Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

Ivan Basso may have sparked the latest trend in cycling of racing both the Giro and Tour de France. Basso was unable to ride the double last year due to some doping investigation, but with the Giro win in his pocket he was able to get some trophies from the adoring Italian press by [...]

Paolo Savoldelli is the latest signing of the Astana team joining Mattaes Kessler and Andreas Kloden. The Swiss based Kazak team is building up its roster to provide a totally fresh look. The roster they are building looks like an older version of T-Mobile as Savoldelli was a T-Mobile man just prior to joining Discovery [...]

(pic from Yahoo sports)
It took a Time Trial to show that the Discovery Channel team has a very weak belly without their former leader Lance Armstrong. It is natural when you put in such a successful system where everyone is a role player. They made it very successful for seven straight years, but unfortunatley the [...]

Now that Operation Puerto has completely up-ended anyone’s Tour de France predictions, it is time to hastily draw up a new set of favorites for the upcoming Tour. The dust has yet to settle on the fiasco caused by Operation Puerto, but we must move on and pick favorites.
It looks very good for an [...]

(pic from eurosport.com)
The Giro started this weekend and may have ended this weekend too. Ivan Basso put down a Lance Armstrong/Miguel Indurain type of performance on the first real mountin top finish of the Giro. As Carlos Sastre set a tempo reminiscent of Discovery Channel/Postal leadout of the past seven years, Basso simply clicked [...]

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 [...]

Only one week to go until the calendar turns to 2006 and all self respecting cycling sites do one thing. They have to proclaim a cyclist of the year. Looking at L’Equipe, they point to Danilo DiLuca, obvious choice since he won two classics and followed up with a fourth place in the Giro. He [...]

At a recent get-together to honor Ivan Basso, Yaroslav Popovych and Paolo Salvodelli, the issue of riding the Giro was discussed. In seems that the “will he or won’t he” question is not yet put to bed on whether Ivan Basso will ride the Giro.
Upon looking at the course which seems more tailor made for [...]