ooga-booga

loving the first third of stage seven...will hafta crash at some point and catch the results much later. seemingly and increasingly a make or break stage.

ooga-booga

picked the green bullet to win the stage because of the undulating (but not extreme) parcours along with the sting in the tail finish...

ooga-booga

everybody's gonna move their feet, everybody gonna leave their seat. total kiss-destroyer stage of the giro. sweet pain.

ooga-booga

mollema made a move?!?! between he and dumou, those tt abilities will come in handy in the last 25 km. strong-*ss breakaway.

ooga-booga

he was attractively priced but that time may have been done and gone. we'll see. thought about him.

slcbob

ooga-booga live blogging the race on an all night bender is worth the price of admission here! Even if it wasn't free.

Way to persist, Wout Poels. That's a class break. It's nice to see Dumo out there trying to make lemonade.

ooga-booga

if that break stays free and without joiners...i'll take bouwman ftw. need mollema tho.

ooga-booga

once or twice a gt...can't sleep.

slcbob

Simon Yates, too. Hopefully he'll change that up this time around.

GrainBrain

Tom smiling after getting a big cheer from his soigneur. If you rewatch on GCN it's 5:09 in, pretty cool.

UAE have an interesting setup with the supposed "Italian" and "Portuguese" contingent. (Formolo doing his own thing) This might come back to be a problem, or maybe help. More loyalty in week three for Almeida?

GrainBrain

Oh that was a sweet win! A deserving win! Nice to see someone who puts in so much work get an amazing result!

ooga-booga

stage nine-blockhaus. carapaz.

sincos

Well, that was more entertaining than I expected (unlike say, stage 5). MVdP leaving it too late to bridge, and probably burning too many matches early on; Girmay OTOH didn't seem to have the confidence to bridge earlier -- though at 22 he has far more confidence than might be expected. He'll end up being one of the great point jersey specialists before he hangs up his cleats. But the most interesting thing to me was Martin. Ineos, BEX and UAE must have been smiling when he got the Trekkies in a lather, and the big question here is how well did he calibrate his efforts today. If he doesn't lose too much time tomorrow, or less time than he would have lost + 3 min, it was a great move. Just as much as the Blockhaus tomorrow are the stages following, so I don't see any of the GC favorites keeping their power dry with 2 recovery days (for the GC contenders, anyway) to come.

GrainBrain

Alright glad to see Lawson Craddock now unchained from the BEX train. Lorenzo Rota out climbing Yates today ... 11 minutes out the back

sincos

A few random observations, none all that deep:
1. That's Yates done. And JV. Not sure why Yates was complaining about the heat, it never seemed to get to even 30C. Bummer about the knee, but ISTM he is a bit prone to getting caught up in accidents like this because he likes to hang out at the back early in the stages. As for JV, I guess they're going all-in for the Tour, throwing everything at Pogacar. Stage 7 was a nice result for them, but it's clear the main contenders raced it with an eye to this stage.
2. Great win by Hindley, though in truth I was kind of hoping Bardet would get it.
3. Excellent move by Martin yesterday, enough to pick up 3 min, but not going so hard to blow up on the big stage today. Don't see him on the podium, but top 5 maybe.
4. Good aggression by Tefatsion but that was a terrible line for that corner. Glad he's ok.
5. Good defense from Lopez. Trek look a little ragged, and while they get a rest day the stages afterward aren't going to be any easier. But so far a great Giro for them, especially the Segafreddo side.
6. Never the greatest fan of Ineos/Sky but they are a well-oiled, well-drilled machine who know exactly what they have to do. Impressive, if a bit predictable.
7. Everybody's saying Carapaz is in the driver's seat, and maybe he is, but kind of flying under the radar is Almeida. Everybody likes to go by previous form (which, to be fair, is quite good in his case), but at 23 it's a bit early to know just where his ceiling is. If he doesn't have a jour sans in the Alps and he keeps the gaps small he's got to like his chances going into Verona. That last TT is a joke, but he's the only one in the top 10 who's any good at the discipline.

GrainBrain

Glad to hear Tefatsion got back on his bike! That was scary to watch live -- screaming into the turn with obviously no awareness it was coming up.

Wish I had picked "El Patron" for my fantasy team. This is the kind of personality that is quite welcome

El Patrón!!

GrainBrain

Impressed with Martin also - expected him to yoyo in GC yesterday but he held on! That's impressive! Romain Bardet pretty upset to come in second. I wonder if he had targeted the stage win over final GC. Oof!

MinnMan

Is Lopez for real? He wasn't on my radar at all, but he's been in pink for a good long time and really earned it by keeping the gap small on Blockhaus. A great effort.

MinnMan

I was wrong

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/a...cin-deceuninck

slcbob

That's an intriguing announcement and a big change requiring, dare I say it, some Quick Steps.

Very much in keeping with Alpecin-Fenix's push on women's cycling and Deceunick's statements as they moved away from LeFevre. Hopefully they'll continue to shed light on women's cycling even without Fenix as a title sponsor.

OK. I'll stop now.

ooga-booga

rest days bite.

ooga-booga

stage ten...too tuff for the likes of girmay, démare and rule #87? maybe...maybe not. stage seems tailor-made for a large breakaway. if so, and if a few guys on contending squads get thrown out there as a rabbit (looking at you tales of brave ulissi and sivakov/narváez) along with the likes of a calmejane and cort, could be wild. all that said...going with lucas hamilton.

GrainBrain

Nah way Craddock got 2nd in mountains classification at the Dauphine last year and has had some good ITTs this year. Let him run free Matt White!

Craddock - just pull out the earpiece and get off the front.

I'm thinking EF haven't spent much energy yet, but without Owain Doull that's a tough job to launch Cort.

ooga-booga

those bubbly corks ain't no joke.

MinnMan

Fantastic finish.