Cycling

Anybody following Giro d'Italia? Today's stage was brutal ...

Yep been glued to it all 3 weeks Amazing day as Murray walker said once in f1 "anything can happen in f1 it usually does". if you had told me a few days ago when nibali was dropped. he would win stage 19 & be 20 secs ahead of Kruijswijk I would've said your mad as I thought giro d'italia was nailed on & nibali finished. All of sudden Kruijswijk takes too much speed into bend on the desent from suffers a heavy crash into a snowbank breaking his back wheel change of bike later Kruijswijk has lost the pink jersey to chaves & nibali is hugely back in contention 44 secs of lead in 2nd

Ive got to stop righting people off in sport both Leicester & nibali have come back to prove me wrong LOL
 
The race was set up for Nibali and just to help out most of the big names were saving themselves for the Tour de France. Last Saturday the peleton allowed the breakaway to get well over 9 minutes in front; had it been a minute less then Nibali would have been in the leading bunch when the field came together. He then was left for dead in between the leading bunch and the peleton with no team mates to work with him. Dropping back was not an option, he wouldn't have gained anything on the riders who should have been his main challengers. So he finished up knackered losing over 15 seconds in the last couple of kilometers.

This seemed to catch up with him the next day, the mountain time trial (I used to love those in the TdF) which had been expected to be made for him turned into a nightmare; he did have a mechanical problem but he eas well off the pace by then.

Then on Tuesday things went from bad to worse, on the final climb he simply blew up. losing over a minute to all his rivals. Back in fourth position 4:43 minutes behind it looked as though he would need to do a Charly Gaul on Friday although the two stages between would allow him some recuperation.

Then today everything changed. On the penultimate climb Valverde cracked as Nibali attacked taking then Zakarin begins to fall behind and the group is down to four riders, Kruijswijk, Chaves, Nibali and Majka. As the approach the summit there are banks of snow and is was also quite misty. Up in the lead was Nibali'a team mate Scarponi with over five minutes advantage. This year Astana have been very good at getting a rider into breakaway group ready to help his team leader when the going gets tough. So over the top they went with Nibali clearly on a mission. Whether that was a contributing factor or not is open for discussion but Kruijswijk hit a snow bank and came off his bike which was damaged losing him time and on his own in between two groups just as Nibali had been last Saturday with an even worse result. The final 12.9 km climb started with a group of three, Nibali, Chaves and Scarponi, who had virtually stopped whilst waiting fo Nibali to catch him, about fifty seconds in front of Valverdi's group and over two minutes ahead if Kruijswijk who has been riding his heart out with very little help from anyone.

Monfort was leading and there was a group forming behind him with Nibali, Chives, Scarponi, Nieve and a few more riders. Scarponi worked like a demon, giving everything he had until he had nothing left but it had taken the group further ahead of their rivals. Now Nibali attacked leaving Chaves and Nieve chasing and the rest of the group left in their work. Chaves and Nieve gradually pull Nibali back but he attacks a second time and there is no doubting who will will win the stage.

From here on Nibali rode as he had been expected to do instead of struggling earlier in the week., finishing 51 seconds ahead of Nieve who was 2 seconds ahead of Chives, 2:14 ahead of Valverde, 4:54 ahead of Kruijswijk and Scarponi at 6:21.

The overall standings are Chaves in the Pink Jersey, Nibali at 44 seconds, Kruijswijk at 1:05 and Valverde at 1:48. The fight for the overall win would appear to be between these four but after today you cannot be sure of anything. Tomorrow is basically three big climbs and a short uphill finish and could be the most exciting day of the race. Meanwhile I shall be driving 360 miles up to Cheshire and back, thank goodness for USB recording!
 
Giro has now Nibaldi written all over it, Orica has no business challenging Astana so Chaves is basically on his own.

I feel bad for Kruijswijk who has ridden very well but that's the nature of the sport, it ain't over till it's over.
 
Having been preoccupied with other matters watching the World Road Race Championship race has consisted in several brief times of watching the recording. One of the amazing things was that there seemed to be a lot of litter on the circuit, several riders had gear mechanism problems. They were racing at 45-55 kph with a rider hanging on to the side of the car whilst a mechanic leant out of the window pulling bits of rubbish out of the teeth of the rear gear change. Almost as scary as sidecar racing.
 
If you want to read a brilliant cycling story it's this one Titch:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product...bb_uk-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738

Written by my very good friend John, it's £1.99 and hilarious.
He made me ride up this:
upload_2016-11-7_14-50-55.png
 
I'll let John know you like it, he's currently "faffing around" in France, pretending to teach English. Considering his first language is Welsh I'm sure his students are having a ball.
I had to read every page twice as I found it so funny, notably the logo on the TV screen in the Valleys rugby club!
 
I'm wondering how we can use that little trick. It's a bit of a downer though, still being there when the Telly is off.
LOL
 
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