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.