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 spring. Now it’s the seclusion of Mount Doom of Tenerife, his coach and his watt meter his only competition. Team Sky is supporting Wig with a very strong squad, including superman, Kanstantsin Siutsou and with Cav no longer a teammate, it’s all the knights of the round table for Sir Twig.
Will the curse of the god-awful Astana kit continue to haunt non-Kazahk riders? Can Vincenzo’s Italian mojo overpower its powerful pale blue and yellow aura? Roman Kreuziger was finally able to win a big race once he shed that kit and pulled on one of Bjarne’s Saxo jerseys. Maybe it was more Bjarne and less jersey that made the difference.
Ryder gets no respect as the defending champion. His little dance at the end of Liége-Bastogne-Liége showed he is fit and ready for a fight. He can time trial, he can climb. Personally I have to back the local boy. And I always hate the overpowered, overwhelming favorite (read Team Sky here) in any race, unless that racer is Fabian Cancellara. No one can say Fabs has won a race this year surrounded with a team as strong as Sky’s. The Shack is just the Shack or a shack. Once Cancellara leaves for the Swiss “I AM” team, it’s lights out in the shack. Frandy, don’t forget to turn out ’em out when you leave.
If Cavendish wins the first day’s sprinter’s stage he will be in pink. He may be out of it after stage two, a team time trial.
But this is the Giro: crazy, unexpected, beautiful things can happen. The spinning wheels of fortuna are less predictable in Italy as they are in France in July. The betting window is now open. The complete start list is not yet available, an incomplete one is here and shall be updated soon. So sleep on your picks, wait for all the teams to make it official, unless you want to go with the obvious all Sky podium. The race begins Saturday so don’t Delgado away a Grand Tour opportunity.
[vsp_results id=”23343″/]
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@Chris
Agreed. Love him or loathe him, Cav gets the business done more often than not, and while he might bitch ocassionally, he's quick with the thanks when deserved. Class act dedicating it to WW. This should see him back in the red points jersey, non?
I've had a serious man-crush on Cav for about two years now.
@Ron
Per Inner Ring:
I'm still not quite sure how to wade through a twatter message but via the Inner Ring info. I think I deciphered that there is still a lot of noise about Cavendish spewing too much "hot air" himself. Probably just people having a laugh. Or negative folks who just gotta be disgruntled with feisty racers.
But...what the fuck? Here is what he does: show up to the biggest, most watched cycling events in the world and nearly always win when he is supposed to win. Yes, he has a good team, now, and has in the past, but there aren't many misfires from him.
I guess last year when he crashed...was it twice? Once early and he left thigh was missing a few layers of skin, the in the corner of a tight turn, I recall. But otherwise he just wins most of the stages he has the make-up to win (flat-er sprint finishes).
@Ron He had a bad case of the rainbow turd last year didn't he. He was taken out by one particularly dodgy crash that had me thinking someone had paid off a domestique to get him to hit the deck.
@Nate
I think part of the interest (and I have read a good few pieces which comment on how intelligent he is) is that even when his team does not get it right he can still latch on to the correct wheel, fire up the guns and launch to the win...there was so much talk about how he would manage without the HTC lead out train to help him but I suspect a good deal of the effectiveness of that train could be attributed to his input/leadership...he is not simply delivered to the line, he manages and sets it up to ensure it does deliver him every time. This has probably been shown now with the way that OPQS are getting better and better, they were pretty ropey in their discipline in getting the train going earlier in the season.
Have to admit in the last 3 years I have completely revised my view of Cav from a loudmouthed wheelsucker, to a sharp and intelligent rider, with an enormous amount of talent....
@minion It was extremely dodgy but it wasn't a domestique it was another young sprinter Roberto Ferrari - he came across the sprinting line like he was avoiding a 6ft wide pothole.
To make matters worse he then beat Cav in a later sprint and Cav missed the red jersey overall by one point.
But for a rainbow jersey wearer he had a pretty good year - I think it was another fivestages in the Tour and his fourth consecutive win on the Champs d'Elysee.
Nobody else can match Cav's record of victories. Arguing about whether he is the greatest sprinter ever is like arguing about whether Merckx is the greatest racing cyclist - people may have their favourites, and others have done great things but the facts only point in one direction.
@ChrisO Might be a perception issue - instead of the Rainbow Curse, if it was called the rainbow Jersey super year, we'd probably remember the wins more than the crashes. On another thread recently when Bettini came up with back to back WC jerseys I was convinced he'd had a shit year till I checked his palmares and saw how many races he'd won.
That Giro crash was dodgy as all fuck. There was absolutely no reason for Ferrari to swing across the road to the extent that he did, he was rolling with the big sprinters in that stage and would have been out the back before the finish line. My first thought seeing that crash was that the bookies would have better odds to work with from then on. Cynical but that was my gut reaction at the time.
Anyone else think the Lotto Belisol kit looks a million times better with the grey/silver lids?
Any of the GC contenders managed to stay upright? Ive seen Nibbles and Wiggo drop along with much of the peloton...its bedlam out there!