dstrong 

I'm out of triple digits!

diphthong

as it stands, no one's got a perfect team. dumou was on so many teams. gaviria was on a few. the teams that have lopez or nibbles or roglic all have holes as do those that took
two sprinters (for obvious second half reasons). this ain't over. not by a long shot. the next shoe to drop will likely be which sprinters decide to carry on past stage 11.
whomever carries the points jersey into the mountains will be pressed to ride through them to defend it till race's end. it's between ackermann and demare currently. if ewan,
viviani and other fast boys bounce, it'll cap nearly everyone's sprinters points.

diphthong

stage twelve is when the bleep starts to hit the fan. in the last 40 kms: big climb. big descent. a flattish 20+ kms to a a lil whoop-de-doo finish.
thinking the winner will be able to climb well, descend well, tt well and have a decent finishing kick. your thoughts?

slcbob

I'll go with Viviani today. Er, I mean Demare. Er, maybe Ewan. No, not Ewan. Demare or Viviani. Let's go with Viviani.

For stage 10, I'm going to go out on a limb and pick the Pocket Rocket narrowly over Demare, with a brave showing from Ackerman in 3rd and Viviani just off the podium.

For stage 12, I can think of no other reason that the fates would cause me to fat finger Brambilla onto my team, other than that Mollema is still going to be licking his wounds from 10 and TFS gives Gianluca the go ahead to crush the competition. Alternately, God hates me so de Gendt, Majka, and Gallopin get into the break, ride away from it, and because God has a sense of humor, Majka (the guy I meant to pick) wins it.

Basically, either way, stage 12 is all about me. And God.

slcbob

Did you know you can edit posts? Just in case you ever make a bad prediction and have no compunction about tumbling off the moral high ground.

diphthong

bad predictions are the bedrock of fantasy cycling and associated threads. hence, my dissatisfaction with battaglin this year. slayed it last year. grrr.

diphthong

stage twelve...the names that jumped out at me were yates, carapaz and nibbles. going with nibbles.

diphthong

the mountains have arrived. time to be or not to be as the trash-talking is officially on. expecting a few riders to respond poorly to the first, real mountain challenge.
should clear out some of the fluff on gc. is amador really that close to the top?! we'll see. of course, slcbob has amador on his team. expecting a big shakeup within the top 40 after thursday's stage.
oh...and ewan bounced. it's really just viviani, ackermann, demare to contend for 600 or so remaining sprint points, points jersey and stage(s). expecting one of the three to abandon.

slcbob

Brambilla was only 2 sec away from making me positively unbearable for the rest of the Giro. And that's saying a lot!

It seems God loves us all.

I only saw the quick results. I'll watch the stage tonight and then, armed with my keen analysis, I'll lay out how the rest of the race will go down. Ha ha ha.

diphthong

was rooting for brambilla...glad to see polanc in pink. how long can he hold it?

happy to see some attacks on the big climb. may we have many many more enroute to stage 21.

oh...and viviani packed up his things and left as well.

diphthong

horrible stage 13 prediction...soul-crusher of a stage...a little 45 km climb to finish the day off after two other hard climbs.
more gc mayhem will ensue. thinking one of the unattached boys will have a go such as sosa, sivakov or hart from ineos,
vuillermoz or oomen. yates could have a big go to hunting for a stage win enroute to assessing whether he should continue to
play the giro gc game-depending on his success or lack thereof. i think it's a stage or two early for that tho. i'll take oomen.

slcbob

On the Velogames league standings, I feel I'm between a rock and a hard place. There's a storm in front of me moving backwards at a notable pace, and some knucklehead on a mountain bike coming right up my tail. I may have to go all Talansky/Horner and go over the guardrail.

diphthong

there are some teams poised to make a substantial move up the standings. otoh, slow (s)pokes definitely were today, garnering a whopping 62 points.
one more day like that and i'll be crying in my muesli.

slcbob

I find it difficult to say something original and insightful after reading David Hunter's previews and prognostications that are regularly linked to from the steephill.tv Giro page.

Hunter's predicted run from Landa sounds good, and now that me and God and Gianluca are buds again, I'll say Amador joins Landa in Movistar double tap and grabs me some points.

Other than that, ooga booga doesn't sound completely insane with his SWAG of a young gun stage hunter making it big. Ineos has got to see some ROI on this cycling thing after all, right?

That's my original derivative nit-picking of not-original-by-me picks. So it has been said. So let it be done.

2cam16

That would be me coming from behind. lol

Gallo

Stage 13 the gloves will come off. If you do not have legs you will be exposed

Roglic was cagey today. Rode well and he will get no help but it's the Giro and domestiques are burned up quick in stages like this. Tomorrow should test his limits

Yates I think needs to launch. We will find out if he has something tomorrow

I like Nibali tomorrow to take a chunk from Primo.

The stage?

Landa will launch we will see how much he has. Likewise Lopez. Both will look to grab more. I think they will get marked. Bauke looks solid as does the magic manlet the real race begin. And as Yates learned don't burn too many matches this is a test not the race

one4smoke

No doubt, I'm not very good at this. I'm really surprised I've stayed up in the standings as long as I have with two prime picks falling out.

One time I was driving on a two-lane highway behind an elderly gentleman in an old stationwagon going much less than the speed limit. I was getting rather agitated with the situation until I noticed his bumper-sticker that read "Slow?? I'm ahead of you, aren't I?"

slcbob

~4.5 km to go. Zakarin and his flappy open jersey seem to have it all tee'd up for a big score, but based on my past experiences with him, I still have faith that he can find a way to lose it.

slcbob

Well as I live and breath!

diphthong

congrats to the z-man. nearly always pick him but didn’t this time. well-deserved. bummer about hart. with 3 guys finishing in the top 10 today, should get more than yday’s 62 points. can landa regain his giro form from a few years ago? he really hasn’t seemed to have it recently except in the tdf under the service of froomie. great stage of racing and hoping for a few more in the next slate of mountain days.

diphthong

it was nice to see the big motor of mollema pushing the envelope today.

diphthong

this was like a vuelta stage (except for the length). super-animated and a nice melange of mechanicals, bold attacks, questionable tacticss, ambition and rmultiple gc contenting groups strung out across the mountainside.

diphthong

stage fourteen...who ya got? *horrible prediction forthcoming* short but muscular stage with plenty of climbs. the descents of both the 2nd and 3rd climbs of the day look tailor-made
for a nibbles attack. movistar's tactics (and astana's until the unfortunate lopez mechanical) seemed to pay dividends in climbing back up the gc ladder.
i would expect that again with cataldo, landa, izagirre, amador, bilbao, hirt...along with a pozzovivo and maybe a carthy flyer. astana still looks like the strongest team
to me with movistar close behind. i'll take lopez ftw with nibbles clawing back 20-30 seconds from roglic.

Gallo

Brutal stage tomorrow

I like Landa to triple up his time grab. He will not see Lopez as a threat and I could see another alliance with those two So I like Lopez for the win and Landa right behind him

Mollema looks really good and is having a fantastic giro

Nibali and Roglic rode like it is their ride to lose.

I am not sure if they can go with Landa who looks like the strongest two days into climbing. Landa moved up 22 places and bit around 2:15 in on time to Primo in two days which is impressive to say the least. He is gaining confidence

He says he will attack as long as he has legs. Tomorrow will tell

Roglic should be back in pink tomorrow and the sorting will continue

Yates is having a tough go. You have to wonder if or when he will breakthrough this funk. He was riding really well into the Giro

slcbob

A good day for the (s)pokes today. Me, not so much.

I'm racing Yates, Bojangles, and one4smoke to the back of the back. Look out, Blind Pig, we're coming for the maglia nera!

My prediction for tomorrow, with deference to Clubber Lang: "pain."

If Nibali can get a few guys up the road to bridge to, I say he goes for it. I don't think it's going to work out real well, but I give him credit for a) knowing he needs to do something, and b) not racing for 2nd place.

Landa is on a tear. Does he have some of Vino's blood? Maybe an odd alliance between Landa and Vuillermoz.