layout to a certain extent is also a matter of taste, but navigation is pretty straight forward to do. The main thing with navigation is keep it all on the first layer throughout the site and don't bury it deep down in multiple layers like trying to find buried treasure. However, no one else has evern complained about navigation or layout in five years I have been online. Mine is actually closer to what CN used to do, in fact some people actually liked Bill's first CN page, the simpler the better, but CN is way too big for that now. I'm changing a few things around, but not a major overhaul. The gif comment is funny, cause there is only one little gif on the whole site, and it's very obsure. However, I am more into content, then the latest cutting edge facelift for snazzy site design. It's not the best, but it's not the worse either.

 

[BBRoberts]

Giro Followup

Now that we are done ragging on the website, what about the Giro D? Does anyone have any comments with a little depth and analysis? BTW, I saw the teamskyfan website and yes that's nice, layout and colors are nice, but I'm not a big fan of the boxed in approach. It's usually done that way to fit any size monitor, but with code, you can create a site that will resize to precisely any size monitor.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

To be honest I'm actually a little disappointed by the route; I thought they'd spread the mountains out a bit more. I'm pretty certain that the Stelvio stage will be pretty much completely decisive; win the stage win the race, or thereabouts. Even though the defending champion is her teammate, I do feel that this means Emma Pooley has to go into the race as pretty much the outright favourite; this season she's been pretty unstoppable as soon as the road goes upwards. Mara Abbott can go with her, but I fear her lack of European racing miles will come back to haunt her. Do we as yet have a finalised list of the teams? Only two years ago Anna Sanchis managed to somehow get up into the top 10, and with this being another climber's parcours, this would be about her best chance of repeating that feat since her self-description includes saying she has no skills for the flat racing... Also I will be very interested to see how Eleonora Patuzzo does, if she can capitalise on her recent good form, given that Safi-Pasta Zara are my favourite team.

 

[BBRoberts]

Giro Followup

List of teams and riders should obviously pop up soon, but i hope not at the last minute. I would think the Giro Donne would post that, but Cicloweb might, I would keep an eye on them. If anyone does, Cicloweb would. On the race, they stacked the three mountain stages at the end, with the last stage being a clone like TDF party stage I guess, but if it's close, anything can happen on the last day. It's pretty flat all the way until they hit stage 7, and then it hurts, and it really hurts for stages 8 and 9 as well. I see this as a climbers tour, and that's not so bad cause I had hoped the Giro Donne might one day do a selective tour for the climbers. It's been many years since the women's tours were selective, noting even here in America like HP Challenge and Redlands Oak Glen, although Gila has the Monster and Toona has Blue Knob this year. In Europe the Grande Boucle died and you have to go back to 2003 to find a selective tour for the climbers.

Flavia O. is out with a testing violation, so she won't be there. She is good climber, but probably Tiffany Cromwell will be there and she is good in the mountains. However I see them as the B climbers. The A climbers are Emma and Mara, possible Edita Pucinskaite, but Brandli and Luperini retired, so two great climbers are gone. If HTC and Celvelo doesn't wear Mara out with her National Team and both riders appear healthy and haven't crashed out by the stage 7, then I expect this to be the Emma and Mara show, clearly, all the way. No one else has the pedigree to hang with them in the mountains. I don't believe Stevens can hang with those two girls. Mara would of won last year if she hadn't of held back for Arndt on Monte Serra, so she could of won if she wasn't actually pulling and holding back for Arndt. It depends on how strong the national team is, Mara can't really do it all alone, but Pooley has said the same thing. Team work is going to be important.

That bothers me a little, since it would be a good spectacle if it was a fair fight. Celvelo got better cards to play, but even if Emma gets ahead on the GC, I am still looking forward to who the best climber is on the Stelvio. I don't see Vos, Cooke or Pucinskaite winning this tour, although anything is possible. This is the longest and hardest tour of the year for pro women, and all it really needs to please is solid TV coverage. Amber Neben might figure into the tour if she's riding well, wait and see. Also riders to watch are Arndt, Cantele and Guderzo. Hausler will be in the fight, and since she won last year, it will interesting to see how things get sorted out between her and Pooley. Worrack and Bronzini will be looking for stage wins as will Teutenberg. Kind of reminds me of when the first part of the TDF is over for the sprinters, and then the mountains take center stage. I am not even sure if all these riders will even be in this tour, but it's a good guess that they would be.

 

[the big ring]

Definitely looking forward to this. Cervelo have such a strong team, and Pooley is a clear favourite.

 

[Skip Madness]

I agree with LS to an extent regarding the route. It's definitely better than any other race this year, and an improvement on last year's route for sure, but I'd have like to have seen the Ghisallo stage looking a little bit more like the stage which went over the Cuvignone and Sette Termini in 2008. The Corma di Sormano is a fairly brutal climb, but I'd prefer it coming later in the day. Can't argue with the Stelvio, though, and I like that the Eira and Foscagno are thrown in that day for starters. Pooley's descending has improved, but if the pace is pushed down the Foscagno she could be put under pressure before the Stelvio even begins. The Livigno stage is also pretty good.

The Pettenasco stage I do like, should be quite a similar finish to stage one of last year.

I'm almost certain Nicole Cooke won't be riding. Marianne Vos is down to ride but can be completely ruled out of the GC.

 

[Anonymous]

Now that we are done ragging on the website, what about the Giro D? Does anyone have any comments with a little depth and analysis? BTW, I saw the teamskyfan website and yes that's nice, layout and colors are nice, but I'm not a big fan of the boxed in approach. It's usually done that way to fit any size monitor, but with code, you can create a site that will resize to precisely any size monitor.

this will probably go on a slight tangent. TSF fans still needs some work, it was built in december, and there has been so much going on, adapting and changing the structure (there are some things need doing) will have to wait until october-december to be done. To answer the question about the fixed size, a lot of whats on there is supplied by rss, so for a lot of things i purely add an rss article and then it auto feeds it into the right place on the site. The people I use for embedding the rss in the site do not do resizable boxes (and its very hard, almost impossible) to get rss feeds to appear satisfactoraly in resizable panels. Thats why it is set width at the moment, and probably will remain so. Dont take whay i said as a crisism. The content on your site is brilliant and there is an amazing amount of work there, I just find the navigation a bit confusing and unintuative. TSF is far from perfect, and I get feedback regularly from visitors that I will employ at some point when i get the time.

As for the giro. Looks like no feeds which is really dissapointing, but the official site look like they will be putting highlights videos up fairly promptly which is something. Im just hoping emma pooley can do something.

 

[L'arriviste]

this will probably go on a slight tangent. TSF fans still needs some work, it was built in december, and there has been so much going on, adapting and changing the structure (there are some things need doing) will have to wait until october-december to be done. To answer the question about the fixed size, a lot of whats on there is supplied by rss, so for a lot of things i purely add an rss article and then it auto feeds it into the right place on the site. The people I use for embedding the rss in the site do not do resizable boxes (and its very hard, almost impossible) to get rss feeds to appear satisfactoraly in resizable panels. Thats why it is set width at the moment, and probably will remain so. Dont take whay i said as a crisism. The content on your site is brilliant and there is an amazing amount of work there, I just find the navigation a bit confusing and unintuative. TSF is far from perfect, and I get feedback regularly from visitors that I will employ at some point when i get the time.

As for the giro. Looks like no feeds which is really dissapointing, but the official site look like they will be putting highlights videos up fairly promptly which is something. Im just hoping emma pooley can do something.

Easy there, sir, things are getting a bit detailed. I'm an Information Designer, so user experience is my job. I visit these forums to take a break from my job...

I started this stuff by being rude about that enthusiast website and going OT so I hold my hands up to that, I'm sorry.

 

[BBRoberts]

Dark Ages

On the Giro for women, still the dark ages like most women's races. The World Championships and the Olympics are televised worldwide, but not most pro women’s road classics. However, I am pretty sure RAI-3 will do at least 10 to 30 minutes daily coverage with hour or more wrap-ups on weekends. Otherwise it won't be on Versus, Universal Sports or Eurosport. At least I am pretty sure it won't be on anywhere except RAI-3. On the Internet, it probably won't even be on any sort of Internet TV. Sad, yup, dark ages. The Giro De Feminin is difficult to follow by the press because of the transfers. That's why most of the guys I know who work the races over them avoid the women's Giro. However CJ will probably cover it cause that's what she does. She is paid to cover world cup and UCI races, that’s what she does. However she will only have photos and race reports, and the photos are not too hot in my opinion. Mostly became they are so small and laced with copyright and watermarks. If Ronconi goes, he will get some great photos and post them on Piscasso. Other then that, Cicloweb will also go to some stages and post photos on Piscasso. The official site will also post photos plus videos on Youtube. Those are usually fun to watch, although fairly short. Aside from that there is a few freelance guys who also post photos and homemade videos. I expect Ciclismoinrosa to take photos and post a few videos. Bart Hazen covers a lot of races but I am betting he won't be there because of the amount of trouble involved to cover that race. I think William Meertans sort of retired or got married. It seems both of those women’s cycling magazines have gone belly up in less then a year. One from America, one from Europe. How sad.

 

[BBRoberts]

Hey Skip

I would never rule Vos out of any GC!

 

[Leopejo]

However, I am pretty sure RAI-3 will do at least 10 to 30 minutes daily coverage with hour or more wrap-ups on weekends. Otherwise it won't be on Versus, Universal Sports or Eurosport. At least I am pretty sure it won't be on anywhere except RAI-3.

More likely, either of their satellite/digital terrestrial channels, probably Raisport 1. And I don't see it being live.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I would never rule Vos out of any GC!

One that includes the Stelvio? You might just have to make an exception. Marianne is good. She's damn good. But even she has limits.

 

[BBRoberts]

Vos and Quick picks

Vos can win stages leading up to the mountains, and it's not entirely impossible for her to take 3rd place on the podium, which leads to some quick picks. I didn't forget about Hausler, Guderzo and even possibly Bouba. However if Edita is fading, that could turn out to be a bad pick. Of course I am bias being from the USA.

1. Mara Abbott
2. Emma Pooley
3. Edita Pucinskaite

 

[tgsgirl]

One that includes the Stelvio? You might just have to make an exception. Marianne is good. She's damn good. But even she has limits.

Blasphemy!