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i love watching the giro for its sheer bravery, spectacle, unpredictability, shocking weather, strada bianchi road sections, narrow steep climbs into those stunning hill top towns.. it has the spirit of the spring classics in it soul..

if you want mundane, safe, boring stage racing wait til july, and watch wiggins or schleck bore everyone to death..

All I said is that in big bunch sprints they should remove tight corners from the final 1000m of a flat stage, nothing about all elliminating the romantic tosh you just spouted. A few less crashes won't detract from the overall spectacle of Grand Tour, but it should make competition for the points jersey more interesting, rather than the train wreck it is in the Giro right now. They took high speed corners out of F1 and it's still good to watch, and safety in motor-racing was bought about by the drivers getting tired of dying.

Anyway fuck the lot of you, Bernie Eisel agrees with me and that is all that counts

Argument? Wishful thinking.

It doesn't stop you calling it champagne over here either does it?

EU law says it does pal, but don't let the facts get in your way. They certainly haven't so far

shame that saying I would prefer seeing less crashes causes such gnashing of teeth. Maybe you should watch cage fighting instead of cycling

Skillful riders make luck. You can buy small wraps of it off them after most races.

There is no champagne from the Yarra Valley nor anywhere else in the world other than the Champagne region.

That argument about making luck has a hole in it about the size of the one Ferrari had to go for to his left and instead veered right and took out Cav's front wheel, or the size of the one Pozzato was going for before he cycled up the arse of Goss

And while you are correct about Champagne, it doesn't stop you calling it Champagne over there, now does it. Or fortified red Port for that matter

Oh.. how very dull...
Now you're getting it...

Making finishes straighter just means they will be going faster and when they inevitably crash the injuries will be worse.

How many pros have died in a sprint finish vs. mountain descent? Thankfully you're not a Tour organiser.
Lovely measured argument there. I think the pros should be thankful neither of us are tour organisers. The bit about straighter finishes is nonsense

The classiest rider is the one who doesn't crash and crosses the line first.

Classiest and/or luckiest

Eating an ice cream
Does seem to be the day for it

Towing a local girl and a case of champagne in a bicycle trailer
I trust that is proper champagne, not some slop from the Yarra Valley

Crashes are dull? What planet are you on?

OK crashes hold some interest, but I simply prefer watching a sprint finish unfold and see who is the class of the field, rather than a crash catching half of them and me denied that spectacle.

I don't see that as a controversial opinion, I just want to see the best compete.

I just fundamentally disagree. That what they said after the Grand national when two horses were killed. While crashes are relatively inevitable when a lot of cyclists are riding together, it doesn't mean that organisers can't attempt to minimise that risk, and reduce the danger to cyclists. I honestly don't see how cycling is enlivened by crashes, or motor-racing, or horse racing, or a football match is enlivened by someone breaking their leg. A bit of verbal and some fisticuffs a la Joey Barton, now thats a different matter

How can it possibly be considered dull when there's a crash that knocks out a couple of favourites to allow a lesser known rider to win?
That's actually the opposite of dull.

If you're only interested in the winner, watch the final 10min on youtube. None of your 'dull flat stage viewing' changes because of a crash in the final.

Crashes are dull, full stop. I don't enjoy watching cyclists go down and get hurt. As far as watching flat stages, I enjoy watching the rest of the stage but the adrenaline goes into over-drive in the final 2k. Half of that excitement comes from watching the stage develop over the 3 or 4 hours you've been watching it and the disappointment is massive when a load of them go down in a twisted heap of flesh and carbon.

Anti-climax I call it, and espeicially so if a good rider leaves the race because of injury.

Boring.

They're pros, they should know how to ride around corners.

Personally I think it's dull to watch them sprint for the line with all the best talent lying in a heap 500m back. Particularly if you've been watch a flat stage live, where until the last two K the main entertainment to be had is sweepstakes on how big a gap the breakaway manages, what K they are finally caught and how many castles along the way are going to be given an extended fly-over by the helicopter camera.

Although when the local farmers make a giant bike out of tractors, quad bikes and hay bales is a personal favourite

thought the uphill finish in the Giro through Assisi was stunning, and well won by Rodriguez. There's a lot of bodies with about the minute of the lead, so its going to be interesting to see how the GC shapes up once it gets very lumpy.

cav seems to have learnt from regular beatings in the points in previous Grand Tours by Hushovd and has been picking up points in the intermediates, so only 3 points back from Goss

Eisel alks about Giro, Cav and crashing

Just prefer to see who would win without them.

And I hate watching them go down, makes me wince. Pozzato out the Giro with a broken hand may be the reason why...

Isn't it time they re-looked at the race organisation? I can't remember which pro I saw interviewed recently, but they were talking about how much bigger the bunch prints are at the moment? How in the run in there are the sprinters teams forming trains, as well as the GC teams protecting their man, eveyone wanting to be near the front to avoid the crashes and possible sprints?

That was a very sharp corner, people saw the crash coming well before it happened, seems a no-brainer to eliminate sharp corners like that in the last k of a flat stage, maybe the last 2k

I was watching the Eurosport highlights and well before the end they were predicting a pile up there. Think organisers have to take a look at the finishes of flat stages and avoid potential problems like a hairpin bend in the last 1000m...

At the speed he was going, he would have just bunny hopped onto the downed rider

Shame the crash denied the full sprint. Sky were struggling to reorganise after the climb and Green-edge and Farnese looked well-placed. There was a lot of road left after the corner, but that corner was the problem surely? Commentators on Eurosport completely called, predicting 'something big' happening there and it did

another crash, Pozzato taking out Goss, then Cav going down in the aftermath, and Renshaw slowed. Ventoso grabs the win. Haven't seen it yet but sounds like it was the result of more poor riding

Actually, if he's gone from flats, it's quite likely it IS faster.

Clips or straps, depending on the bike. I haven't ridden without retention since about 2008, honest injun

Well definitely feels faster anyways. Carbon soles also help with the illusion

showing some madskillz

wondering when the weather is going to let me retire (and more importantly wash) the softshell. It has been an ever faithful friend through these dark months

my eyes, they burn so

Just had my first ride with clipless, bought some cheap Exustar pedals and I'm wondering why I was worried: no problems unclipping (but have the pedals set up very loose) and no spills, however pulling away was a different matter as I struggled to get back into the pedal. I practised pulling away on the road outside my house when I got back and I'm sure it will soon be no-look.

Pedalling action felt good, the pedals have plenty of float (too much really, but I can reduce with more tension), feet felt right, cadence was smooth and power transfer felt right: my fast bike now goes faster I reckon

Hav that Goss

last photo looks like something out of Kays Catalogue circa 1981

Micheal Smiley's aka Tyres in Spaced new bike

Sky bossed Stage 2and delivered Cav the win. On Stage 3 for me they did too much work with about 50K to go and perhaps weren't as strong at the end, but Cav did lose Geraint's wheel on a corner and found himself about 2 bikes back with 2 Sky riders leading the Peloton. At that point Cav looked happy to sit on Renshaw's wheel (or else he was having a flashback) and try to nick the win. It actually reminded me of the World Championship ride, where the GB team bossed the race but then got swamped in the final 2k, at which point Cav showed street-smarts and sneaked it.

And he might have done, but for Ferrari. That said Goss may have had too much for him, but Cav would have got top 3 minimum, which would have kept him in the Maglia Rosso, which Goss has now. So whether Cav would have won or not is immaterial, he would have finished high and scored plenty of points in the competition Sky look set up for, since they don't really have a GC rider (honourable mentions to Uran and Thomas).