Today there is a KoM point, oh goody: ah - is this it then? The three leaders heave themselves out of the saddle for about 30 seconds and there they are at the top. Well, that was underwhelming. I really don't see the point of giving KoM points at what is clearly not any sort of mountain, particularly in the middle of a flat stage, as it is absolutely guaranteed to be taken by someone in a break, rather than any sort of genuine climber. It just seems silly. In this case, it's a good thing the organisers put up a banner and some crowd control, otherwise we would not have known where the top was!
Oh look, a gratuitous shot of young ladies in tight tee-shirts, with the camera held exactly at breast height. Ah yes, the strange Italian obsession with showing us young ladies in the crowd. And their breasts. I'd forgotten about that, nice to see that they are keeping these traditions alive.
One of the GreenEdge riders has gone back to the team car: he's pulling a gilet out of his back pocket to hand in.. Now he's rummaging up the front of his jersey, I do hope he's not about to take a natural break... no, he's handing over another gilet which he had stuffed up his jersey. And another one! And another one! How very marsupial. Hey, did anyone else notice that Orica, who have just taken on sponsorship with GreenEdge, have announced that a new kit is going to be unveiled at the Tour? Boo, I like the current one! UCI rules say that a team is allowed to change it's kit once a year, and I have always assumed that it was to allow for circumstances like then, when a sponsor changes - although I'm not at all sure about the business of changing a team's name part-way through the year. The bad news is that Orica's house colours are blue and black, so there is every possibility that we may have yet another blue/black kit in the peloton later this year. If you have nothing to do after the Giro finishes, and you are having trouble getting off to sleep, go and have a look at the Orica website
It's a little hard to work out what they actually DO: management-speak blurb such as "Orica has a strong portfolio of manufacturing and distribution assets strategically located across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Latin America and Africa which enables it to provide valuable supply chain capabilities for its customers" doesn't really tell us what actually happens, does it?
And phrases like "Orica’s core strategy is to be the global leader in the provision of high service consumables to the mining and infrastructure markets, leveraged to long-term increases in production and development volumes." are enough to get me yawning any day.
Oh well, as long as they are prepared to put money into cycling, then we are happy - and they definitely have something to do with supplying explosives for mining, which could make their future team presentations go with a bang, ha ha!
Talking of kit, what on earth has happened to that well-known British team Farnese Vini? We had only just stopped laughing at the idea that someone hastily marked possibly logo positions on their kit design with a fluorescent pen, not realising that it would be made up in that colour. Now they have added fluoro shorts to the ensemble. Well, at least there is no chance of them being knocked off their bikes by cars when out training...
He was due to join the Shack this year, from FdJ, but when the merger was announced, he decided that he'd have "more room" at Lotto Belisol, so that's where he went.
Here he is - right - in case you've never seen him before: he has dimples to rival Jakob, and there's something about that slightly demented look, in combination with his surname, that makes me think of Meercats.
He's very definitely up and coming, and it's such a shame that he lost it on a corner, hit a traffic island, and had to finish the race with a big rip in his shorts.
As the peloton sweep past him, I note that Ben Hermans is still right at the back of the peloton.
Oh, and before you ask, no cheesy biscuits on the sofa today: instead we are comfortably sharing a bag of dried pineapple bits: no, Figgy, not my home-made ones, we bought these ones. The home-made ones were all right, but it took four hours in the oven, which is a lot of gas to make a batch of slightly sub-standard pineapple pieces, compared to £1.40 for a bag of perfect ones.
Talking of Farnese, I'm amused to see one of their guys back at his car, struggling with something in his back pockets. He is wobbling around all over the road, and eventually a pair of hands comes out of the car's back window to hold him steady. What on earth is he trying to do? Is it a gel? No, it's his radio - the backpack has somehow come out of the band, and is dangling down by a wire. The disembodied hands catch the wire, reel in the pack, tuck it neatly into the pocket, then lovingly pull the gilet down over the bulge. All that is missing is a final pat to send him on his way.
Sky are still riding on the front, and we are treated (or "subjected" if you don't like him) to a very long shot of Cav, very close up. He looks bored, bored, bored. This is good! Not stressed, not feeling the pressure, not tired or struggling, just bored, bored, bored.
At 44k I am pleased to see a bunch of 5 Shack jerseys together up the front of the bunch, and I have just commented on this when ack! there is a huge crash at the back, with a dozen guys down on the road. Good timing, lads. I am somewhat bemused to see one rider hopping around with only one shoe on: his soigneur runs up with a kit bag and produces another shoe, and an insole. I have no idea how you can lose a cycling shoe - in one of the cycling autobiographies I have read, the cyclist gives his girlfriend a pair of proper cycling shoes, and drops her off at the gym for a spin class, having carefully put the shoes on for her. Two hours later he hears the front door, then someone clattering noisily through the house: yes, it's the girlfriend, annoyed and embarrassed that she couldn't get the shoes off, as she couldn't figure out the clasps and fixings. This has given me the impression that when cycling shoes are on, they are firmly on! Well, the rider concerned gets his shoe, the crashed riders all get back on their bikes, and we continue.
At 40k the break is brought back, which is, tactically, a bit of a surprise. Why? Well, generally the bunch will leave a break hanging about 2mins out for as long as possible: any less than that, or if they bring them back, then there is a risk that someone else, someone with fresher legs, will ping off the front and whoever is "controlling" the peloton will have to work hard to get them back. Whereas the "old" break will be tired, and will be easy to overhaul when they want to. So it's very surprising that Sky have let the pace increase to the point where the little break are caught. And sure enough, someone pings off the front.
It's Lars Bak!
Yes! Lars Bak is at the Front! (Oh, that joke never gets old.) And look, he's wearing a non-vented helmet, just like half of the Sky team. David Harmon and Sean Kelly, our commentators, spend the next five minutes running over this debate again. LLB and I think that it's a simple answer: on cold days - and it's pretty cold today in Denmark, you can tell by the amount of leg warmers, arm warmers, thick gloves, neck scarves and hats worn under helmets - then an unvented helmet would be warmer than a vented one, so it stands to reason that someone has invented one. I don't actually know (not being a cyclist these days) why all the cycle helmets are so vented: I rather assume that when they were first designed, the idea was to have something as light as possible to persuade the kids to wear them: also, to be as far away, style-wise, from a horse-riding hat as possible. Hence the funky Alien-head shape, the vents, the colours etc. (Frankly, if I were still riding horses these days, I'd chose to wear a cycle helmet rather than a nasty heavy horsey-riding hat.)
Meanwhile we are having problems with the camera bikes: moto1 at the front, with Lars Bak, sounds as though someone is eating crisps, or possibly eating the crisp-packet, with loud crackling sounds that nearly drown out the commentary. Moto3 at the back of the peloton - oh look, there's Ben Hermans at the back again - is having trouble with it's gearbox, and sounds like a kettle about to boil.
The pace is hotting up with 24k to go - the race ends with a lap of the town, and the last 8k or so is the TT route from yesterday - well, I suppose they had all the barriers in place, so it makes sense to use the same route? It should be interesting to see how a huge peloton gets round all those tight corners - at least they will know the route, but I'm not sure if that will actually help them, or make them reckless.
At 17k the peloton catches Bak, but he's had a good run of TV time, so well done, Lars (pat on back from Rabobank, and possibly the offer of a high-interest account) but at 8k to go, disaster for the pink jersey, Taylor Phinney is standing in the road with his chain off! Naturally, the words "chain" and "disaster" come to mind, and our commentators are pointing out that it's a long straight road, no need to be changing gear so how can he possibly have dropped a chain, but before anyone can say "Andy Schleck", the replay shows us that he fell off first, and then his chain came off. What bad luck! He's re-chained and back on the bike in no time, but the peloton are winding up for the final run, so he's going to have to work to get back on. Luckily there is a good shove to get him going, a quick tow from the team car, a team mate dropping back to help him - we can hear him shouting "Go! Go!" to the team-mate - and he's storming back to the peloton.
By now it's 6k to go, with Svein Tuft on the front - go, Svein!
At 3k, Phinney is back with the bunch, but he's not going to be able to work his way through them to the front in time to do anything at the finish - but at least he'll now get the same time as everyone else, so he may well keep the pink. I can see one lone Shack jersey at the front end of the peloton, and I think it's EEEEBennati. I'm so busy trying to read his race number that I nearly miss the mighty smack on the final corner, when a Rabobank rider loses his back wheel on the corner, and slides down into the barriers, taking out one of the Dark Lords of Katusha, and then most of the rest of the peloton, who come piling round the corner into the back of the melee.
As you all know, it was a fine win for Cav - much waving of little Union Jacks on the sofa - with Matt Goss working really hard for second: it was Daniele, he gets 8th place, not bad. Even Graeme Brown (cries of "Graeme Brown? in rising inflection, as usual) was right up there, he was leading out Theo Bos, the one who slid, and when he saw the accident, he pulled up, waving Renshaw to go on without him. So the ghost of the HTC train lives on!
And here's an odd fact: yesterday, after the time trial, Frankie was in 108th place, and I refrained from making any jokes about him commemorating Wouter Weylandt, as I thought it might be considered to be bad taste.
Guess where Frankie came, today? Yup, he came 108th!
Can;t wait to see your post after today's (Stage 3) melee.......
ReplyDeleteCycling is rarely dull!!
BE