Road Bike Racing - Giro 17 Spoilers

They've hit Zoncolan. Cunego looks like he's gonna fade soon. Simoni starts attacking at about 7 km but everyone's hanging with him. He needs to put the hammer down NOW.

Garzelli and Mazzoleni are dropped.

o snap, DiLuca's in trouble!

Gibo had been talking to Piepoli before but not seeing them do any work together now. Not sure what they might have been planning.

o snap, DiLuca's in trouble!

YES! Simoni's putting the hammer down!

Simoni's got a good lead starting but suddenly Cunego decides to help out Di Luca. >:( (OK, Cunego's riding for himself but still... LOL)

Gibo just caught two guys - someone from Rabobank and another from BT

o man o man o man!!!!!! Schleck came out of nowhere!

YES! Simoni's putting the hammer down!


Awesome. Simoni's still 20 seconds ahead of DiLuca.......

Schleck is 2:56 behind DiLuca
Simoni is 3:19 down, that makes 23 seconds difference between Schleck and Simoni...

Sorry if this is old news, but you can watch RAI live right now for free at gazzetta.it (click the "Guarda in diretto..." link).

Schleck is gonna get a huge raise in salary this offseason.

With Di Luca hanging in as he is, Simoni has to find more power than he's ever used on a mountain. He needs to dial it up again here. He needs not only 3.5 minutes on Di Luca, but he's gotta stay ahead of Schleck.

Any idea how fast these guys are climbing up the last part of the mtn?

What Simoni needs is to work with Schleck and Piepoli to put huge time into Di Luca and then he has to drop them both on the final 18% section towards the end. otherwise, Schleck takes it.

Simoni/Schleck/Piepoli have over a minute on Di Luca but it's nowhere near enough.

Simoni/Schleck/Piepoli have over a minute on Di Luca but it's nowhere near enough.

20s

Not looking good for Simoni group, they've only got 20 seconds on Di Luca.

Simoni talking to Schleck but it may be too late. they need 3 minutes and they've only got a few kilometers.

and less than 20 second gap on the Killer...too little too late, Gibo. I'm picking Schleck for the win

EDIT: Damn...wrong.

Great riding by Di Luca to minimize his losses

di luca is a beast

Simoni gets a stage win but looks like the GC is out of his grasp.

Still, at 36 years old, he's still kicking major butt!

So Gibo's the only guy to ever win on Zoncolan in the Giro. Pretty cool.

Also, Schleck now has a chance at overall 'cause he's a little bit better at TT than Di luca.

when does simoni start questioning di lucas ability?

One heck of a cool stage. I thought Simoni looked great.
And what crowds: the moutains were a "natural stadium" as the commentators said.

piepoli should have 3 stage wins

when does simoni start questioning di lucas ability?

No idea but:

1. He was right about Basso
2. People on this board have already questioned Di Luca (no one expected him to be this good)
3. Either way, you have to be impressed by a 36 year old riding as well as Gibo

No idea but:

1. He was right about Basso


Yup.

finally the italian army makes an appearance on the front! :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/botto/expo01.jpg

di luca has been more impressive

he rode up that thing calm cool and collected

GC
1. Di Luca
2. Schleck 2:24
3. Gibo Simoni 2:28

Schleck has a shot of taking that on the TT but Simoni's gonna have to work to stay top three.

cunego could take a minute on simoni and end up on the podium. that would be pretty amazing when you consider how much trouble he seemed to have on every mountain stage. simoni really blew it on the mountain TT

that 8 seconds simoni was robbed of really hurts right now too

Is di luca a better TT guy than Simoni? If so, it comes down to what Schleck can do... is he strong in terms of individual TTs?

Interesting result today, this would have been the spot for someone to take time out of Di Luca if they wanted to have a hope of pulling even or taking the Maglia Rosa. Mazzoleni seems like he's spent, and Simoni didn't seem to get nearly enough to make it TT-able... someone who knows more might have some interesting thoughts on this though.

It was hard since Di Luca seems to be strong every day whereas Simoni's had strong days and then some weakness the next. Also, i thought to really put time in on Di Luca, he needed to leave earlier with Ricco/Piepoli and possibly someone like Schleck and hit the bottom of the mountain 30-50 seconds ahead of Di Luca. That way, Di luca has to hit the mountain really hard just to try to get with Simoni, etc's pace and not lose additional time. There would have been a better chance of him blowing then. of course, easier said than done.

How do these guys really all rate as individual TT riders? Are any of them sufficiently specialized in that to take a big chunk of time out of each other??

I was just wondering about who has the best shot at this... Di Luca came in 8 seconds behind first place on an earlier TT this Giro, and Liquigas did win the TTT at the start of the race.

How do these guys really all rate as individual TT riders? Are any of them sufficiently specialized in that to take a big chunk of time out of each other??

I was just wondering about who has the best shot at this... Di Luca came in 8 seconds behind first place on an earlier TT this Giro, and Liquigas did win the TTT at the start of the race.

It's hard to say. If you look at last year's Giro, Di Luca sucked in the TT and lost about 5 minutes on Basso while Simoni only lost 3.75 minutes. Yet this year, Di Luca beat Simoni in the last TT by a minute (of course it was a hill TT, but still) so past results may not fully fit this year.

http://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/9890.0.html

Gibo looking pretty happy with his ladies...er..um...I mean with his win.

http://www.steephill.tv/2007/giro-d-italia/img/stage-17-podium.jpg

How do these guys really all rate as individual TT riders? Are any of them sufficiently specialized in that to take a big chunk of time out of each other??

I was just wondering about who has the best shot at this... Di Luca came in 8 seconds behind first place on an earlier TT this Giro, and Liquigas did win the TTT at the start of the race.

i am going to guaruntee a diluca top ten. note: dz is my pick ftw, as he took it easy today to conserve energy. we have seen it before where the leaders jersey gives riders more strength then ever before in the final tt. koldo gil in the tour de suisse last year got 9th in the tt and lost his lead in the overall to jan who won the stage (insert asterisk), but retained 2nd. impressive result from a tiny spanish rider tipping the scales at 132 lbs. my guess is that schleck and diluca both top ten, with maybe cunego up there. top 2 spots stay unchanged.

Velonews and cyclingnews mentioned that some riders used a triple for this stage... how rare is that in any pro event? I've never seen it before. It seems Di Luca and some others were on compacts for this climb as well, with Di Luca running a 34-29 low gear.

piepoli should have 3 stage wins

It's the sacrifice he makes as a super-domestique. Still a great Giro working all around for Piepoli for sure.

Isn't that crazy? 34-29. That means only 5 more teeth on the front chainring!

Di Luca will best Simoni, and likely Cunego, in the TT. Schleck will be hard pressed to beat him, and certainly won't do so by 2-3 minutes. The other remaining stages will have no real bearing on the overall classification. Everybody said today's stage would be decisive, and it was...Di Luca kept the lead, and won't lose it over the last few stages.

Isn't that crazy? 34-29. That means only 5 more teeth on the front chainring!

I think a lot of us here would struggle to turn even that gear over on the climb.

No idea but:

1. He was right about Basso


He should know, as a convicted doper, if someone blows by you, he's gotta be doping.

Di Luca will best Simoni, and likely Cunego, in the TT. Schleck will be hard pressed to beat him, and certainly won't do so by 2-3 minutes. The other remaining stages will have no real bearing on the overall classification. Everybody said today's stage would be decisive, and it was...Di Luca kept the lead, and won't lose it over the last few stages.

+1, Gibo lost the Giro, he will lose minutes to Di Luca in the TT.
Schleck is the closest to pull it off, but he will need a stage win and a good TT -no way will LG let him take off.

It's good to see that even in this stage, there were no superhuman 8 minute gaps, just a realistic 30 seconds.

He should know, as a convicted doper, if someone blows by you, he's gotta be doping.

You´re saying someone accused of and then cleared of taking a recreational drug is a "convicted doper"?

It's good to see that even in this stage, there were no superhuman 8 minute gaps, just a realistic 30 seconds.


+1

I think on the climb Simoni did get a good bit of lead over Di Luca and he just fought back. Great stage.

Give Schleck a couple of years and I see him winning a grand tour.

Give Schleck a couple of years and I see him winning a grand tour.

2008.

You´re saying someone accused of and then cleared of taking a recreational drug is a "convicted doper"?

He was disqualified for having coke in his system from the 2002 Giro. He had coke in his bloodstream. Period.
He said this was due to candies his aunt brought back for him from Peru, then produced these candies and they tested positive for coke, while the company that makes them in Peru denies that they would ever put hard drugs in their products.
But this was story #2, story #1 was that his dentist gave him a cocaine derivative as a treatment at an earlier doping test at the Giro di Trentino. But, when tests proved that story #1 was BS, BS story #2 appeared. Shades of Landis.

Simoni was never 'cleared'.