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.
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@eightzero
Apparently the gifted one was quoted as saying "it was hard,flipping hard. Not as hard as making my first million but still, jolly tough!"
On behalf of affluent cyclists everywhere I wish her well. Smiley face smiley face because emoticons are forbotten (apologies keepers). Incidentally I've been at the ToC the last few days just hanging out. Everything I ever heard about Jens Voigt is true. Real nice bloke and a class act to boot.
@strathlubnaig
Doh!!
@strathlubnaig
Shite, there'll be no Hampsten moves in thuds Giro...
@xyxax
In the fall I was down to 4% body fat as measured by my friend who is a"certified" personal trainer. I also had about a month or so of on/off respiratory stuff, waking up hacking and such. Didn't relate the two at the time, but now I am wondering.
@scaler911
@PeakInTwoYears
Right, BMI is just a rough measure for adults, and doesn't account for body type or composition. It is just the coin of the particular realm that I'm familiar with. I've had a few patients with BMIs of 14.
Anyway, whatever metric you use, it may be more about the level of activity and privation that got you there rather than the absolute value itself. Scaler, that's a nice bit of knowledge about your own particular physiology. Do you now opt for peak performance at the risk of illness or "play it safe?"
@PeakInTwoYears
BMI = bullshit.
And just to complete the process of boring everyone to death, I would suggest that the measure of BMI is not the problem, but its use for something for which it was not intended, like recruiting criteria.
@DerHoggz
It's something that you could observe over time with a kind of diary, using weight as a proxy for body fat unless you have one of those fancy scales. Anyway, I admire the hell out of you guys even being able to get yourselves into that zone.
On Cycling Weekly forum, this...."We also think some of the other teams might be using some sort of device which throws the SRM data off. Brad says his power meter numbers get stuck whenever Nibali attacks. In fact Brad was looking at his power numbers which were a bit weird when he crashed the other day"
ha ha ....couldn't make it up.
@strathlubnaig
Who said that ? Haven't seen it quoted anywhere else but if as-reported, well they seem to have lost the plot entirely.
Perhaps Nibbles has a V Meter field which overrides the power signal.
@strathlubnaig
Fucking Ri-cock-ulous!
Maybe he should learn to race then, or look at the road rather than his computer. Might not fall off