Giro di Lombardia (spoiler alert, if anyone cares)
 

Anybody watch the Giro di Lombardia today? Strong ride by Gilbert. He had nice season with grand tour stage wins and a couple of classics wins.

This is one of my sentimental favorite races of the year. The very first place I went to in Italy was Lake Como (just by chance). I later went back to Bergamo to see the end of the Giro di Lombardia when it finished there in 1996 and 2000. Andrea Tafi and Raimondas Rumsas won those years, respectively.

I actually asked off from work today so I could be sure to watch the coverage. It was really impressive to see how strong Gilbert and Scarponi were, in such abysmal conditions. Too bad Nibali took that dive on the descent. That's a crappy way to finish out the season, wondering "what if".

I'd love to go back and do a gran fondo / cyclosportif ride in the region some day - but hopefully with better weather than what they had today!

I watched the last 20km from a link I found on steephill.tv -- the link was supposed to be an English feed but was actually Flemish or Dutch. I thought about changing to another website but got into it in spite of the language barrier.

It was certainly one of those incredibly tough days on a bike: 260km in the cold rain. Only 34 of 195 finished. Gilbert was really tough but it's a shame that Nibali fell and lost time -- he might have made the finish more interesting.

The coverage I had on Universal sports was pretty poor coverage. I would die to see this race in HD! What a great way to cap off the season. A true "Fall" Classic. I love watching racing in adverse condition almost as much as I enjoy riding in it. The rain really changed the dynamic of the race, IMO. Gilbert is IMO one of the top 5 best all around riders in the world. He suffers on the steepest and longest of climbs but on any other terrain, he is deadly.

I really enjoy watching Scarponi ride.

I can't believe Nibali crashed! Can't help but wonder how the race would have changed had the shark not taken a dive but tis racing.

I assume you're talking about the video quality. I agree that there is definitely room for improvement with Universal's coverage. But my understanding is that they basically take the world feed and send it out on their network. I don't think NBC has a lot of money invested into Universal. That being said, I'm not complaining. Thanks to Universal, this was the first year I was able to watch live coverage of all three grand tours on TV. Plus, they showed a bunch of other races. I've even gotten used to their announcing team. It would be nice to get HD, but I'm just glad there are races on t.v. to begin with.

Great race but jeez, as I was watching it I felt physically ill with the video quality. I dig that USN covers races nobody else will and will support them for that but I'd pay an extra fee to get it in HD. I guess them not having their own cameras on-site kinda hurts them/me. Again, awesome that they cover these events.

As for the race, Gilbert was strong and looked it. I'm a Liquigas fan. I'm not sure Nibali had it in him to finish strong. The fall may have come from some fatigue from the climb but who knows. I wish it had been closer at the finish but with the rain and final climbs I think attrition just took its toll.

Great race to watch. Hills and rain. So much better than a bunch sprint at the end.

Where did Lance finish?

At the bottom of the totem with an illegitimate child.

A note about video quality - it was bad pretty much everywhere. I have UK Sky Sports, and friends of mine get RTL (Lux), German and Dutch feeds on their cable. Everyone noted the picture quality was poor.

Attribute it to the weather and the region - it is just harder to get a good picture when both combine like they did this year.

On another note ... I had Gilbert to win Paris Tours ... looks like I was just a few days off! He is an amazing one day rider.