Giro d'Italia- Mumsnet Peloton Rides Again

[justinelibertine]

I don't think we have a thread yet. The Giro starts on 7th May. Let's discuss.

I am super excited because Movistar may be letting Carlos Betancur start. AKA as Baby Bunny.

[MrSlant]

Great now I'm jealous of someone else's dreams FGS .

The Sutton thing is a nightmare. What an awful time for it to blow up as well for the athletes. I read an opinion that he is brilliant at what he does BUT needs a Brailsford filter to get the best out of a team. Although no matter how good you are at getting results it's probably best that you aren't misogynist and disablist (may have made up a new word) so off you go. Cycling is starting to look like one sport where women are inching closer to equality, it's a long way to go but as long as we've got something like the Tour de Yorkshire showing up the winners cheque for the Giro it's a start. Urgh, so disappointing. That was a great start of a thread Felicity if we were allowed MN on work computers I'd have been all over it! Thank you very kindly for showing, again, the amazing anatomy lesson that is a cyclists musculature.

Where WAS Griepel yesterday? And poor porr Fabs, 2 mins down on a flat stage. Do we think he's going to start today?

[DoctorTwo]

I have an idea as to how womens professional road racing can be promoted: run them parallel with the mens. Start the womens race an hour after the men. All the infrastructure is already in place, no extra security needed, virtually no extra cost, and tv is already there. I'm sure spectators would hang around an extra hour to see elite athletes fly past. I know I would.

[MrSlant]

Do you think more of them would stay around vs running it a few hours before the male athletes? Hmm no, ignore that, it would have to be ridiculously early wouldn't it? Every race I've been to the crowd vanished like smoke the second the bikes had gone past. When we were watching the Tour (takes one off allocated annual mentions) the people who had fought and jostled us to be at the front of the barriers didn't even wait for the main bunch to turn up but ran off to watch the jerseys being handed out. We stayed to the end shouting everyone on until the broom wagon and were rewarded by an elderly French woman with a Carrefour 'maillot aux pois' t-shirt she had got from the caravan and must have stuffed up her top because people were fighting over them not me. Even the Tour of Britain, we waited hours for them to come through and then everyone vanished of the side of the mountain.

Another astonishing finish today. Will wait until everyone has caught up.

And my baby got his first KOM on Strava today and I'm really over excited but he won't let me tell everyone.

[FelicityLemon]

Great finish! Also echelons!

Pan pack carefully, it is baking hot here. If you are staying in Covent Garden I recommend Lincoln's Inn Fields to chill out in it's a little oasis.

On Shane Sutton, I suspect that the whole ebay thing will be swept under the carpet. He'll lie low for a while and resurface on some other track programme.

[OnYerBikePan]

Quite Felicity! But it feels v European and bit funky even. On Drury Lane so will have a wander later. Am picking up another Kittel win. In team selection it was him or Greipel......got it wrong.

[MrSlant]

Where is Greipel? I we sure he is actually there? I'm starting to miss his big frog mouth.

Just read Lefevere saying that none of the other teams are making the effort to get their men into the sprint but from overhead it just doesn't look like anyone could get the speed on Kittel has whatever a team does. Although I'm a bit bemused that he is berating them for not working hard enough because they have other goals in mind and then immediately saying Kittel will be going home at the end of the first week because he has other goals...

[MrSlant]

Ahhh, there he is .

[DramaAlpaca]

I think Greipel must've heard you MrS

I can't watch atm, I'm home in the UK for a few days (yayyy!!!) but I'm staying with my parents so I can't really take over their TV and their broadband isn't great. It's good enough to MN & catch up on the important stuff like Giro news, though.

[MrSlant]

I've been working all day so missed it too, had to catch up via Cycling Weekly online! Normally we follow on twitter or route around the block on the computer in work but all these pesky patients needed our attention .

[OnYerBikePan]

I have nooo idea what has happened in the last couple of days. Got home and my laptop is dying and the velogames site isn't letting me sign in. Has Greipel responded to my diet of slugs for him? Did he actually win something?

[DramaAlpaca]

He did, Pan. He obviously heard everything you & MrS were saying about him.

I can't wait to get home tomorrow & actually watch some of the Giro. At least I'm not away for the hilly bits

[OnYerBikePan]

Wow! Thanks DA.

Nice to know Giro-watching will be resumed for both of us shortly. Yes the lumpy bits should be interesting. I have hopes for Dumoulin in the slightly lumpy stages.

[DramaAlpaca]

I've had a lovely time back in my home neck of the woods, but at this stage I just want to get home to my own bed. My journey tomorrow goes like this: car - train - plane - two more hours in the car. Sigh. I will collapse with wine and recorded Giro when I get back, and hope DH has the dinner ready .

[justinelibertine]

I am up with the baby who seems to have tummy ache :( so forgive me. But does anyone else think Dumoulin looks a bit like Lurch from the Addams Family?

[FelicityLemon]

Good to see Greipel back to form. I suspect Marcel will have to stick it out until he loses the red jersey so a bit more suffering yet.

[MrSlant]

Oh no! Now you've said that it will never not come into my mind when I look at him. He can be very handsome from the right angle but sometimes there is only so much square jaw a girl can handle. Saying that I very much enjoyed watching him cool down in the little 'current leader''s tent at the end of the TT .

Boy done good Pan, you have some points for your team.

[ShutUpLegs]

What? Me? I have been here all along.

Been watching the final 10km of Giro every evening on ES streaming - catches me out everytime when the clip end and restarts and I find myself thinking "haven't they already raced this bit?"

In RL, after a disasterous 2015, I am back, back, back on the bike and training for the Great Yorkshire Bike Ride. Still not ridden more than 60km in training this year and the ride is in 30-odd days and is 120km. What could go possibly wrong?

[OnYerBikePan]

There's a journey and a half DA!
Felicity - no down time from chilling - evenings were revision and mock exam papers - , apart from Sunday when I met up with a cousin I'd not seen for decades! We just took off from where we left off. So no Lincoln's Inn for me, but one to remember for next time ta!

Dumoulin? - I just thought he was ridiculously handsome in a comic book way - not seeing the Lurch thing? Trying to see him saying "You raaang?"
ShutUpLegs - nope, no problems foreseen.

[OnYerBikePan]

fwiw I did pass the exam yesterday afternoon. It was wheely wheely hard!

[MrSlant]

Wheely well done Pan, chapeau .

Lurch back at it today. Starting to think all his pre-Giro 'oh no, I'm only here to make up numbers, didn't even do altitude training this year' was a big fib?

ShutUpLegs thats a great distance, you'll be fine .

[justinelibertine]

Well done OnYerBike :D

He is SO Lurch! I can see him in the get up and everything. See comparison pics.

Dumoulin knows he is going to do well GC, I think it is a test of how long he can hang on for against Nibali and Valverde. Nibali doesn't look 100% yet.

[FelicityLemon]

Congrats on the exam Pan or should that be "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor OnYerBikePan, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular"

[MrSlant]

Felicity.

Oh justine, once seen never unseen. That's it he is now officially Lurch to me forever more.

[OnYerBikePan]

Thanks for the tributes. Really funny. And yep. I see Lurch. Are they related?
.

[OnYerBikePan]

I've not even caught up with today's events. Work is real nuisance. I too suspect there are a few declared minors who will be majors in the end eg Mr Roche.