Frankie in the Giro, huh?

Well, there's a turn up for the books.

Earlier this year, Jakob was rather publicly expressing himself as being not too happy with being sold off to Radioshack: he felt there were too many captains now, and that he was unlikely to be able to ride for himself. He was, of course, completely correct in this: and Radioshack obviously took him aside and said the right things, as the next we heard was that he was going to be riding the Giro as their GC contender.

Happy Jakob!

Then, last month, Mr Bruyneel started throwing his weight around, and announced that he was going to split Andy and Frankie up, and send Frankie to the Giro.

Well, we can imagine what Jakob was thinking at that point.

Andy and Frankie were clearly not keen on that idea either, and it became the basis of a rather public battle for dominance, with Mr Bruyneel saying that Kim Anderson won't be at the Tour, and Andy calmly stating that Kim would indeed be there, etc etc.  For a while it seemed to quieten down: I did wonder if Mr Bruyneel told Andy that he could either have Kim at the Tour, or Frankie: and that Andy had chosen to have his brother.

But then, curses, Jakob was out of the Giro with his inflamed knee, and Frankie is suddenly thrown back in as road captain, despite having, as he said himself, "not ridden a bike for 5 days". Not exactly the best preparation for a 3-week tour. "The first week will be hard" said Frankie. No kidding!

It will be interesting to see if Kim Andersen turns up at the Tour now...

Talking of the Giro, what an odd race it's going to be this year.

Why? Well, the parcours is very different from last year: you might remember the fuss beforehand, with the "it's the hardest Giro we've ever run" , and of course the awful death of Wouter Weylandt part-way through, and the subsequent withdrawal of the Leopards. (And the incredible dullness of the remaining race, with Contador 5 minutes ahead of everyone else for about a month, yawn.)

This year it is described as being more "balanced" and more "humane", and appears to have a lot of flat stages,  and to be nowhere near as hard as last year.  Yet the field of riders is not exactly, er, how do I say this: well, shall we say that a lot of teams are sending their 'B' squads.

For instance, let's have a look at the start list: BMC, heralded as the SuperTeam to lead all other SuperTeams, are not sending any of their big names, they're sending Thor (always now remembered from Tour of Britain last year as being the one LLB and I nearly knocked off his bike after his TT, oops) Hushovd, Ballan - who was pretty good earlier in the year - and Taylor Phinney, the rest of them are people I've never heard of. No GC rider, no real leader, what's that about?

Astana are sending roman Kreuziger as their big hope, and of the other 8 riders, I've only heard of Tiralongo, and then, only because he has an amusing name. (adopts super-hero pose with one arm raised to the sky, flings cape back dramatically and cries "Tiralongo!" as Super-Coug leaps to the rescue...)

Garmin-Quack-a-cuda are sending Tyler Farrar, who I think is either massively over-rated, or is having a really bad couple of seasons: and as for the rest of the squad, I've never heard of five of them.

And so it goes. I usually go through the start-list for each race, noting down all of Sky and RaNT, plus a list of all of my "pet" honorary Schlecklanders who are racing, so that I can keep an eye out for them. I don't think I've ever checked a race list that contains so many names I've never heard of! And particularly for a big Tour, it's quite extraordinary.

We will all be glad to see that the organisers kept their word to retire the number 108, by the way: GreenEdge are holding numbers 100-107, plus 109, instead of starting at 101. And stage 3 is going to be dedicated to him, which is a nice gesture. I'm not sure whether to hope for a quiet, "procession" sort of day, or a day of real racing, with excitement and hot pursuits.

So who are my hopes for this year? Let's have a quick gallop through the teams and see what there is.

1-9 Lampre: well, Scarponi is wearing the number 1, after coming second last year, and he's already said, as Andy has said, that he doesn't care about being awarded the first place retrospectively, he wants to win in on the road. And I'm rooting for him! Go, Scarponi, you're already mostly in pink, so getting the pink jersey isn't too much of a stretch for your colour scheme.

11-19 AG2R - err, no-one. Well, I will be poking Gadret every time I see him, he's a mean, mean man who wouldn't give up his bike for his team leader last year. Such a contrast to Matti "Here, take my bike" Brueschal at the Tour, who practically flung his bike to Andy after that big crash.

21-29 Androni - nope, haven't heard of any of them. Not a one! Oh, possibly Roberto Ferrari, but only because his name amuses me: with a name like that, you think he ought to be very, very fast.

31-39 Astana:  nope, no-one of interest.

41-49 BMC nope.

51-59 Colnago - nope. I've heard of Brambilla, but again, only in the context of it being an amusing name.

61-69 Euskaltel - no sign of my favourite carrot,Anton: just Nieve as road captain and a whole pile of utterly unpronounceable names.

71-79 Farnese - ah, the British team! No really, they may appear to be based in Italy and full of Italians, but they're registered in the UK, I have no idea why. Nice and easy to spot in the peloton, of course, thanks to their fluorescent kit. But no pet riders amongst them.

81-89 FDJ - nope, no-one of interest.

91-99 Garmin Quackacuda, well, Ryder Hesjerdal always provokes a comment, mainly along the lines of "Rider Hesjerdal? As opposed to Mechanic Hesjerdal? Or DS Hesjerdal?"  Yes, yes, I know, but it makes us laugh every time. Other than him, no-one of note. No JVS.

100-109 (without 108) GreenEdge - aha, at last, a pet! Svein Tuft, of course: go, Svein! Cries of "Tuftage" from all around. And I'm looking forward to a good look at the new kit, with the new sponsor name, Orica, was it? It looks as though they haven't changed the kit much, which is a good thing.

111-119 The Dark Lords of Katusha: another list of unpronounceable names. Possibly I might recognise some of them if I heard them spoken out loud... the only one I recognise at all is Pavel Brutt, and only - again - for being a mildly amusing name, in that it's usually pronounced "brute" which makes me think of a big hulking, terrifying cyclist, shoving his way through the peloton like a bulldozer. *rushes to google to see what he looks like* Ah, ok, he's a typical lightly built cyclist, with a sweet, slightly worried expression.  Not so much of a brute, then.

121-129 Liquigas:  Ivan Basso, team leader, possible winner of the race, supported by eight blokes I've never heard of.

131-139 Lotto Belisol (am I still the only one who thinks that Belisol sounds like an ointment for sore bottoms?) lead by Bart de Clercq: who I think of as a cross between Bart Simpson, and someone from an Inspector Clouseau film. No pets there.

141-149 Movistar: ok, I haven't heard of a single one of their squad!

151-159 Omega Pharma: nope, no-one of interest, but at least I have heard of four out of nine of them.

161-169 Rabobank.  The big disappointment here has to be Graeme Brown (cries of "Graeme Brown?" in Leelu's voice, with rising inflection) who was, we thought, going to be racing for about the first time this year, but who doesn't appear in Rabobank's start list, boo! They are sending Mark Renshaw, ex HTC, as road captain and presumably top sprinter, with Theo Bos to support him, and seven blokes I've never heard of.

171-179 Radioshack: Ah, that's better, at least I know most of them!

Frankie is road captain and GC contender, despite being thrown into it at rather short notice. It will be interesting to see how he goes!

In support, he has Jan Bakelants (ex Omega) and Ben Hermans (Shack) as all-rounders, Danielle EEEE-bennati (well, that's how we pronounce it!) and Giacomo Nizzolo (both Leopards) as sprinters, Jesse Sergeant and Nelson Oliviera (both Shack) for the TT, and Oliver Zaugg and Thomas Rohregger (both Leopards) for the climbs. An interesting mix.

181-180 Sky, aha, "my" team, the real British team. I just can't take Farnese seriously as a British team. The only one of the team I don't know is Peter Kennaugh, but I'm sure that LLB will fill me in as the race progresses. Of the squad, I think Rigoberto Uran is my "pet", mostly because of his face: he's not pretty, but he is sort of adorable, in a wrinkled-puppy sort of way. And of course Flecha always gets special treatment for being the one who was actually knocked off his bike by the car during the Tour last year. Hoogerland got the t-shirt and the barbed-wire scars,  and he deserves all our cheers and support, but I did feel that Flecha got the raw end of the deal.

191-199 NetApp: nope, never heard of any of them.

201-209 SaxoBank: poor dear SaxoBank *pitying look* still at the bottom of the UCI league with only 32 points.  So who have they sent in search of points? Tosatto as team captain, with Anders Lund and the two Haedo brothers, and another five blokes I've never heard of. Good luck, lads.

211-219 Vacansoleil:  Thomas de Ghent looks the most likely of the squad - not that he's a Schlecklander, he's just the one name I actually recognise from their squad. Oh, apart from Roman Feillu of course, brother of Brice, the Leopard who Leaped, and who preferred second-league Saur Sojasun to a life in the Shack.

So there you have it: not a lot of big names, not a lot of Schleckland pets: let's  hope the race is interesting!