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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@ChrisO I've been using di2 for about 8 months. 100% reliable and the comparison of time needed to be spent on maintenance compared to mechanical is stark. Apart from a monthly recharge, done more as precaution than need, there is zero necessity to tune etc so the gears work perfect every time, reaffirming Velominati rule of silence.
The only thing I've noticed is that after training on it for 8 months on rides requiring little gear changes; when I raced at Port Macquarie recently on a hilly course requiring numerous gear changes I woke up the next day with a sore wrist! The di2 has made changing gears so easy my formerly muscular wrist area had withered into an insipid lacklustre tool.
@marcus
Buh bing. +1 on that BS call.
Subsequent clarification from Cuddles suggests that perhaps ice or snow prevented the upshift to the last two cogs. Would have beenb a bitch not having those last two gears on an 18% finishing gradient.
Had a quick spin on a friends bike equipped with Super Record electronic gears and was surprised at how the shift action was so similar to a mechanical system, I guess they are trying to replicate the "feel" of mechanical shifters, I think they should have gone for the lightest possible action just to make more of a difference, the only real advantage I can see is the auto trim, but tuning gears isn't so hard and you might learn something when you do it! It would be a shame if bikes went the way of cars where I can't even give someone a jump start because I can't even get at my battery, let alone service the damn car because I don't own the diagnostic computer to plug it into!
@marcus
His gear problem was snow jamming mechanics of his dérailleur, nil tondo with electronics. Could happen even with the best of mech shifters
@Bianchi Denti
Woah, really there are only 2 PRO squads on SRAM this year? It did seem like everyone was on it. One of my good riding pals, who has man insanely nice bikes, had SRAM on all of them until recently. Then he picked up a Colnago C-50 with Record 11. Now he's fallen back in love with Campa, while I've been riding Centaur on two bikes for awhile. Hmmm.
@HeinrichHausslersHairstyle
Amen to another who has moved to the Church of Electronic Shifting. May Di2 forever be with you.
Road cyclists have an unhealthy obsession with shaving even 50 grams at the expense of all else.
Functionality is as important as weight. Any bike under 9kg is light enough, and most of us have bikes that are 8kg or less.
Yesterday I fell on some thick gravel. My Castelli Lightness gloves were as good as paper. The extremely thin layer of leather slashed straight through and I ended up with a deep gouge on my palm.
I immediately remedied this situation with some proper gloves that provide more protection than an equivalent amount of rice paper.
Ditto for radial lacing instead of 3 cross, carbon drop bars, etc. (I do run carbon bars on my MTB since they are super tough).
@G'rilla thats the MTBer in you. My Niner ways a ton. the tires alone are 1750 grams(tubeless) but that thing can roll over anything, and is fun a hell ti ride(the most important aspect of MTBing)
@RedRanger
@DocBrian
Too true. In fact, with indexing at the derailleur instead of at the shifter, Di2 would probably perform better in mashing snow out of the way than cable shifting. So it must have been really bad!