Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

The Team Time Trial produced some surprising and unsurprising results. Lampre and Saunier Duval lost some time, but not as much as originally thought. The TTT was shortened by 3 km, maybe to limit the time losses to the teams of Simoni and Cunego. Cunego’s team of mostly climbers actually beat the Saunier Duval team that looked very good and contains two national TT champs in their stable. Lampre did not look very polished in the TTT as their lack of practice showed. But, they did a good job and limited their losses well.

CSC finally caught a break in a TTT. After some very bad luck last year in the Tour, Bjarne Riis’ boys were able to take the win despite a major blunder by T-Mobile. T-Mobile provided a mild surprise today as they almost won the TTT stage. The team that is supporting Serhiy Honchar (or Sergei Gonchar or Whatever way you want to spell his name today) seemed to be using the Giro more for Jan Ullrich’s training benefit than to actually get results. They captured the Maglia Rosa and will get some extra work defending the jersey.

It is simply amazing that in this day of radio communication that the team was not alerted of Mattaius Kesslers lagging behind in the final meters. At least someone could have held back or taken responsibility for making sure that five riders crossed the line together. It is probably not a surprise seeing riders perform well after leaving T-Mobile, latest example is Stefan Schumacher who is starting to make a name for himself. Little details like making sure five riders cross the line in a TTT so the fastest time counts make a big difference as T-Mobile lost out on a stage win. They can take solice in the fact that they have the Maglia Rosa and several T-Mobilers in the top 10.

Jan Ullrich looked good in the TTT. There were no hills, just a dead flat course, but each day Der Kaiser is getting fitter and fitter. The Giro may prove to be a good options for Tour prep for Ullric since he only had his best form after a three week stage race.

Ivan Basso and the CSC squad are sitting in a very good spot at the moment. They won the TTT and have a few riders in striking distance of the Maglia Rosa. Ivan Basso is the best placed overall GC contender and he leap frogged Paolo Savoldelli.
This is a very good spot to be in since the team does not have the pressure to defend the lead, and can have another team to help with the pacing.

Discovery Channel had a dissapointing TTT. Paolo Savoldelli said that he was happy with the effort, but behind the scenes the team must be dissappointed. They dominated this discipline in the past and have some very good TTers in the team. They only beat out Liquigas by three seconds on the stage.

This year, the Giro is long and the time differences here won’t matter much later on. So while CSC can celebrate their success most of the contenders are still where they expected to be at this point in the race. At least CSC took a TTT stage win after last year’s dramtic loss in the Tour.

The Team Time Trial is back after a 17 year absence. The last time the Giro had a Team Time Trail Andy Hampsten was defending his Giro win from 1988 and the 7 Eleven team had an unfortunate mishap on the street of Catania, Sicily as a cat ran into the path of the 7Elven train. Don’t let a black cat cross your path especially when you are cranking along at close to 40 mph in a Team Time Trial. This year the Giro organizer brought back the TTT, and my guess is that it was done in an effort to entice Ivan Basso and Team CSC to compete in the Giro. After last year’s dramatic and tragic loss in the TTT of the Tour, the Giro orgs must have thought that Team CSC would want redemption in the Giro’s 38km Team Time Trail. David Zabriske is not here, but plenty of strong CSC motors such as Bobby Julich and Jens Voight are present.

The 38km Team Time Trial is pancake flat on wide and smooth roads. This could provide teams such as CSC and Discovery to blast teams such as Saunier Duval Lampre. Gilberto Simoni already said that he expects to lose 2 minutes. His Saunier Duval team features Italian TT champ Marco Pinotti.

T-Mobile may be a surprise performer as they will try to catapult Serhiy Honchar into the Maglia Rosa. Discovery is the team to beat since thy own this discipline and will have Lance Armstrong riding in the team car for extra motivation. Savoldelli is TT well as is Tom Danielson giving their top contenders a decent shot at staying near the top of the GC before the serious mountains arrive. The emotiaonal choice for the TTT has to be CSC, as they have the heavy favorite in Basso.

The time differences in this stage may be tough for fans of Simoni and Cunego to swallow, but this Giro has a brutal set of mountains to climb that will make any of the time differences seen on this stage look thinner than Michael Rasmussen.

Last night I was able to watch the Giro coverage and the follow up show called Processo della Tappa which is the talk show after the stage. The show features journalist, retired cyclist, Giro riders and anyone else. Plus, a lovely lady thrown in here and there, after all it is Italian television. Here are some snippets from the Processo della Tappa.

Gianni Savio on Jose Rujano: Basically he is thin and looks like he might be in form. Next week they will know if he is able to stay with the leaders on the climbs. Rujano only raced 7 times before the Giro. He is at his usual climbing weight, but since he does not have many racing miles it is difficult to tell where he will be later in the race.

Gianni Savio expects CSC to win the TTT.

Gilberto Simoni expects to lose about two minutes to the top teams in the TTT on thursday.

Alberto Loddo placed third on tuesday’s stage. Last year he was out of cycling and working as a carpenter. Gianni Savio picked him up for Selle Italia and Loddo has been winning since.

Lance Armstrong was interviewed as he arrived at the airport in Belgium. he will follow team Discovery Channel to Italy. He does not think Ullrich is a favorite for the Tour de France any longer. His new pick is Basso. He also picks Basso to be the main favorite for the Giro saying that all the pressure is on the CSC team leader.

AleJet is wearing a huge cast on his left leg. He will be operated today in Pisa. He does not expect to be back for the Tour. Petacchi is very close to retired cyclist Michele Bartoli who will give him some advice on rehabbing a knee. Bartoli almost had his leg shorn off a few years ago due to a Spinergy Rev X related accident.

Robbie McEwen can speak Italian, although it is a bit broken, he gave it a good shot. Good work Robbie.

A fractured knee was the result of a pileup 50km from the finish today. This is AleJet’s worst injury of his career as his leg will be put in plaster. No word yet on recovery time, but this would put some serious doubt into AleJet’s Tour ambitions.

Paolo Savoldelli kept his Maglia Rosa in an Armstrong like stage 1 performance. Il Falco scorched the field by 11 seconds over a 6.5 km circuit which is a large margin. Paolo Looks to be defending his Giro win from last year, but the course, especially the last week of the Giro does not suit his skill. Il Falco is more of an all round rider, not a pure climber like Rujano, Simoni and others.

At the start of the Giro Saunier Duval’s Pietro Algieri and Gilberto Simoni both started pointing to Tom Danielson as a dangerous rider. He is playing support to Paolo Savoldelli, but there isn’t much word on his official role on the team. When Danielson is mentioned, it is not so much as a supporter, but someone who will race his own race. This makes complete sense since the last week of the Giro is well suited to the Disco Climber.

Interestingly Giro commentator David Cassani is playing down Danielson’s chances saying that he is a rider who performs well in the US but not so wel in Europe. They also said that he started road cycling late in his career and cannot be considered a young rider any longer. Cassani might be forgetting his 8th place in the Vuelta. It is not a win, but it is a decent enough result.

Last Sunday was the Binghamton Circuit Race in Binghamton NY. The weather was great, and the course was fun. A 1.6 mile loop with a slight enough hill to make the legs hurt each lap. My race was going quite well for 11 of the 15 total laps. Then I guess I burned too many matches as I just could not hold onto the pace of the group. I bagged it and took the video of the finish of the Cat 4/5 race and a funny (while being under the influence of lactic acid) interview with Matt Howey.

Hard to believe that the Giro is starting this weekend. The most fun to watch of the Grand Tours will have many options for American viewers.

1) OLN TV and Cycling .tv combined forces to offer live daily coverage. http://olntv.com/cyclysm/

2) Eurosport.com is promising to offer some sort of daily coverage. If they provide video then that is a free option vs. getting the Cycling.tv deal. http://www.eurosport.com/cycling/giro-d-italia/2006/

3) You can try and catch the RAI Sport video and audio from RAI Sport. Check out http://www.beelinetv.com/ for the links.

4) Catch live streaming from the Gazzetta dello sport site. http://www.gazzetta.it/
Visit the site just as the stage is underway and you will see a live streaming option.

5) If you understand Italian you should call your local cable or satellite tv provider and get RAI International.
http://www.international.rai.it/

RAI International provides amazing coverage of the Giro. Not only do they show the stage live, but you get the commentary of David Cassani and Aurio Bulbarelli who are light years ahead of Phil and Paul. Sorry, Phil and Paul, you do a great job, but these guys are on another level.

After the stage is finished the RAI International coverage continues for around 90 minutes with “Il Processo della Tappa” which is a studio show that discusses the day’s stage. They bring in all of the important retired Italian riders and talk with the animators of the days stage. This show makes the subscription worth it. Make sure you have a DVR or TiVo or your VCR ready to tape.

Jose Rujano nearly stole the Giro last year in the epic stage to Sestriere which tackled some brutal climbs. I still remember seeing the look of exhaustion on Gilberto Simoni’s face as he could simply no hold on the the tiny climbers wheel on the “big ring” climb to Sestrierre. Rujano was not far off from displacing Paolo Salvodelli for the Maglia Rosa, but ended the day 45 seconds back in third place.
With an epic performance in one of the toughest Giro stages, one could only imagine how well Rujano would perform in the Giro 2006 which is loaded with climbs in the final week.

Rujano signed a contract for 2006 with super team Quick-Step, but with a clause that allowed him to stay at the smaller Selle Italia team through the Giro. As a result of being able to keep the young climber on board for one more Giro, Gianni Savio stocked up his team with reinforcements. Italian verterans Wladimir Belli, Sergio Barbero, Alessandro Bertolini and Gabriele Missaglia had the experience to help guide Rujano through the tough first few weeks and provide enough support for the tiny Venezualian in the mountains. So what more could Rujano ask for?

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The latest start list from the Giro D’Italia
Salvodelli gets the number 1, while Jan Ullrich gets the last number 219.

Discovery Channel: 1. Savoldelli (Ita), 2. Danielson (Usa), 3. Beltran (Spa), 4. Ekimov (Rus), 5. Joachim (Lus), 6. McCartney (Usa), 7. Padrnos (R. Ceca), 8. Rubiera (Spa), 9. White (Aus).

Ag2r Prevoyance: 11. Calzati (Fra), 12. Chaurreau (Spa), 13. Deignan (Irl), 14. Dion (Fra), 15. Dupont (Fra), 16. Gadret (Fra), 17. Krivstov (Ucr), 18. Naibo (Fra), 19. Vaitkus (Lit)

Bouygues Telecom: 21. Bernaudeu (Fra), 22. Chavanel (Fra), 23. Clement (Ola), 24. Drancourt (Bel), 25. Flickinger (Fra), 26. Gene (Fra), 27. Labbe (Fra), 28. Le Boulanger (Fra), 29. Lefevre (Fra)

Caisse d’Epargne-Ill. Balears: 31. Carrasco (Spa), 32. Efimkin (Rus), 33. Erviti (Spa), 34. Fertonani (Ita), 35. Gutierrez (Spa), 36. Horrach (Spa), 37. Cegarra (Spa), 38. Pradera (Spa), 39. Perez (Spa)

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Damiano Cungeo can recall the glory days of 2004 when he won the Giro del Trentino and the GP Larciano on his way to a surprise victory in the Giro D’Italia. He became the sixth youngest winner of the Giro at 22 years, 8 months and 11 days.

This year in fact Cunego feels better than 2004 since he is coming into the Giro with six win under his belt compared to 2004 when he had five victories. Compared to 2005 when he only had four wins all season. Plus, he placed third in Liege-Bastonge-Liege.

“Damiano is ready” says Direttore Sportivo Giuseppe Martinelli. At the Giro we have a squad that is built around Damiano that is very strong in the climbs where they can actual help.

The favorite has to be Ivan Basso who can gain many minutes in the Time Trials. But there are many climbs in the Giro this year, so we must attack.

Gazzetta dello sport