diphthong

thank goodness we're finally past the mud and the blood and the beer of the sprung classics. it's giro time! this can be the repository of all things (excepting fantasy giro musings/canoodlings) d'italia in the month of may.
looking increasingly like the race for podium placings is down to place and show. this giro is taddjjie's to lose. solid contingent of sprinters aboard. trying to discern who's gonna be the breakout star(s)...might figure it out by june.

yes, there will be results, and likely, ongoing/in progress race results posted within this thread. if you're the sensitive, spoiled spoiler type (you know who you are) that cannot tolerate/condone (semi-)free online peeps discussing
results before you've organized your pretty little life, stay out of this thread unless you've gotten all your results elsewhere previously.

MinnMan

Assuming Pog doesn't crash, the GC is all about who else gets on the podium. Fortunately, the sprinter field is packed, and so that should add some excitement. I know GT is Ineos' man, but I'm hoping for a breakout from Sheffield. Also, rooting for Jonathan Milan to have an opportunity to show some sprinter's stuff.

GrainBrain

It's gotta be Pogacar for stage one right?

MinnMan

Yeah, the GC competition is front-loaded right from the beginning.
Can he wear pink for 3 weeks?

GrainBrain

I don't know, he's a genius at reading a race - but maybe he gets that wonderful youthful attacking spirit and burns himself? if Bardet puts it to him in the high mountains after a week of Pog cleaning up the medium mountains we'll have an interesting race for sure. Already I looked through the start list and there's a whole wealth of talent.

Luke Lamperti is here, that will be very interesting. The duo of Bardet and Vermaerke is very good. Tratnik,Ganna,Laengen gives good muscle. Tiberi will be interesting. Martinez is due.

Biniam GIRMAY! Oh man I forgot he was here ... back to editing the fantasy team ...

MinnMan

He was disappointing in 2023 and hasn't had much prominence this spring either. I have been losing confidence, but it would be great to see him win a stage or two.

GrainBrain

I'm thinking he shows here. Oh man, you know who else is slightly under the radar ... Merlier. I bet he cleans up honestly. Yes I just started looking at the Giro today. Yes I am overly thankful for USAZorro and his race profile posts!! Man, Esteban Chavez and Cepeda for EF huh?

USAZorro

De nada.

I initially selected Girmay, but saw another rider with more consistent results expressing quite a bit of confidence and made some adjustments. With Girmay, the problem is that he's on a team that seems to not have a clue about either leading him out, or training him with some skills to be on the proper wheels to be in position to contest the sprint. If he can get himself in the right spot, he'd be a constant danger, but it seldom happens.

diphthong

agreed. like girmay's abilities but just think he needs a consistent wingman like zabel had for years with danilo hondo. there are extremes existing in the sprinter world where you've got riders needing 3+ deep trains á la petacchi
and riders not-so simply following wheels á la mcewen along with somewhere betwixt such as air cav. birnam's teams over the last few years have been somewhat scattershot and the sprinters have all been relatively cloistered
together in terms of speed/ability.

USAZorro

It's been a while since the outcome of a sporting event was so uniformly agreed upon by the experts.

MinnMan

Fortunately, there's a lot more of interest in a GT than the GC winner

MinnMan

Meanwhile, over at the Vuelta Feminina, Marianne Vos is just awesome.

The others of her generation (In fact, they are younger) - van der Breggen, van Vleuten - are gone, but she's still at the top.

GrainBrain

^^ I've been happy to see EF do well at the Ladies Vuelta, more so now that I'm reading about the industry and Cannondale downsizing currently. Allison Jackson, Kristen Faulkner flying the Canadian, American flags respectively are hopefully securing funding through their hard efforts.

Gotta shout a big HELL YEAH to Jhonatan Narváez today!! HELL YEAH.

Summary of the last 4km...

*Camera on Conci*
Tufts in the peloton
*Camera on Conci*
Tufts in the chase group
*Camera on Conci*
Tufts leading the race

diphthong

great first stage and stage two will be a barnburner!

GrainBrain

That was a wild finish! You tough Tufted terror, titillatingly troublesome huh?

HeyItsSara

hahahahahahah

diphthong

this stage 7 itt...didn't research it but assuming the giro will allow for bike changes at the bottom of the grade/hill that finishes things up.
quite a few flattish km's beforehand that could be better handled by a tt bike vs regular road bike. would love to have the giro organizers say
"pick your bike for the stage-no transferring (different styled) bikes!" can't say i'd be upset to see a few guys paperboying their tt bikes up the 10-11% grades.
hopefully everyone avoids the memorial rasmussen itt debacle in the tdf quite a few years ago and that no one feels compelled to do the riis tt bike toss.

79pmooney

I found this TT rather amusing to follow. Bikes set up with enormous gears. Like gaining a few seconds on the flat is going to offset doing a 16% grade on wasted legs. Race leader appeared to simply be riding reasonable gears, not sweating that he was a bunch of seconds out of the lead at the start of the hill. (49 seconds.) Then danced up on legs he hadn't wasted yet.

Yea, Pogacar is pretty phenomenal at both flat ground and hills. Ganna is less so in hills and he may well have done his best possible time today. But Thomas? Riding that huge gear for 30 km? What happened on the climb didn't surprise me one bit. Whose decision was that?

And tomorrow they ride a stage with no flat at all. Finish on a Cat 1 summit. Some of those big gear folk today may find Pogacar's pace tomorrow a little tough.

Thomas is both a decent TT'er and climber. But he lost 2 minutes. When this Giro is over, an Ineos bookkeeper should calculate what that 2 minutes cost Thomas and the team. Dock whoever made the gearing choices that much from pay or bonuses. (Unless the decision was Thomas's and no one else could override it.)

Trakhak

That's not what the huge chainrings are for. They serve three purposes: first, they enable an optimally efficient chain line (nearly straight from front to back) for the gears used the most in time trials; second, they allow the rider to minimize the time spent in the smallest cogs, where chain internal friction is at its highest; third, they let the rider spend a lot of time shifting among the cogs in the middle of the cassette, where the percentages of gear progression are lower (and thus the gaps between ratios finer) than they are in the smallest cogs.

It's surprising that this simple workaround took so long to become standard practice, although I guess it's only comparatively recently that cassettes with 10, 11, or 12 cogs have made both the problem(s) and the solution obvious.

79pmooney

The Cycling News Live Updates talked of him pedaling slowly in a huge gear, bogging down late on the flat, perhaps because the wind built, then simply not having it on for the finishing hills. Sounds like riding too high a gear to me. If that was Thomas's decision, well I guess that pay (prize money) cut will be self imposed. I don't care what the gearing scheme was. Somehow, the correct gears didn't get used. (Coaches have imposed gear restrictions on riders just so this wouldn't happen. Crossover losses in the correct gear wouldn't have cost Thomas 2 minutes. Well, maybe if really little top cogs were used. On a course with no downhill at all, why would you do that?)

Trakhak

My guess: G spent most of the previous stages matching, or attempting to match, Pogačar's every move, in some cases leaving the other GC contenders behind. Against a Pogačar in such phenomenal shape, that meant that he dug too deeply and too often into his suitcase of courage, as Phil and Paul used to say, and it came back to bite him during the TT stage. Low cadence = he just didn't have it, and was doing the best he could with tired legs.

If nothing else, now you know why so many pros are using monster chainrings in TTs. I agree that the reasons aren't obvious. Many commentators haven't figured it out yet.

GrainBrain

Isn't a large ring supposed to allow the rider a better chain line in regards to the rear block? Then also allow a more efficient chain radius around the rear cassette for a given gear inch? I'm a bit annoyed with my gravel bike and it's 46t big ring / 650b wheels since I'm often on the 13 or 12. Marginal gains and all with my brütæl grävêl I traverse.

Anyway Plapp had a great TT yesterday after being out in the break, getting himself into the young riders jersey. Ganna had an incredible ride and climbed super well. Pog was a demon on that climb. Sheffield is in stellar form right now also!

RChung

Trakhak

More info that pertains to the huge chainrings used by Geraint and the other Ineos riders:

Classified two-speed hub used by Ineos Grenadiers in Giro d'Italia time trial

PeteHski

Very interesting thanks. I’m thinking these hubs will finally kill off the FD on higher end bikes once they go mainstream.