The Cycliste Moderne, May 30, 2006

We made the annual trek to Salt Lake City for Memorial Day this weekend. For the third straight year, we were welcomed by a weekend of rain in the valley and snow in the mountains. My 9 year old and I went to see Real Salt Lake play the Colorado Rapids to a 2-2 tie. It rained the entire game except for the last five minutes. Mrs. Cycliste Moderne and the two littlest ones did not go to the game. We saved even more as the only way to keep cold and wet kids happy is generally with hot dogs. However, the oldest discovered he stayed dry and warm if he did not move and he had a hot dog for lunch so we did not move until half-time. The hot chocolate/snow cone line was at least 50 people deep and most, if not all, were selecting hot chocolate in stead of snow cones. I guess Utahoos do have some intelligence.

Additionally, listening to Salt Lake Radio is a lot like listening to my iPod, but that is not enough yet to get me to move back. Although that is another plus.

However, as we drove out of town we heard an ad on the radio for the “Cereal Café” in Salt Lake’s Sugarhouse neighborhood. 20 kinds of cereal and 12 kinds of milk. Although your unit cost has got be fairly low, I don’t know about the long term viability of a cereal restaurant. That is a Utah minus.

Giro Recap

In the end, Team CSC proved it had the strongest team and the strongest rider. Ivan Basso put a stranglehold on the race once it went uphill much like Lance Armstrong. He was the equal of Jan Ullrich in the long flat time trial and was really unmatched in the mountains. In the end, neither Cunego, Simoni, nor Savoldelli could match Basso. The question is whether Basso spent too much to win the Giro d’Italia to win the Tour de France in July. Right now he is clearly an unmatched stage racer. Ullrich will be strong in France, but has not shown the climbing ability of Basso over the last several years.

Rather than recap the final week of the Giro, which had some of the most intense climbing that has been included in a Grand Tour in some time, it is necessary to comment upon Gilbert Simoni’s antics over the end of the race. This year’s Giro should have favored Simoni with the intense and frequent climbs over the final week. However, it did not as Basso extended his lead over the final week. Simoni showed some strength but he could not match Basso and as a result Simoni finished third, almost twelve minutes behind the winner.

Gilberto Simoni, however, should hang it up and retire because he has become nothing more than a has-been whiner. After Basso sealed his victory with a win in Saturday’s stage, where he and Simoni destroyed the field and picked up major time on the rest of the peleton, Simoni criticized Basso for asking him to wait on the descent of the Mortirolo, Simoni apparently expected Basso to gift him the stage. The two worked together until the final climb where Basso ultimately dropped Simoni.

Afterwards, Simoni asserted that he thought they had a deal and that Basso would not contest the finish. Then Simoni did the unpardonable and referred to Basso as an “extra-terrestrial” and a “phenomenon,” phrases that the French media had used to insinuate Lance Armstrong had doped. After the stage, Cyclingnews.com reported Simoni stating that “Basso offered me money to gain the stage victory” and that “he asked me for money to let me win the stage.” Simoni’s words showed him to be the bitter loser he has become. While there has long been “gentlemen’s agreements” in cycling determining the outcome of races which sometimes involve the exchange of cash or something other between riders in the lead group, that does not happen as much today as it used to. Moreover, I can never recall a cyclist being accused of both seeking to buy and offering to sell the very same stage.

Basso was clearly the stronger of the two and in wining Saturday’s stage by over a minute, it is nothing but speculation on Simoni’s part that had he dropped Basso on the descent from the Mortirolo, he would have been able to get a big enough gap to hold Basso off on the finishing climb into Aprica. Moreover, for as strong as Basso was, it is beyond belief that he would feel the need to negotiate for the stage win. The final climb was not nearly as steep or as long as the three climbs earlier in the stage including the climbs over the Passo di Gavia and Passo del Mortirolo. As the leader, Basso had shown nothing that would indicate that second placed Simoni would be able to get away from the leader of Team CSC and that Simoni would be able to stay away.

Simoni has in the past said incredibly stupid and vindictive things in defeat. His criticism of Damiano Cunego two years ago after Cunego won his first Giro caused Simoni to lose significant public support as he appeared as nothing more than a washed up whiner. After losing significant time to Armstrong in the Tour a few years ago, after Simoni had announced that Armstrong had never had to face a climber as good as himself in winning the Tour, Simoni slinked off claiming that he never liked riding the Tour anyway. Simoni has now impugned Ivan Basso. Cunego, Armstrong and Basso are all significantly more popular in Italy than Simoni.

What Simoni seems unwilling to recognize is that Basso had the best team, the best preparation and over the last two seasons has shown that he is far and away the best Italian rider in a generation. Basso has the complete package while Simoni is an aging climber who has lashed out at everyone over the last few years and has never been able to back up his strong words with action. Armstrong, Cunego and now Basso have all felt the wrath of Gilberto Simoni, although Simoni has not defeated any of these riders over the last few years. Simoni needs to decide if he is going to train and race smarter or retire. Simoni cannot win a grand tour because he lacks the team and focus of Armstrong, Basso or even Ullrich. Being a great climber is important, but it will not win you a Grand Tour. This year’s Giro should have favored Simoni over the last week. However, as the results have shown, Gilberto Simoni is not even a great climber any more.

Gilberto, it is time for you to go.

Liberty Seguros Update

If you have not been following the main cycling news outlets this last week, you probably missed Liberty Seguros/Liberty Insurance’s termination of its sponsorship of the Spanish Liberty Seguros team due to the arrest of team manager Manolo Saiz in a wide ranging doping investigation in Spain. Saiz has been released from jail but the allegations against him and the others arrested this last week are significant. There have been indications that Saiz was released because he was merely a “customer” and not a ring leader. Spanish police have arrested several medical professionals and cycling managers who were in the possession of hundreds of units of blood and other doping products. The police have reported that more than 100 athletes may be implicated in the Spanish doping scandal.

What is disconcerting is the fact that after having Roberto Heras stripped of his 2004 Vuelta a Espana title as the leader of Liberty Seguros and being fired, Saiz agreed to modify the sponsorship agreement with Liberty Insurance so that if the team were ever implicated in doping the sponsorship would be terminated immediately. Liberty Insurance has now done that and it makes you wonder what it is going to take to clean up the sport. Liberty Seguros’ results this year have been mediocre at best this spring.

This latest incident has convinced me that there should be a lifetime ban for all team managers and directors convicted of doping offenses. Sponsors do not want to buy headaches and this is definitely a headache. Although the team intends to proceed and Liberty Insurance has agreed to pay its obligation for the remainder of the season, albeit without its logo on the team’s jersey, if the UCI and the ProTour are committed to the fight against doping then the team needs to be immediately suspended and the riders given their release. Individual riders should not be punished solely for their association with the team unless and until they are convicted of doping offenses but the team should be given the death penalty as should any manager or employee convicted of doping.

Tour of Utah

The Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah has finally provided specifics of this year’s race in August. Having moved the event to August and having focused it upon professionals this year by eliminating the amateur divisions, the race has developed at least one stage that rivals anything raced in Europe. More importantly, I have changed my vacation plans this summer so I can see a portion of Stage 6, the final stage on August 12, 2006 (Okay, since Real Madrid is coming to Utah to play Real Salt Lake that day and has promised to bring Ronaldo and Beckham, it made it an easy decision to change my vacation plans to August, especially after my parents offered up their Park City timeshare).

The Tour of Utah will have two mountain top finishes, an individual time trial, two rolling to flat stages with finishing circuits favoring sprinters, and a downtown Salt Lake circuit race with a climb up Capitol Hill each lap. The race will have local television coverage on KJZZ and is being underwritten by Larry H. Miller and Zions Bank.

The final stage of the Tour of Utah is a truly epic ride. With the riders climbing over four passes before finishing at Snowbird with the finishing line at 8,300 feet, the 114 mile stage will put the hurt on a lot of domestic pros. I would expect that by the finish most of the teams will be decimated and riders will be strung out all along the Wasatch Front. I am so there.

The Cycliste Moderne, May 22, 2006

Giro Recap

Well, we could provide stage recaps but in reality, watching this year’s Giro d’Italia is a lot like watching Armstrong win six of his seven Tours de France. The first climb and the first time trial put such a strangle hold on the race that it is pretty much over after those two events, usually during the first half of the race. That is exactly what happened this last week.

Ivan Basso has reaffirmed his stature as the best Italian stage racer in probably 20 years. That may be sacrilegious for Pantani fans, but let’s remember that Pantani was never a well-rounded stage racer. He was a marginal time trialist at best and he never had strong teams around him. Pantani’s victory in the Tour de France came during the Festina doping scandal which decimated the peleton. Pantani could put major time into opponents on major climbs, but he would give a lot of that up during time trials or during the transition stages where inattention can cost an inattentive rider time in a difficult finish, finishes like some of those during the first week of this year’s Giro.

Basso, on the other hand, has shown strength in all areas. He is tactically aware, not permitting time to slip away to rivals. Over the last two years his time trialing ability has greatly improved. As shown this week when he finished second, about thirty seconds behind Jan Ullrich, Basso’s skill against the clock has greatly improved. The Stage 11 course was a very flat course that favored those riders that could generate big power. Ullrich was expected to do well and he did. Basso was expected to do well, but he almost matched Ullrich on the course. The pure climbers again lost a lot of time to Basso.

Basso has also shown that he learned well from watching Armstrong. He attacks when it makes sense to attack, like he did on the first mountain finish of this year’s Giro, a stage that was not expected to create big time gaps but that had the potential to break up the leaders due to the short but steep finish. He has put the hammer down against the clock showing that like any of the great Grand Tour champions a rider cannot consistently win a Grand Tour if he is not one of the best time trialists in the field. He is on a team that has a director who understands the importance of the team to win a Grand Tour and his team sacrifices everything for him.

Basso is far and away the most complete rider in the Giro this year. His ride has been truly Armstrongesque as he attacks to put his stamp on the race, conserves his energy when appropriate and has ridden a race that leaves his rivals scratching their heads. Savoldelli, Cunego, Simoni, and Di Luca really have not been able to match Basso’s efforts at all. Rujano had been a disaster being more than nine minutes behind after the time trial in Stage 11. Rujano could have have put the hurt into Basso and his team this final week with three mountaintop finishes, but he abandoned on Saturday demoralized and at odds with his team. Basso very likely can win both the Giro and the Tour de France this year.

Final Week Preview

This final week starts with a flat stage on Monday for the sprinters. Then the route heads into the mountains for a brutal slog to Milan. With the midweek forecast being for rain, the climbs are not going to be easy or fun. The heavily awaited finish on the Plan de Corones is likely to be a complete mess as they just finished “surfacing” the dirt road to the summit in the last week and it has been very wet, so wet that there is serious concern about the integrity of the road surface over the final stretches to the summit. Pictures of the last 5km to the ski lift at the summit can be seen at both Velonews.com and Cyclingnews.com. If it keeps raining, I do not see how they can keep the finish at the summit. If they are forced to move the finish down the mountain, it will certainly benefit Basso who only has to play defense on the road to Milan.

Just Riding Along

Saturday was the annual charity ride for the Treasure Valley Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. Cyclista has supported this event for several years and Mrs. Cycliste Moderne served on the organizing committee. It has been a good event for our family and supports a cause that we feel is important due to the family history we have with blindness. Saturday was the first time the entire Cycliste Moderne family rode together in a charity ride. It was not supposed to happen.

Mrs. Cycliste Moderne had intended to put up the Cyclista booth, help the event organizers and wrangle the two-year-old while I rode with one kid on the tandem and the other on his bike. With a child now wanting to ride his own bike, I am no longer riding centuries or dragging a kid for 25-35 miles. So we committed to just ride the 10-miler thinking the 9-year-old was ready for that.

However, Friday night as Mrs. Cycliste Moderne was getting stuff ready we lost power in the midst of a nasty thunderstorm. In light of her interrupted preparation and the possibility of bad weather she announced that we were not going to put the Cyclista art out for display and purchase. I said, “Well you wanna ride?” She said she would but having flatted earlier in the week, her new Specialized was not in rideable condition. So I did what any reliable bike mechanic would do, I took the front wheel off of my road bike and put it on hers. Solved that problem.

Saturday morning, we lined up with my parents, all decked out in our Cyclista team kits and rode the 10-mile route. My parents actually finished first of the Team Cyclista group. My tandem with the Burley kid stoker kit and the Bell trailer was not able to stay with them because, well, kids won’t eat bananas on the road and that is a lot of weight to drag up very small rises in the road. You have to stop at the rest stops and let them out. The toddler tried to escape to Sunset Park’s playground when I let him out and that added five minutes to the rest stop. Mrs. Cycliste Moderne rode with the 9-year-old and showed him he is not yet Ivan Basso if the climb up Collister and Pierce Park are too much for him.

Anyway, we all got back safely, we all had fun, and we actually sold some bike stuff. More importantly, the power finally came back on at our house after 12 plus hours. We now know that all five of us can go do charity rides if they have a route that is fairly flat and about 10 miles long. I cannot wait until they get a little bigger and we can go at least 25 miles for our $30 entry fee. One thing to be said for the National Federation of the Blind: they don’t give out water bottles, they don’t give out t-shirts. They give out socks. Everybody needs socks.

The Cycliste Moderne, May 14, 2006

Sunday, May 14, 2006, 9:15 PM

I wrote my Giro update Saturday night. I knew better than doing it, but I did. Sunday was the first mountain top finish of the Giro. Stage 8 was important but I did not really think that it would have any effect upon the general classification as the finish was the only climb on the day. While the finish on the Passo Lanciano involved a 12km climb at 8+%, it was a stage where you expected the leaders to be at the front and not a major change on the general classification.

Danilo di Luca and Paolo Savoldelli both lost significant time today to the winner Ivan Basso. On the first major climb of the Giro, Savoldelli found himself isolated without any of his teammates on the only climb of the day. Not a good day for Savoldelli or Discovery Channel. None of Savoldelli’s teammates even managed to stay with him as he proceeded to lose more than two minutes to Basso.

I would have expected Damiano Cunego to win today’s stage, but did not expect any shake up in the overall. However, Basso had help from teammates and set himself up for a late attack. No one could stay with him as Cungeo lost thirty seconds, Simoni lost a minute and a half, Di Luca lost a minute and a half, Rujano lost a minute fifty. At the end of the day, Basso was in pink with a minute and a half back to second place. Savoldelli is now in fourth but is two and a half minutes behind Basso. The race is not over, especially if Basso has another bad day like he did last year, but again Basso is head and shoulders above the rest of the peleton.

Now, feel free to read on but disregard anything that is not consistent with reality.

Saturday, May 13, 10:20 PM

Sorry I have not written for ten days. I had intended to write an update of the Giro d’Italia on the first rest day but I have had to write two appellate briefs this week. You've got to pay the bills first. Anyway, I am sitting here watching Armageddon, which definitely is the Dirty Dozen of my time and is probably the greatest summer movie of the last ten years, for about the 20th time on TV. I also have the Match tracker fired up and it looks like Real Salt Lake will get its first win since I took my kids to see them play last August in Salt Lake. Eighteen games in a row with like three ties and fifteen losses is not cool. I cannot imagine them blowing a 3-0 lead in the 89th minute.

Today also was the FA Cup Final in England with Liverpool winning in a penalty shoot out against West Ham United. We used to have a FA Cup Breakfast party but the last few finals have been so boring that it was really a waste of the pay-per-view dollars so we quit having them. That is a shame because Liverpool came back from a 2-0 deficit and a 3-2 deficit to tie the game in injury time and then take the match in penalty kicks 3-1 after thirty minutes of scoreless extra time. I was working early this morning at the office before going to coach my oldest son’s final soccer game of the season today so I had the match tracker fired up for that game as well.

So on to bikes . . .

Giro Recap

For those that have not been following, here is the short of it:

Paolo Savoldelli, last year’s champion and Discovery Channel leader looks really strong. He won the opening time trial and has been very aggressive. Discovery Channel has a significantly stronger team this year around him than last year. Discovery Channel had some issues in the team time trial losing 39 seconds to Team CSC and Ivan Basso. Not a big loss, but a little surprising with such experienced TTT horses as Slava Ekimov, Benoit Joachim, and Pavel Padrnos on the team.

Ivan Basso’s Team CSC won the team time trial and Basso has stayed out of trouble. He is in an excellent position to win his first Grand Tour. Team CSC looks good but may not be as strong in the mountains as Discovery who has committed the services of Manuel Beltran, Chechu Rubiera, Tom Danielson, and Jason MaCartney which are as good as or better than Team CSC’s mountain support for Basso of Bobby Julich, Jens Voigt and Carlos Sastre. Basso and Savoldelli sit second and third overall just seconds apart.

T-Mobile is looking really strong after an excellent Team Time Trial with Sergei Gonchar having spent a couple of days in the leader’s jersey and Michael Rogers sitting in fourth after one week. Rogers has been considered the next great Australian Grand Tour rider and can time trial really well, after all he has won the world championship in the discipline. It will be interesting to see how the team fares in the mountains, but it really has surprised people over the first week.

Damiano Cunego and Danilo Di Luca both had strong Team Time Trials, which is surprising as neither Lampre or Liquigas have ever been known for the discipline. They have both lost a little time due to their failure to stick with the leaders over some difficult stages but not enough to be too concerned. Both are within a minute of Basso and Savoldelli.

Gilberto Simoni, however, has lost almost two minutes already which is unacceptable. He lost time in the opening time trial, the team time trial and on a couple of difficult but not too difficult finishes. Simoni is showing his age and may be able to mix things up in the mountains, but having lost two minutes so far, he may have already seen his Giro over.

Jose Rujano, last year’s climbing discovery, has had a disasterous Giro to date. He had been in a contractual dispute with his Selle Italia team and will be moving to Quick.Step in July. He had not really raced this season and it has shown. He has already lost 3:30 to the leaders. He will likely lose another five minutes in Thursday’s Stage 11 individual time trial. The mountains will suit him but he will be closely marked and unlikely to get the 8-9 minutes back that he will need to finish on the podium. A top 10 for Rujano would be a moral victory and a miracle at this point.
Alessandro Petacchi’s Giro ended tragically, however, in Belgium. The Italian sprinting ace, and Milram’s star for the race, broke his kneecap during Stage 2 and will now miss the Tour de France as well. Petacchi has had a good but not great spring and this is a devastating blow for Milram.

With Petacchi out, Davitamon-Lotto’s Robbie McEwen has already won three sprint stages and has such a commanding lead in the points contest (the “ciclomina jersey” competition) that he has actually talked about finishing the race this year to win the points title. He will likely be able to win every sprint stage, although there are not very many that are remaining in this year’s Giro. He has turned around what had been a dismal spring for him and his team.

The Giro has been exciting, but I have been too busy to commit time to the pay-per-view internet stream this year. I may do it for the last week of the Giro depending upon how much time I have.

Non Cycling Cyclist Non Story

One of my running buddies, not that I run, but he does and he is a buddy, wondered why I had not written about Lance Armstrong running the New York Marathon. Now I have, and here are the links to the letter exchange that Velonews.com has had about the topic. Here is the link to the letter from the dude who obviously has let the pounding get to his brain. Here is the link to the appropriate responses from the cycling community.

Remember, friends don’t let friends run. Friends bike. And remember that runners will pretend to be your friend but that is only to seduce you to the dark side of the force. My running buddy has convinced a bike buddy that the bike buddy ought to run the Great Potato Half Marathon next Saturday instead of bike buddy joining Team Cyclista for the annual National Federation of the Blind Cycle for Independence Ride. And remember that your runner buddies just look at you as potential fresh meat for their ponzi schemes for getting you to run races.

More Cycling Odds and Ends

Today was Boise State University graduation. As I came back from the midday game with my two boys, a freshly minted BSU alumna passed in front of our car on her aqua cruiser, with her cap, gown and heels all in place on her way back from commencement. Glad to see that she had not let that new liberal arts degree go to her head and make her think she could afford a car.

This evening, my oldest and I rode our tandem out to Lucky Peak Dam. For those of you not acquainted with Boise, a ride to the Dam is a pretty good training ride as it is about a 25 mile round trip. The ride is relatively flat, but you typically have a tail wind going out and a headwind coming back. We have had such a wet winter and spring that the Boise River is at flood stage so we decided to ride out and watch the water shooting out of the dam at 7,500 cfs. It is a fairly rare sight in our arid climate. Because of our late start, the headwind, the long day including soccer, we did not make very good time. The park at the base of the dam was packed with picknickers out to do the same thing: look at the water. We did not get there until after 6:30 PM so most of the serious cyclists had already gotten their ride in for the day. As Andrew hopped off the tandem to take a picture of the water shooting out of the dam’s valves, a couple rode up on their thrift store mountain bikes. They had cycling gloves but obviously were not really committed cyclists as instead of sitting down like we did to watch the water and eat a Clif Bar, they both sat down with their water bottles to have a smoke. Yep, you ride the ten miles from town to Discovery Point State Park just to have a smoke.

The Cycliste Moderne, May 5, 2006

Sorry for the delay but I wanted to wait and do a Giro d’Italia preview shortly before the event to capture any last minute news.

Giro Preview

Saturday is the start of the Giro d’Italia, the first of the three grand tours. This year, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of a mining accident in Belgium that killed one hundred and thirty six Italian coal miners, the Giro will spend its first four stages in Belgium before transferring to Italy to finish the race. Only one of the stages in Belgium will favor the sprinters as the opening time trial includes a significant climb and the third and fourth stages cover many of the same climbs as the Ardennes Classics.

The Giro does not get any easier when they get to Italy with organizers introducing the first team time trial in almost twenty years at the Giro. The last week is incredibly difficult with four mountain top finishes, including a new climb this year that finishes with the final 5km over dirt roads as they climb up to the summit of the ski resort at Plan de Corones.

So, who will win?

Liquigas’ Danilo Di Luca had a breakout season last year with multiple stage wins at the Giro and holding the pink leader’s jersey for several days. Di Luca has finally found the type of success that he seemed destined to achieve. His focus this year has been on the Giro and he has maintained a fairly low profile spring. Di Luca is not enough of a pure climber and is not a strong enough time trialist to do much better than third overall. That will be an improvement over last year’s fourth.

Selle Italia’s Jose Rujano was the surprise of last year’s Giro. Nicknamed “the little pirate” due to his similarities to the late Marco Pantani, Rujano surprised many on the most difficult climbs last year. Rujano, however, lost about seven minutes to Ivan Basso in the time trial stages of last year’s Giro and with the team time trial, Selle Italia is sure to lose a lot of time to Team CSC, Discovery Channel and T-Mobile. Moreover, Rujano had a major falling out with team management over his salary and has signed to move to Quick.Step July 1. Even though the climbing stages will favor Rujano, the big teams will mark him closely and not let him go on the attack like he did last year.

Team CSC’s Ivan Basso was on his way to victory last year when a nasty stomach bug wiped out his chances. He toughed it out, stayed in the race and had a couple of stage victories. This year, Basso is trying to win both the Giro and the Tour de France. That has not been done since 1998 when Marco Pantani managed to win both after the Tour was rocked by the Festina drug scandal. It has been a long time since a great rider has managed to win both races against full strength teams. Basso can do it, but with Armstrong having retired, he would have been the favorite to win the Tour. Does Basso try to win both, only to win neither? That is the biggest risk he faces.

Discovery Channel’s Paolo Savoldelli won his second Giro d’Italia last year. He did so with his top lieutenant in the mountains, Tom Danielson, abandoning during the second week and with little team support. “Il Falco” showed his descending prowess to stay close to Simoni and Rujano and managed to preserve his lead after the epic second to last stage last year where he got dropped and just held on over the unpaved final climb of the Giro. This year, Savoldelli has Armstrong-like support with Discovery Channel sending Ekimov, Beltran, Padrnos, Joachim and Rubiera, all of whom helped Armstrong win at least one Tour. Additionally, the team is sending Australian hardman Matthew White who has Grand Tour experience, and young American climbers Tom Danielson and Jason McCartney who showed excellent form in the mountains at the recent Tour of Georgia.

Lampre’s Damiano Cunego is the young Italian phenom who surprised everyone, including his then team leader Gilberto Simoni, when he won the Giro in 2004. Cunego has shown moments of brilliance since and is a strong rider. However, it is questionable if Lampre has the horses to match Team CSC and Discovery Channel. Moreover, Cunego has not had good luck as a team leader in a Grand Tour since his victory in 2004.

Former Giro winner Gilberto Simoni has moved to the Spanish Saunier Duval-Prodir team. He gives the team its first real Grand Tour threat. Simoni finished second last year, unable to keep up the pace on the penultimate stage where he had taken the lead on the road.

So, who is going to win?

Basso and Savoldelli are significantly better time trialists than the other leaders. Basso and Savoldelli both have the two strongest teams at this year’s Giro. With the team time trial and the long flat time trial on Stage 11, it is possible that they both could have put seven plus minutes on their top competitors before the really difficult second half of the Giro starts. The last week is so difficult that they will need strong teams and big gaps after Stage 11. However, I fear that this year’s Giro could be like some of the Tours won by Armstrong where he had such an insurmountable lead by the time the real mountains started that the leading teams will just have to play defense the last half of the race.

Rujano has had too much drama this spring and is too much of a pure climber to be threat this year as he could come out of the Stage 11 time trial with a nearly ten minute deficit to Basso and Savoldelli. I think he is going to be like Iban Mayo in the Tour: after a really promising start, he could flame out the first week this year. Di Luca probably cannot climb well enough to be a threat. Simoni, too, could be facing major time losses by stage 11. Cunego has all the weight of Italy on him as the next Bartoli or Coppi.

So, my final podium:

1st – Basso
2nd – Savoldelli
3rd – Simoni
4th – Cunego
5th – Di Luca
Rujano will not finish the Giro this year.

Chris Horner is Having Fun

Christ Horner moved from Saunier Duval to Davitamon Lotto over the winter. I have not ever been a big Horner fan because he always seemed to be whining. Horner emerged in the mid 1990’s as the next great American rider. He moved to France to ride for Francaise de Jeux and did absolutely nothing for three years. He moved back to the US to race for Mercury Viatel only to have that team blow up when it did not receive a Tour de France wildcard. He spent the next five years dominating the US domestic scene with a variety of large and small teams, always talking about the lack of respect he received and whining about negative race tactics. Last year he had a few good races for Saunier Duval, winning a stage of the Tour de Suisse and nearly winning a stage of the Tour de France. He has had a strong spring including a stage win in the Tour of Romandie. He really seems to be enjoying racing and he has certainly matured. Horner will be riding the Tour de France to protect his team leader Cadel Evans.

Just in Time, My Marriage is Saved

Mrs. Cycliste Moderne was ready to go get DirecTV because she was convinced we could not live without the Tour de France, but I was not. Even though Dish Network had eliminated OLN and cycling is really important, I just could not bring myself to switch platforms. As a result, I had been streaming my coverage from Cycling.tv and reading the written race coverage for this spring’s races. I was not about to have a second satellite dish in my back yard. That would brand me as some type of permanent couch potato.

Then Monday, April 24th, a day that will be celebrated in the Cycliste Moderne home in perpetuity creating a two day Cycliste Moderne holiday (in combination with Portuguese Revolution Day, April 25th), OLN was returned to my satellite service. Late that night I found myself watching hockey, something I have not been able to do without OLN, the home of the NHL. I was thinking that it was kind of cool that ESPN Classic was showing classic Stanley Cup playoffs, when I realized that it was not ESPN Classic, but it was live game in the second overtime.

Of course, Dish Network sent out an e-mail to make us all think that we had received something new and wonderful, not mentioning that it had previously ripped our cycling coverage away from us. My life is now complete. I will be able to watch the Tour de France once again from the comfort of my own bed and not have to hit refresh on my laptop.