Mt. Etna on deck tomorrow. We could end up with the Giro Champion sorted out on day 4 of this Grand Tour (or not)! What do you guys think Nibali can do on this stage? It's apparently literally his neighbourhood climb in Sicily

El Pistolero on the 2011 stage (stage win and Giro win revoked due to tainted beef):

Quintana... isn't he the best pure climber out of the GCs? I'm not following the Giro closely, but I did see the video of NQ flying off Tirreno Adriatico leaving everyone behind and I think he will want to have a lot of buffer before the TTs come. So maybe 5K or 3K before the finish he'll launch his usual attack and get some time???

It's certainly going to be interesting having a proper mountain stage this early, that's for sure.

The early climb is no sleepwalk either, ~33(!) km @ 4.5% average; I doubt anyone will try to force anything that early on given what's to come, but it'll certainly wake everyone up after the rest day.

I don't think I've even seen Quintana yet this Giro, but it's hard to look past him for the stage. I'd love to see Geraint Thomas up there with him. Can't stand Nibali, so I hope he loses a bunch of time and everyone can stop talking about him as though he's a genuine GC contender...

For sure he is the best climber and he has been on mega form and his team almost never gets 'ambushed'. So really to me, this stage is about how much of a gap he can build. There is no way Movistar is going to let any attacks with any GC hopefuls get away.

What about that skinny dude Zakarin from Katsusha?

Or it could be all neutral at this point in the race and a ProTour team secondary climber or a Pro Conti climber gets a crack at it. ...someone random, but with chops like Sivtsov, Woods, or Kiserlovski.

Well, we sure would be happy if Woods did something around here, since he is from our town and he "backed" into cycling when his running career came to a momentary halt as a result of injuries and he hit the bike for rehab and realized he could ride the pants off of pretty well all the local roadie studs with running shoes on and rat traps and baggy runner shorts.

Looks pretty exposed. If there is a headwind, nobody may want to go off alone.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Since everyone wants to put time on their rivals, but no one wants the jersey so soon my bet is that they let the breakaway take this one and fight this one out 3 minutes down the mountain.

Quintana's really the only one who'd want to put the hammer down so soon given the TT's coming up. But given his Giro/Tour double ambitions, he's likely peaking for the 3rd week. Nibali might want to parade the jersey in his hometown the next day, but I can't see him beating Quintana uphill unless he's peaking early and hoping to hold on.

Giro is by far more entertaining than the Tour...but I like hills so I guess that helps. I'll play it safe and pick the home field advantage held by Nibali. I think Nibali, Quintana, Thomas and a few others will be there at the end. Hope Tejay has a good first day in the mountains so he can keep his confidence up. Although his history after rest days ain't very good (although those rest days have usually come later in the race). I know what I'll be doing when I get home from work tomorrow.

I would like to see Nibali put up a solid fight and take Etna and the Maglia Rosa while the Giro is on his "home island" of Sicily. That mental carrot alone has got to be worth losing 5 kilos of mass on the climb to Etna (I suppose that would equate to around a 30W boost, so maybe not....but it has to be worth something)!

Someone with GC hopes will lose a bunch of time, but most of the GC contenders will finish more or less together. A breakaway rider will win the stage. Could be one of a dozen riders, but I'll go with Formolo. J

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Sucks that I no longer have a US TV channel with Giro coverage (though my wife is happier with the DVD less full)
Isn't there like 70k of TT coming up?
I would think that would be pretty selective.

yes, there is a ton of TTing coming up. This is favourable for a guy like Dumoulin. I hope he can stay close today. But keep in mind on May 23rd, we have the stage with the double climb of Stelvio but with a downhill finish into Bormio. Let's see what shakes out.

With 7.5K to go Rolland attacked and is 30 second up on the Peloton. The breakaway (Polanc) looks doomed. Sounds like Nibali and Quintana are just twiddling their thumbs in the Peloton. Aparently Zakarin crashed today and Roland Denis crashed out

Ouch, the graphic for the L'Equipe stream just identified Cannondale as a Pro Continental team.

How did that happen. Can you send the link to the L'Equipe stream. I am on the text updates from cyclingnews.com....3.1K to go, all the favourites together. That seems like a bit of a snoozer!

The skinny dude crashed earlier today and "almost" got it done....but no cigar!

Gotta love this mountain...slowman, when is the ST Sicily training camp?

well, funny. i'm going to put up a thread about this, or something related to it.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Jimmy Riccitello puts on his Alpe d'Huez based camp every year during the 3rd week of the Tour....but I think we need a Sicily camp! Or are you having a slowman ranch camp?

trail wrote:

Ouch, the graphic for the L'Equipe stream just identified Cannondale as a Pro Continental team.

Trail, thanks for the link:

http://www.streaming-hub.com/lequipe-21-live/


For us French speakers, this is great coverage and I can get it in Canada! Does this link stay the same for every stage?

Rohan Dennis is out, mid stage. Damn.

I wonder if he will do the ToC now