Velominati Super Prestige:
Giro D'Italia 2013
Velominati Community Profile Archive

Velominatus: sgraha

Order: Level 4 Velominatus

Location: United Kingdom

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Cyclist and food lover; IT/marketing delivery specialist when not riding or eating...

@sgraha's activity:

Velominati Super Prestige: Giro D’Italia 2013

Twiggo is dreaming of a Giro-Tour double. He has sent out mixed messages about his Tour ambitions. Will he use the Giro as the ultimate Tour preparation or will be burn all his matches in May and hope he can find another pack for July? He has abandoned his successful 2012 Tour run-up strategy of winning every stage race he entered the previous spri...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Wiggo Wiggo Wiggo VSP PICKS: 1. Wiggins 2. Nibali 3. Scarponi 4. Hesjedal 5. Evans »

Velominati Super Prestige: Luik-Bastenaken-Luik 2013

There is something to love about a race that makes a deviation to its route for the simple joy of sending a fleet of professional riders up a fiendishly steep and narrow ramp. The Cote du Stockeu offers zero benefit to the route from a logistical standpoint – in fact, all it does is complicate things. On the way down from the Cote de Wanne &#...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. VSP PICKS: 1. Gilbert 2. Nibali 3. Rodriguez 4. Dan Martin 5. Albasini »

Velominati Super Prestige: La Flèche Wallone Féminine 2013

Last year we saw Evelyn Stevens out-last Marianne Vos at the top of the Mur de Huy. The take home message is don’t start one’s charge too early. Vos should know this finish, having won it four times already. It’s hard to know who is on form in the professional women field as the races are too far apart to infer much from the last...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. VSP PICKS: 1. Vos 2. Pooley 3. Armitstead 4. Borghini 5. Gilmore »

Velominati Super Prestige: La Flèche Wallone 2013

We came tantalizingly close to adding a foray up the Mur de Huy during our excursion to Liege-Bastogne-Liege during this year’s Keepers Tour. But good sense and The Anti-V prevailed, as they are wont to do, and only two of us were left wanting a dig at the most notorious finishing climb in the Classics season.I write this, then, woefully igno...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. VSP PICKS: 1. Rodriguez 2. Gilbert 3. Uran 4. Gerrans 5. Valverde »

Velominati Super Prestige: Amstel Gold 2013

Yes it is a race named after a barely drinkable Dutch beer. I have enjoyed Amstel beer, brought to our table by a nice waitress, sitting outside in the Dutch spring. Atmosphere is everything. Do the Dutch brew awesome beer? I drank some good stuff in Amsterdam last spring but I’m pretty sure it was Belgian.Now we begin the Ardennes three race...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. VSP PICKS: 1. Sagan 2. Gilbert 3. Moser 4. Cunego 5. Tiernan-Locke »

Velominati Super Prestige: Paris-Roubaix 2013

It looks so easy on the television. Well, no, actually it looks pretty bloody hard. We think we have some understanding of how they suffer, how their bodies can take the continual beating. But we don’t really know. Not even by riding these abominations they call roads twice in the space of a few days can we understand the scale of the thing...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Fab lives up to his name. Again. VSP PICKS: 1. Cancellara 2. Sylvain Chavanel 3. Boasson Hagen 4. Stannard 5. Thomas »

Velominati Super Prestige: Ronde van Vlaanderen 2013

Imagine a world without the little things we take for granted; a house without a roof, a pub with no beer, a Keepers Tour without any clothes. The last one is a reality for me at the moment, five days in and still no trace of where the hell between Wellington and Paris my bag (filled with V-Kit, shoes, helmet, everything) is. The other thing that h...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Super Fab to ignite the race in the final. VSP PICKS: 1. Cancellara 2. Sagan 3. Chavanel 4. Boonen 5. Thomas »

Velominati Super Prestige: Ronde van Vlaanderen Féminine 2013

Marianne Vos has never won this? She who wins everything all the time has never won this? Is it not hilly and tough enough? This seems like a tear in the time-space continuum. Someone is going to be wanting to add this to her palmarés. Weather sounds like a cold but dry day for racing. This is a big one, maybe worth two bumper stickers, so ponder...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. VSP PICKS: 1. Vos 2. Armitstead 3. Gilmore 4. Borghini 5. Bronzini »

Velominati Super Prestige: Trofeo Alfredo Binda 2013

This is the second round of the Women’s World Cup, the first being the Ronde van Drenthe. Laveno Mombello to Cittiglio, 120 km of racing in Italy. It is a very worthy course and we know who will be wearing the number 1 on her jersey. Enough already, I like Ms Vos as much as the next person but someone has to work her over on the climbs and ri...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Lizzie Lizzie Lizzie VSP PICKS: 1. Armistead 2. Vos 3. Pooley 4. Bronzini 5. Gilmore »

Velominati Super Prestige: Gent-Wevelgem 2013

Gent (Deinze)-Wevelgem, it starts with 130 km of cruising around Belgium and Northern France followed by a flurry of bergs and then a final 38 km of  flatter riding to the inevitable sprint finish. How hard can the climbing be if Super Mario got over them? Ask the riders from KT 2012, (the ones not in the following car) and they will tell you...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Super Cav !!!!!!!!! VSP PICKS: 1. Cavendish 2. Sagan 3. Goss 4. Hushovd 5. Boonen »

Velominati Super Prestige: Milan-Sanremo 2013

Finally, we have Milan-Sanremo. I hope pedale.forcetta is ready to shoot some pictures, especially black and white because it will be cold and possibly wet. Throw in a little wind and a race of this distance will weed out the less hardy. Recently, but not too recently, this race would be won out of a decent size field sprint. And yet, besides Fabs...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. I suspect it will finish with a select group, so Sagan has the edge. If Cav makes it to the finish in the front he wins. Will be interesting to see if Moser gets away again to crank up the pressure on the others; would also love to see Faboo blow the race… »

Velominati Super Prestige: Ronde Van Drenthe 2013

Ok, so you guys and gals don’t miss a trick, but sometimes we do. In fact, we kind of specialize in it. @Bianchi Denti just texted me to point out, as others have done on site, that we have almost missed the next stop on the VVomen’s VSP calendar, the Ronde Van Drenthe. On International Women’s Day, of all things.All I can tell yo...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Heart says Lizzie, head says Marianne VSP PICKS: 1. Vos 2. Armitstead 3. Gilmore 4. Stevens 5. Bronzini »

Velominati Super Prestige: L’Eroica/Strade Bianche 2013

Until the 70′s it was common to race on gravel roads, but the Paving of the Planet has led to nearly every road being graced by smooth, black tarmac. As is the case with most things, once we are shown the easy path, it is difficult to return to more arduous ways. So it is with gravel roads; we take measures to avoid unpaved roads and in doi...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Fab Fab Fab VSP PICKS: 1. Cancellara 2. Sagan 3. Pozatto 4. Evans 5. Paolini »

Velominati Super Prestige: Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Women 2013

Finally, some cold nasty Belgian one day racing. Oman, Qatar, does anyone brag about winning those stage races? Yes, they might but really, it’s a tune up for the real season which finally begins this Saturday. Will racing in China or Oman grow the sport? Will there be a new wave of inspired young racers from these countries. Does professiona...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. C’mon Lizzie. You can do it. Believe. VSP PICKS: 1. Armitstead 2. King 3. Borghini 4. Teutenberg 5. De Vries »

Velominati Super Prestige: Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2013

Outside my window, its pouring rain. My bike is leaning agains the wall in my office, covered in grim and grit from the ride in, which was characterized by equal parts cold, wind, and rain. The spot in the locker room where I changed before my shower was marked by sand and mud, and when I walked to the shower, I left a trail of dirty footprints.It...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. VSP PICKS: 1. Thomas 2. Pozzato 3. Vanmarcke 4. Terpstra 5. Stannard »

Velominati Super Prestige: Giro d’Italia 2012

After a winter of long training rides that offered more in the way of numb extremities than it did in acute enjoyment, I have to say that the warming of the air and brightening of the skies have served to remind me that while I love riding in bad weather, I certainly don’t have anything against riding when its nice out.But dont think for...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. VSP PICKS: 1. Basso 2. Kreuziger 3. Pinotti 4. Scarponi 5. Cunego »

  2. VSP PICKS: 1. Nibali 2. Sagan 3. Gasparotto 4. Porte 5. Basso »

Velominati Super Prestige: Luik-Bastenaken-Luik 2012

I thought I’d take this opportunity to move en danseuse on Rule #89 and to refer to Liege-Bastogne-Liege by its less-common Flemish name. It also draws into sharp relief that fact that while Dutch may be every bit as expressive and subtle as French, it certainly sounds less sexy.Some races seem to foster a romanticism that other races of e...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Phil Gil to find his form again… VSP PICKS: 1. Gilbert 2. Cunego 3. Sagan 4. Voeckler 5. Freire »

Velominati Super Prestige: Flèche Wallonne Femmes 2012

During the Ronde von Vlaanderen, we of the 2012 Keeper’s Spring Classic Tour were right on the Oude Kwaremont climb as the women big-ringed it up the cobbles. Kristin Armstrong (US Women’s Team) was burying herself to get on Judith Arndt’s (Greenedge) wheel. It looked like the winning break was going right in front of our eyes. Se...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. VSP PICKS: 1. Armitstead 2. Pooley 3. Vos 4. Cooke 5. Johansson »

Velominati Super Prestige: La Fleche Wallonne 2012

I just had to use this pic of Tom Simpson in 1965 wearing the Peugeot kit as the title pic for this year’s VSP for La Fleche Wallonne. Rigid hooked himself up on the Keepers Tour with the same kit he purchased at the Flanders Cycling Museum and it’s Grade A nipple lube. Although victory eluded Simpson in this Classic he still looked dam...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Phil Gil to time it right this time VSP PICKS: 1. Gilbert 2. Friere 3. Voeckler 4. Sagan 5. Sanchez »

Velominati Super Prestige: Paris-Roubaix 2012

We rode the Pavé of Roubaix in the dry, and any comforting feelings we might have been carrying about with us that suggested we had somehow prepared for them were summarily vaporized as we hit the first secteur. Riding together in a group, unable to reach for the brakes or the shifters, we all were hit with the same realization: these aren’...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. For sentimental reasons I’m going for Pippo. Remember a few years ago when his acceleration devastated the peloton and set up Tommeke. He has the power. VSP PICKS: 1. Pozzato 2. Boonen 3. Hushovd 4. Flecha 5. Stannard »

Velominati Super Prestige: Women’s Ronde van Vlaanderen 2012

The Velominati Super-Prestige continues with our second Women’s event of 2012, the Women’s Ronde van Vlaanderen. This one is made even more exciting for me by the fact that I now have some small connection to the Women’s Tibco Racing Team, as I watched with envy as they each pulled their bikes off the oversized baggage carrousel...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Lizzie should force the competition off her wheel on the Flanders parcours VSP PICKS: 1. Armistead 2. Vos 3. Cooke 4. Pooley 5. Arndt »

Velominati Super Prestige: Ronde van Vlaanderen 2012

The Keepers and Rigid rolled into a region in France called Flandres which, without doing any further research into the matter, we assume is the coloquial French term for this region of the world. If its anything like the other regions in Europe, these places have roots that extend way past any modern country’s border and situate themselves i...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus Spartacus VSP PICKS: 1. Cancellara 2. Boonen 3. Chavanel 4. Geraint Thomas 5. Van Avermaet »

Velominati Super Prestige: Gent-Wevelgem 2012

Gent conjures up images of the quintessential Flemish city. Age-old medieval architecture rising from the river’s edge is classically Belgian. Gent is also firmly tied to Belgium’s greatest gift to the world, cycling tradition. Many a pro-expat cyclist has relocated to Gent with the hope of testing their mettle in the seat of cycling...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. Figure this one will come down to a sprint. If Cav avoids another jour sans, then he’s my man. VSP PICKS: 1. Cavendish 2. Greipel 3. Farrar 4. Hushovd 5. Boonen »

Velominati Super Prestige: Milano San-Remo 2012

The Poggio. It’s probably one of the most famous easy climbs in the world; going through old cycling photographs, I rarely come across one where the leaders haven’t moved Sur La Plaque. It has a reputation, however, for being a real leg breaker, mostly because any climb is a big climb once you cross its summit after a paltry 291 kilomet...

@sgraha's posts:

  1. It’s gonna be another Cav-tastic result (probably). Can feel it in my water. VSP PICKS: 1. Cavendish 2. Cancellara 3. Van Avermaet 4. Sagan 5. Nibali »