Giro 2018 "contains spoilers"

[smutchin]

Lopez overcooked a corner 5km from the finish and ended up in a field. He's being dragged back to the group by a couple of teammates but he's going to lose time.

 

[smutchin]

Pace is insane. Peloton is falling to bits in the final kms. Froome nowhere near the front.

 

[smutchin]

Visconti powered away from the bunch in the final 300m but took Battaglin with him, and Battaglin eased past him for the win. Another highly entertaining stage finish.

 

[smutchin]

Yates in the mix again, finishing 5th. Another fantastic ride by him.

 

[brommers]

Simon Yates looks really up for this one.

 

[gavroche]

If, like me, you don't have Sky or EuroSport to watch the Giro, you can see the highlights on Quest, channel 37 , at 7pm, for an hour.

 

[roadrash]

I would love to see yates batter them all up etna tomorrow and monte zoncolan on stage 14 then go on to win overall

 

[mjr]

If, like me, you don't have Sky or EuroSport to watch the Giro, you can see the highlights on Quest, channel 37 , at 7pm, for an hour.

See 20 April's post.

 

[MichaelW2]

Did anyone else notice the huge and weird hillside sculpture just before the big pile up?

 

[Bollo]

Pace is insane. Peloton is falling to bits in the final kms. Froome nowhere near the front.

That finish (and the day before) got me thinking about how Froome seems to have lost his mojo on short sharp climbs and doesn't have a big enough kick to mark attacks or do something himself.

I can't see him repeating anything like his heff-you acceleration away from Wiggins in that 2012 stage, but also the La Planche des Belles Filles in the same tour where he was able to pull away from the group at the finish.

 

[mjr]

Did anyone else notice the huge and weird hillside sculpture just before the big pile up?

Yes. I think on-screen captions said it was Ruderi di Gibellina, commemorating the 1968 Belice earthquake - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibellina

 

[roadrash]

Did anyone else notice the huge and weird hillside sculpture just before the big pile up?

As @mjr says it was done to commemerate the earthquake, the ruins have been filled with concrete

 

[smutchin]

Just put the ES coverage on to see what looked very much like Nibali off the front of the peloton. Eh? WTF? Am I watching a repeat or something?

Turns out it's not a repeat and it really was Nibali after all - Antonio Nibali! He does look a lot like his big bro, even his riding style is similar.

No break has formed yet. One rider did escape on his own for a few kms - Ballerini - but he's being brought back now. And he's probably rather relieved about that.

 

[roadrash]

you mean you missed carlton nob ed kirbys joke about him ballet dancing all the way up etna

 

[smutchin]

you mean you missed carlton nob ed kirbys joke about him ballet dancing all the way up etna

I've got it playing on my laptop, perched on the corner of my desk, with the sound off, while pretending to do some work on my desktop. Makes it hard to work out what's going on at times but possibly no more so than trying to understand Kirby's witterings.