giro at coppi times

[ada@prorider.or]

we seen yet a fight at giro at coppi time's
best i ever seen

di luca the best of the pack
i get the shivers

:banana:
yersey for falco di bergomasco
thanks to lotto !!!!

e multo caldo

[e-RICHIE]

poor paolo...
would disco leave lance-issimo this exposed?

[Climb01742]

in essence, i think the pro tour has left paolo so exposed. super-domestiques are hard to find. ironically, there are enough "leaders" around to let top teams compete on all pro tour events, but not enough super-domestiques. postal...er, sorry, disco is saving its best super-domestiques for lance and the tour. doing giro/tour double is, i'd imagine, just as hard for super-domestiques as for leaders. even csc doesn't have its best helpers aiding basso. at least that's my take from the cheap seats. :D

[ada@prorider.or]

in essence, i think the pro tour has left paolo so exposed. super-domestiques are hard to find. ironically, there are enough "leaders" around to let top teams compete on all pro tour events, but not enough super-domestiques. postal...er, sorry, disco is saving its best super-domestiques for lance and the tour. doing giro/tour double is, i'd imagine, just as hard for super-domestiques as for leaders. even csc doesn't have its best helpers aiding basso. at least that's my take from the cheap seats. :D


well its not how much money there is to be earned
it here about cycling
if you see the riders make the race

and di luca made a great race out of it
nobody can deny that
and after the race he just talk to evryone
like normal people do that what people like
he did not had a great team di luca but did a great race
its about passion i think

winning the tour does not make you a great riders
of course its a great achivement
but winning world cups here also counts and the way people behave

[Andreu]

Yeah! what Sr. Ada@prorider.org said. :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer:

[Ziggurat]

I'm sure glad OLN is daily Giro coverage, and not some Rodeo/Bass Fishin' channel. :rolleyes:

[jeffg]

he attacked with no thought but winning and put everything on the line. Seeing him dance up the Finestre was an inspiration. DiLuca rode an amazing race, but Simoni has really been a courageous challenger and one heck of a climber. A TT is pretty boring, but an attack over a climb such as the Finestre is a thing of beauty (and a joy forever). Bravissiomo Gibo !!! :banana:

[oracle]

"he attacked with no thought but winning and put everything on the line"

somehow, jeff, i think winning was rather on his mind. but i agree with everything else about your post; nicely put.

oracle

p.s. even though i'm not so very fond of simoni, it was somewhat sad seeing him "defenestrated" after such a valiant effort, and after promising overall victory.

[97CSI]

Either Salvodelli is the most amazing rider in the Giro or he has a pretty decent team with him. While I wish to take nothing away from him, he obviously has a very good team with him. No one will win any major stage race any other way. Discovery is far and away the strongest team in cycling for stage races. Is too bad that they chose only to go after the big fish and not the classics. Hincapie, Ekimov, even LA and company are about the equal of the Bettini, Di Luca, etc. But, unfortunately for those of us who like to see these folks go after the classics big time, Discovery (read that as LA) are focused on TdF. And too bad that LA is not interested in the classics. And happily for those who are. If he decided to train and go after them I am sure he would win his share.

[jerk]

nope....
salvodelli pretty much did it alone...unless you guys know some way a few guys 6 minutes behind can back-lead the maglia rosa.....

di luca is the man. great guy, deserves everything and it's great to see things are clicking.

simoni is a punk but the jerk thinks he's the bestest.

salvodelli is the tops.

the jerk never came anywhere close to racing in a stage race of the caliber of the giro....(de panne doesn't count despite what the jerk's pals say.) but it is his favorite race of the big three. (better food, better fans, better place.)

jerk

[jcmuellner]

After watching today, I'd have to agree that it when it's gotten the toughest Savoldelli was doing it alone. An impressive stage for all those in the first few groups...Di Luca was quite the bird for a time and I was happy to see Rujano take the honors after such a day.

I took special pleasure in seeing the unpaved sections. Many more stage races should incorporate it to keep things honest IMHO.

[Climb01742]

i had no idea simoni is as small as he is: 127 lbs. savoldelli is 160. physics, eh? gavity helps one climbing. gravity helps the other descending.

[oracle]

it's still just watts/mass. remember how tough indurain could hang in the mountains, occasionally humbling the pure climbers?

oracle

[jeffg]

"he attacked with no thought but winning and put everything on the line"

somehow, jeff, i think winning was rather on his mind. but i agree with everything else about your post; nicely put.



Oracle

What I meant (or thought I said) was that Simoni attacked with nothing but winning the race on his mind, i.e. he did not care if he blew and did not make the podium. He did not ride defensively to maintain second and perhaps make a difference on the final climb, which would hardly have been possible. He attacked from the base of the Finestre and let it all hang out. As the jerk notes, he is a punk, but the punk is right that no one has been willing to try something like that against Lance. Basso rode for second last year, end of story. Perhaps this year Ullrich, Basso, etc. will be bolder. Unfortunately, it seems the TdF organizers have made a fairly lackluster course with nothing like the Finestre in it so that it will be very hard to isolate Lance. Since it will be more difficult for anyone to pull away, the thought seems to be the race will stay close longer. Boooring!

[Climb01742]

it's still just watts/mass. remember how tough indurain could hang in the mountains, occasionally humbling the pure climbers?

oracle

you're right. big mig was amazing. but he was also a genetic freak, i think. not for nothing was he called "the extraterrestial". his engine was something that comes along once a generation. to power up mountains as he did, at his size, was amazing. it translated, in TTs, to putting 4 minutes into people. jan is in the big mig mold, but not it seems, quite at mig's level.

[97CSI]

Go Lance! :banana:

[97CSI]

jan is in the big mig mold, but not it seems, quite at mig's level.It is not just the engine. It is the mind driving that engine. The 5-time winners not only had/have the engine, they had the mind to drive it beyond what the competition could endure. Folks didn't like the signal LA gave Landis at the TofG. But, ***. Its part of his competitive make-up and between those who race at that level. Who knows? It may actually have meaning for those two once they are chasing each other around at the TdF.

[oracle]

— But, after all, why must we proclaim so loudly and with such intensity what we are, what we want, and what we do not want? Let us look at this more calmly and wisely; from a higher and more distant point of view. Let us proclaim it, as if among ourselves, in so low a tone that all the world fails to hear it and us! Above all, however, let us say it slowly ... This preface comes late, but not too late: what, after all, do five or six years matter? Such a book, and such a problem, are in no hurry; besides, we are friends of the lento, I and my book. It is not for nothing that one has been a philologist, perhaps one is a philologist still, that is to say, a teacher of slow reading:—in the end one also writes slowly. Nowadays it is not only my habit, it is also to my taste—a malicious taste, perhaps?—no longer to write anything which does not reduce to despair every sort of man who is “in a hurry.” For philology is that venerable art which demands of its votaries one thing above all: to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow—it is a goldsmith’s art and connoisseurship of the word which has nothing but delicate, cautious work to do and achieves nothing if it does not achieve it lento. But for precisely this reason it is more necessary than ever today, by precisely this means does it entice and enchant us the most, in the midst of an age of “work,” that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to “get everything done” at once, including every old or new book:—this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read well, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers ... My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and philologists: learn to read me well!

fn,
in the autumn of 1886.


)))))))))(((((((((


jeffg,

mea culpa. i should have read and written more slowly..

oracle

[SMUGator]

I'd like to see Basso continue to recover. When Riis got out of the team car at the top of the Selvia climb, I thought one hand was going to be the jacket and the other arm was going around the shoulder to guide him to the team car. The OLN boys beat this to death, but I'll echo props for gutting it out.