Giro Stage 2: Jesolo - Trieste

[Leopejo]

It seems that at least Basso and Leipheimer were in the second group and lost 13 seconds.

Cavendish was nice too: "I was a bit lazy and was waiting to start at the latest possible time, but Alessandro got a jump on me and he is so strong that when he gets a jump it's impossible to beat him." (Alessandra De Stefano: There was fairplay, you handshaked Petacchi) "Yes, it's normal: he won because he was the strongest".

 

[benpounder]

too much work from garmin - let columbia control it. maybe a bit of detente going on.

love the universal feed, particularly the captions "end of the bunch", "packed bunch", etc. i dunno, but i prefer arriere du peloton, kop van de westrijd, and gruppo compatto. I gues they have to dumb it down for us "U.S. Americans".

Of course that the universal feed is strictly for US and Canada wouldnt have anything to do with the captions and crawlers being written in english.

 

[Mellow Velo]

You poor people over there. Sympathies.
Ale-Jet back to his best.
Tough times ahead for Cav....

 

[jaylew]

It seems that at least Basso and Leipheimer were in the second group and lost 13 seconds.

And Soler loses 49 secs.

 

[marinoni]

Bring in Bob Roll.

Man, I hope you're kidding.

 

[53x11 in DC]

The difference between him and Phil? While it was pretty stupid to think that was DiLuca instead of Petacchi, he was basing his call from race radio which said he was DiLuca.

Regardless, good win for Petacchi.

Was he really basing his calls on race radio and not the TV feed?? Many mistakes in identifying riders and even the race situation, especially in the closing K's. However, I'm not about to be hyper-critical. Generally very good coverage, and I'm quite thankful for it.

 

[BroDeal]

Ale-Jet back to his best.
Tough times ahead for Cav....

I think you are right. Cav did not seem to be making up much ground on Peta.

Man, I hope you're kidding.

Half kidding. I don't really mind Roll as a color commentator when he is paired with someone who knows what they are doing and he is allowed to be himself.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

I think I mentioned the other day the only thing we'll miss not having Phil and Paul are coverage of the sprints. Phil is magic calling a sprint.

Having supers (graphics) in English is absurd. If you're in the US and following this, it's highly likely you are at least partly multi-lingual in cycling language. If not, you should be, and having to read Italian supers is a good start.

Roll is better in the studio than in covering live work. He's great in the studio.

Anyone hear details what happened with the 13 second split? Simoni and Lance made the gap. Bassi, Levi and others did not.

Informative post GregWI, if depressing. Last I heard our President was working on it at least.

 

[elapid]

Was he really basing his calls on race radio and not the TV feed?? Many mistakes in identifying riders and even the race situation, especially in the closing K's. However, I'm not about to be hyper-critical. Generally very good coverage, and I'm quite thankful for it.

That's what the commentator said just after Petacchi had won, something to the effect of "we are just getting verification, oh, it looks like race radio got it wrong and it was actually Alessandro Petacchi, not Danilo DiLuca."

Agree with you, nice to have coverage in North America. I was in Australia for Paris-Roubaix and SBS had excellent coverage, presumably for the Giro and TdF as well. Good to see cycling supported by the major networks.

 

[mr. tibbs]

It seems that at least Basso and Leipheimer were in the second group and lost 13 seconds.

Cavendish was nice too: "I was a bit lazy and was waiting to start at the latest possible time, but Alessandro got a jump on me and he is so strong that when he gets a jump it's impossible to beat him." (Alessandra De Stefano: There was fairplay, you handshaked Petacchi) "Yes, it's normal: he won because he was the strongest".

Kudos to Cav for his grace in acknowledging Pettachi's win.

And a nice crow pie for me, since I recently said that he downplayed his opponents' victories (or something along those lines).

It sucks that we won't get the Boonen/Cavendish show down in the Tour, but Pettachi/Cavendish ought to shape up nicely...

 

[Mellow Velo]

Yes.
Levi finishes 97th, so is lucky to lose only 13".
The "split" was on Basso. Interesting that.
Shows there is no such thing as a "flat" stage at the Giro.

 

[jonjungel]

Anyone hear details what happened with the 13 second split? Simoni and Lance made the gap. Bassi, Levi and others did not.

On the run up to Montebello there was a quite narrow part. On the final lap, someone had a crash or mechanical there and those behind (I guess about 40% of the peloton) spent quite some time to get past. Seemed like no one got hurt though. When everyone had gotten past, a Caisse rider stood in the road holding a wheel in his hand.

They were held up a lot longer than 13 seconds, so they must have chased hard at the end.

 

[Leopejo]

Yes.
Levi finishes 97th, so is lucky to lose only 13".

From his Twitter:

Blew out my front tire at 65kph downhill behind 1st crash. Pulled it out, thankfully! It was scary to say the least

 

[Mellow Velo]

Still, that was a ways back and he finished in the second main bunch, along with Popovych and Brajkovic. His super-domestique having decided not to contribute.
I still wonder how the split happened on Basso. That's of more interest to me, but I expect it will get washed away in the Astana media frenzy.

Gives me a glimmer of hope that the Italians can outfox those GC men, come the Central Italy and Versuvius stages.
Time to prove that there's more to riding a bike competitively, than just power output.
I can see Levi for one, suffering a "Contador, Paris-Nice" moment or two, around stages 14-16.

 

[Parrot23]

Kudos to Cav for his grace in acknowledging Pettachi's win.

And a nice crow pie for me, since I recently said that he downplayed his opponents' victories (or something along those lines).

It sucks that we won't get the Boonen/Cavendish show down in the Tour, but Pettachi/Cavendish ought to shape up nicely...

Yeah, true. Wish Bennati was there and on form, too (though it might not help Basso, etc., with the general classification). Seems to have a lot of injury troubles.

 

[Bikerider]

Well done to Ben Swift neo pro, excellent result, and a lovely handsome young man

 

[ingsve]

I still wonder how the split happened on Basso. T

I'm not sure the groups actually came back together. With a few kms to go you could see a wide shot with three separate groups going towards the finish which is what the results show.

I'm guessing Basso simply was working hard to minimize the gap and finished first in the 2nd group which never really caught up.

 

[Juan Pelota]

Lance and CVdV now highest placed amongst Giro contenders.

Another American in pink after stage 4?

 

[Leopejo]

You'd say some Chris Horner who is (is he?) a designed domestic rider for Lance and Levi wouldn't care much about 45 lost seconds. Read his latest blog entry instead - also to get a clearer picture of those last kilometers yesterday.