I like Pinot but what sort of mouthbreather rides a whole TdF in the gruppetto for no reasin with a serious back injury.
Someone who wants to overcome a reputation as
the guy who always abandons GTs,
and who literally lives on the route of one of the stages. Wonder if they could've convinced him to leave if it hadn't been for that ITT, and that's the darkest irony of it all, isn't it? The route - and in particular the TT - was in many ways seen as ASO doing Pinot a favour; the only TT being not only up a mountain, but practically in his backyard, ended up being somewhat of a disfavour to him,
because it was practically in his backyard. Though, I suppose if they'd known at the time that he actually a fracture then he might have gone home, but certainly; Craddock rode an entire Tour with broken back once, if I'm not mistaken.
So, yeah, I can fully understand that he wanted to finish the Tour, starting the Vuelta otoh, was - in the clear light of hindsight - a mistake. So, too, was leaving it as late as he did before getting those cortisone shots. Sure, he didn't want to take them when he had upcoming races, because he felt that would be borderline cheating, but imagine if he'd gotten them straight after the Tour, and then just... stopped his season right then. Even with the schedule he ended up following - starting the Vuelta, and leaving after two days - he could still have gotten the shots right after that, especially since (I guess) it was getting pretty clear that he wasn't going to race any more races after that.
Basically last year he made the mistake of not only finishing the Tour - understandably, given the circumstances listed above - but also starting the Vuelta while not at 100%, he is
not making that same mistake this year in regards to the Giro! Would be awesome if he's ready to ride, but I'm not too optimistic. Instead get some rest, start riding some smaller races, and prepare for the Vuelta, or - maybe even better - peak for the Italian Fall Classics; he's got an okay record in those.