Pink Knickers for the Giro!

I don't own a single pink t-shirt, so I am having to support the Giro by wearing pink knickers instead.

Moving swiftly on...

It finally started, hooray, and the first day was something like a crit, up and down the sea front at Napoli, and predictably, it had quite a few crashes, what with the peloton being so huge this year.

Why? Well, you'll remember that this year there is a team extra - 23 teams of 9, instead of 22 - due to the Dark Lord debacle. What was that? Well, the UCI didn't give the Dark Lords of Katusha a pro-licence, but they appealed, and round about March time, their appeal was upheld and the UCI were told to re-instate them in the Pro-Team league.

This would have meant throwing out one of the other teams to make room, and they obviously couldn't do that - well, pff, can you imagine the fuss? - so the Pro-Team league has an extra team this year - 19 instead of 18.

This caused something of a problem at the big UCI races, which normally take the 18 Pro-Teams, and offer four Wildcards to make the 22 teams: the Giro organisers had already dished out their four Wildcards, and were not prepared to take one of them back. Well, you can't blame them.  So they more or less told the UCI "You put us in this position, so YOU can jolly well allow us to have an extra team in the race this year" and the UCI had to allow it.

So that's why we have a simply enormous peloton in the Giro this year.  And, interestingly, we have still never been told why the UCI rejected the Dark Lords in the first place. We assume that it was due to their various doping allegation problems, but no-one seems to know...

The result of all this faffing around is not only more riders than usual, but more support vehicles than usual: and I think you've all heard my comments on the subject of too many vehicles! There have been several Incidents in recent years, with cars and motorbikes hitting riders, the worst of which is still the Tour two years ago, when Fletcha and Hoogerland were side-swiped by the French TV car, slamming Fletcha into the road, and catapulting Hoogerland over and through a barbed wire fence, needing 33 stitches and god knows how much pain and anguish for weeks or  months afterwards.

What was left of Hoogerland's backside

It's ironic, and hateful, that poor old Hoogerland was hit by a car again this year, in February, leaving him with multiple injuries including such horrors as a "bruised liver" (How on earth does that feel?) and "bone fractures to his spine" (is that not quite the same as a broken back, then? Bet it hurts just as much).

Amazingly, he bounced back again, and is riding the Tour de Picardie later this week. Go, Johnny,  Go!

Back to the Giro - with so many riders and so many vehicles, everyone was expecting a lot of crashes, and so far it's been quite bad, but no-one has been seriously injured, and no-one so far has had to retire.

Day One was the flat sort-of-crit, Day Two was the TTT which went off all right, and Sky won it ("Yay!") *waves  homemade Sky flags, now getting a bit tatty*, Day Three was long and flat right up to the last 70k when there were suddenly two enormous hills, causing a lot of puffing and panting, and some very-nearly alarming crashes: you  know, those ones where the hillside disappears at the edge of the road. The sort which, in films, the villians' car goes over, arcs through the air, then hits the ground a long, long way below. That sort of scenery.

Luckily, everyone who skidded off the road managed not to go over the edge, although there were quite a few ripped kits by the end of the day.

Talking of which, I wonder how long a cycling kit lasts? They seem to have the same bike from one end of the year to the other, but how long does a jersey last? I often wonder what proportion of a team's budget goes on kit: some teams have personalised kit, with the riders' names on it, which -as a spectator - I love: but it does mean they can't hand the kit around. Although Andy did do a TT in Frankie's skin-suit one year, or was it the other way round?  *shakes head, can't remember*. Most of the smaller teams don't have their names on their kit, so I guess they get more use out of it: also, I have noticed many times that members of the same team are wearing subtly different jerseys, and I have always assumed that each time there is a redesign (new sponsor, or just time to order another batch so let's jazz it up a bit) then the team leaders get the new kit, while the domestiques and neos have to wear the older kit? I don't actually know anyone who works in a cycling team, so I'd be delighted to hear about it, if any of you have information on that subject!

As far as the Schlecklanders are concerned, there's not a lot of interest in the Giro this year: no Andy, of course, no Frankie, no Jakob: luckily Sky have sent a good team so I'll be cheering for them.

Presumably Andy will be off to the Tour of California - as usual, RadioShambles are not updating their website until the day after the race starts.

*runs off to check RadioShambles site*

Yes, the calendar page is still empty, but they have a news item about Chris Horner being unfit to attend it, and they mention Andy by name, so I guess we'll take that as confirmation.

And I do hope to see some Lux flags out there... I've really missed seeing the familiar stripey flags at the roadside!