It’s Grand Tour Season! Giro d’Italia thread

Bumping this, if you haven’t entered the velogames league you have until 12:45 in the UK  on Saturday 4th May 2024.

If you have entered, check your team in case the team lists have changed – the team presentations happened last night

league code reminder 347313627

I’m in…just refreshed the list and B’Hop is at the top already…what’s going on;)

Looking forward to freeview highlights, so spoilers after 8pm please…Or I’ll try and not read until later:)

Enjoy, could it be different this year more chances for others…if they have the form???

Anyone watching the team presentation?

Can someone message Italy and let them know its 2024 and we don’t objectify women anymore?

FFS 🤬

And they have just backed EF Education with a Gary Glitter song!!!!!!!!!

I’m in. Go Pie!

cvilla – I’ve not got ‘G’ in my team but I still would love him to win. He’s got some strong men to support him. (it’s a fluke if I’m at the top lol ).

First stage today and I’m at a quandary over what will happen
No doubt that Pog could attack 20km out on the Colle Maddalena and win, but I assume he will be trying to conserve energy. Will be attack on the newly introduced unclassified climb of Bivio do San Vito. Or will he just follow, conserving energy and knowing that he can ride away and into pink when he wants to.

Would anyone else risk attacking on the Maddalena to try and pre-empt a Pog attack and take time on him? A risky move but taking risks is the only way to beat Pog.

Whatever happens I hope it is an explosive stage that lives up to the Torino stage of 2022.

Saturday 4 May – The Giro dÍtalia opens with a 140 kilometres long race featuring five climbs. Both start and finish are in Turin, while the finale is a technical downhill from the short and sharp San Vito climb.

Route map

I’d like to embed the image but as a subscriber, the image control seems to allow me only to upload an image on my android tablet, rather than link to an image already on the internet. Perhaps if i had Drac’s iPad i could do it…

https://inrng.com/2024/05/giro-stage-1-torino-preview/

/https://www.cyclingstage.com/giro-2024-route/stage-1-italy-2024/

Tadej looked sooo happy at that presentation… he just couldn’t stop grinning!

Mrs S and I reckon there were just 4 “brolly dollies” that were on some sort of rotation duty.

I’ve entered the league… not sure I fully understand it, but let’s see 🙂

T minus 2 minutes…

When Luke Rowe retires at the end of the season, please, please let’s hope he replaces Sean Kelly on commentary duties, shouldn’t be too DIFFURCULT (see what I did there?).

Race is on. :0)

I think Pog will do the Giro Tour double this year, as I don’t think he has anh serious competition in the Giro (would love G to win though) and can’t see JV being back to full fitness in time for July. Fair play – what a rider and seems a nice fella.

Thanks for the heads up about Dmax my dad sounded a bit gutted earlier thinking he wouldn’t be able to even watch a highlights show. My wife just came into living room as Rob Hatch said ‘yes it’s that time of the year again, 3 weeks of racing’ she looked at me said ‘oh for god’s sake’ and left 😀

Hint, if you have discovery plus you and forget to log out when you log in at your dads it might just carry on working without affecting you ability to log in on your own devices

When Luke Rowe retires at the end of the season, please, please let’s hope he replaces Sean Kelly on commentary duties, shouldn’t be too DIFFURCULT

Sean is largely quiet now – he really only wakes up when Rob Hatch or Carlton Kirby says his name, comes in and says “Yes, well, certaint-ly…. [brief blather]” then shuts up again until the next time he’s woken up.

Robbie McEwan is good. And if Jens is on the moto, he’s an absolute legend.

Here we go, UAE pick it up at the front on the Colle Maddalena! Drilling it.

Some big names losing contact already.

Robbie McEwan is good. And if Jens is on the moto, he’s an absolute legend.

Indeed.

Really bizarre how many big names out of the back…..peloton is still a reasonable size. Bardet looks like he’s towing an anchor!

OK not watching the race so need to skip this thread and fb from now so I can see highlights later without knowing the result

That was a bit wild.

Yep – explosive first day out, a lot of people who have lost time but also some really encouraging performances. G did well and Alaphilippe was always in and around the front of the peloton too.

And much as I admire and respect Pogacar for his achievements, I’m glad he either didn’t or wasn’t able to blow the thing to bits and put minutes into everyone.

Good first day. Enjoyed that. Two of my team in top 10.

Say what you liek about Pog, the guy loves a bit of bike racing.

Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) won the opening stage of the 2024 Giro d’Italia by holding off race favourite Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Maximilian Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) in a three-rider sprint in Turin. The trio rode together the flat final kilometre after the climb of San Vito, Narváez sprinting for the victory between his companions.

A chase group that included Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), finished 10 seconds behind. Narváez donned the first maglia rosa of the Grand Tour, with three seconds over Schachmann and six seconds over Pogačar. The Slovenian champion took four bonus seconds for his third place and so has already gained 14 seconds on his main rivals.

Today: The first summit finish of the race. It’s not a question of whether Tadej will attack, it’s a question of when and how. Will ineos sit back and let the break go, forcing UAE to chase so tadej can get the win? Will tadej be content to let someone else win the stage and just more time on his rivals and possibly take the maglia rosa?

Giro Stage 2 Preview

https://www.cyclingstage.com/giro-2024-route/

https://cdn.cyclingstage.com/images/giro-italy/2024/stage-2-route.jpg?02

https://cdn.cyclingstage.com/images/giro-italy/2024/stage-2-profile.jpg?02

Robert Gesink is the first DNS, he injured his hand in that crash yesterday and will not start

https://x.com/ammattipyoraily/status/1787032895682482499?s=46&t=yRQNMEdCGRiV6tO7y1r0Mw

There’s some ominous looking sky in the distance over the mountains, some really dark clouds.

5 Italians up the road and a flattish 100km before the climbing starts with a summit finish. In fact, climbing just about to kick off!

Is it just me or are some of the images distorted? From the motorbike shots behind they look like a bunch of children.

Don’t know if something weird is going on with my TV.

Wow, sudden moment of drama – front wheel puncture for Pogacar, washout and down. Instantly up and onto a new bike.

Commentators are reliving the famous moment (25 years ago!) when Pantani had a mechanical at the bottom of this same climb and absolutely blitzed it to pass the whole peloton, wondering if the same might apply to Pogacar…

I think that’s the first puncture Pog has ever had. In his whole life probably.

Here we go! 💥

Rob Hatch: Narr vay-ezzz

Sean Kelly: Nwaourovueraerss

Meanwhile, a couple of borders away, the Vuelta Feminina wrapped up today with Demi Vollering (SD Worx) taking the stage win and the overall GC (as well as the Climbing classification). SD Worx won the team classification too. Marianne Vos won the Points jersey.

Lizzie Deignan had a largely anonymous race (although to be fair, she is using it as recovery from her crash and broken arm at the Tour of Flanders so that comment is in no way meant as disrespectful – quite the opposite) but was highest placed British rider, 58th overall.

Sorry for the thread drift, back to the Giro!

Sprinty stage today although with a few complications, little rises close to the line and so on.

Giro Stage 3 Preview

Bit of a discussion this morning on The Breakaway about how open it is, how many possible winners there are on a stage like this. Not sure it’s going to be the most riveting of stages to watch throughout but the last 30km should be good as it all comes back together and the sprinters teams start to pull back the breakaway and get the leadout trains going.

Rolling rest day today. Tune in in a few hours time… pog’s pink colnago is a hilight so far. I guess they had an extra day to build it 🤣

After getting discovery plus to watch I now see that DMAX on Freeview is showing highlights on an evening.

pog’s pink colnago is a hilight so far. I guess they had an extra day to build it 🤣

It’s actually quite smart, that bike. They must have had that there and ready to go along with the helmet. I reckon there must be some pink shoes somewhere for further down the line. Not a fan of the shorts though.

Didn’t even realise it had started. Checked my random team to see i am 2nd in the league. Can’t see that lasting. Guess i need to tune in to Eurospprt tonight

Rolling rest day today.

I turned on to hear Jens being interviewed about service station sandwiches.

Typically I’ve lost a good rider in Eddie Dunbar from my Velogames team. Sad for him as He’s been riding really well lately. Davide Ballerini seems to be eating an amaretti biscuit, yum.