Giro d'Italia *SPOILER*
 

In a daring move, the cricket takes the first stage. He hasn't had the best year so far - hopefully he has a great Giro. :)

***someone kindly fix my spelling***

Yeah, looks like Il Grillo has shaken off his illnesses. First stage win ever in the Giro and his first maglia rosa.. I hope he can defend tomorrow, and he should be able to keep it because I think Ale-Jet will win the stage (what's the time bonus for a stage win?).

I thought it was a great attack. excellent timing. He probably looked around at all the sprinters and knew he could get a gap on the hill. With the narrow roads, anyone back farther than 4th or 5th place had no chance to get his wheel

Phil, Paul and Bob just not know the course? They kept predicting the Petachi train the whole time but no way that was going to happen with that finish - narrow, windy, and uphill. I liked it though! :)

Fabulous, I can't think of anything more boring than watching Petacchi win stages.

Watching Lance win stages?! :)

Nope, most of Lance's stage wins last year were fairly exciting.

How predictable, Lance always comes up when discussing other riders...

I love beautifully executed surprise moves like that. I was cheering as Bettini slung himself through that corner.


Done.

Did anyone else find the last few K of yesterdays stage a bit terrifying? These guys have some serious cajones.

From the way that Phil, Paul and Bobke were talking you would have
thought no one else was racing other than petacchi.
Bettini's move was pure poetry.
yah, major cajones.
Marty

Yes, I was in a road race that very morning, and as I sat watching that incredible peloton, I was thinking how happy I was sitting in front of the TV rather than anticipating a potential mob sprint. Had it not strung out towards the end, there would assuredly have been some crashes. The finish though was incredible!

yeah.... yesterday totally made up for the incredibly boring coverage of the first day's tt. man... that should have been tape delayed and compressed to 15 minutes. thank god for tivo.

I wonder how nasty it would have been if everyone had the balls to do what Bettini did right before that sharp left corner. Or if even they knew what he was about to do and tried to preempt. That surely would have been some major carnage.

No doubt. Why 2 hours on that?

Not only was the road getting more and more narrow, but the sides of the course were the walls of houses. I was half expecting someone to catch a bar or elbow against them in a squeeze near the end.

It was an exciting finish, but also beautiful views as they were tooling down the hill...

So how about that McEwen...

clearly Aussies are the best bike racers in the world. Add it to:
swimming
cricket
rugby
tennis
league
hockey

:D

second that !! :D

+ surfing !!

and SBK!!

come again ? :(

Superbikes.....like MotoGP but bigger and slower and cheaper.

Troy Corser (big cycling fan)
Chris Vermuelen
etc
etc

Casey Stoner on the charge also in the 250's !!

And we're moving on in to WRC and F1 with a top driver in each.

Plus we have Chad Reed in Supercross as World Champ !

Baden quote:

"It was pretty dangerous today. I got Petacchi's wheel which is normally the best place to be, but Kirsipuu moved up on the outside and head-butted him"

Stuey had a few choice words about it also, funny stuff!

"welcome to our world....it's not soccer" Gold from Stu!!!

Stoopid Ale-Jet looks sideways and all he sees is Aussies coming past in the 11....


Fantastic!

yep, a classic !! I was cacking on the floor over that one. :)