Tomorrow, it's off to Italy we go for one of the most beautiful races in the world of cycling. The Italian classic departs Milano on the via della Chiesa Rossa and sets off across the plains of Lombardia. The race covers about 100 kilometers of flat terrain, winding its way south to the coast. As the profile shows, this is some kind of flat.

The Passo del Turchino provides the first major obstacle of the day, though as climbs go, the Turchino isn't so difficult. Narrow roads announce the start of the climb, which widens as it climbs through sweeping curves. Near the summit, the pitch steepens, but not enough to cause a selection. A fast descent drops down to the bright light of the Ligurian Coast.

The Passo del Turchino behind them, the riders face a fast, flat stretch of road which runs along the Ligurian Coast and passes through Savona. The course winds its way southwest along the water, before reaching the short, steep Le Mànie climb. La Mànie is narrow and steep, and we can expect some jostling in the field. With over 90 kilometers of racing yet to go, there's no reason for fear. The three Capi, the traditional climbs of the sprinters' classic, follow La Mànie. Mele, Cervo, and Berta: Three's Company, Italian style. The three climbs come close together and are short and steep. Zing go the sprinters' legs.

Not too far to go, now the Real Milano-Sanremo begins. La Cipressa and il Poggio di Sanremo offer the best chances for the would-be breakaway riders. Always a move goes on the Cipressa, while the sprinters' teams try to hold the race together and prevent the climbers throwing their brand of kryptonite into the bunch. A flat, exposed road connects La Cipressa with il Poggio, and often their is at least the hint of a headwind. Few moves survive this perilous crossing. Indeed, Paolo Bettini believed he'd lost the race, when the bunch caught him in sight of il Poggio. Only the urgings of a team-mate led the Cricket to attack again, this time successfully, on the final climb of the day.

Il Poggio di Sanremo is one of cycling's historic spaces. It's short at just 4 kilometers of climbing, but it grows in the telling. Only ten kilometers of racing separate the base of il Poggio from the finish, and if there's going to be a winning move, it will come here. It's a climb as famous for its descent as for its summit, a descent made famous by the crazed antics of riders like Sean Kelly.

The descent turns to flat road and the final 3 kilometers run along the Lungomare Italo Calvino. This is the straight section of road where Fabian Cancellara launched his big escape and where a breakaway will win. Or get nothing. The road turns slightly as the finish approaches. The finish line awaits in the piazzale Carlo Dapporto. Tomorrow, we will see who celebrates victory in the Italian rite of Spring, La Primavera.

Spring has arrived!

It's Milano-Sanremo Friday! I have a course post on the way. And there's lots of news circulating around the internets. Consider this thread the place for all Milano-Sanremo news.

I'll start with two tidbits:

Lance Armstrong, who rode Milano-Sanremo last year, will not take the start tomorrow. His reason? Acute gastro-intestinal distress. The stomach virus, always the bestest of excuses.

Hennie Kuiper, meanwhile, has picked Lars Boom of Rabobank as tomorrow's winner. Bold call, since Boom will ride La Primavera for the first time tomorrow.

In slightly un-related news - or at least, news unrelated to Milano-Sanremo, Heinrich Haussler will miss the Spring Classics due to his knee injury. Bah knee injuries! Hopefully, Barbie will be back in action before too long!

Got news? Post it up!

Today brings the news that Alejandro Valverde has vowed to prove his innocence after TAS-CAS ruled to uphold the Italian sanction banning him from competition. Well, good luck with that Alejandro. Valverde can still appeal the arbitration court's decision in Swiss civil court.

Meanwhile, from the upcoming attractions file, I will have a story (or possibly two) on the full TAS decision. Watch for it on Monday. The full decision has some intriguing bits to it, like say, the part where the UCI asked TAS to rule all of Valverde's results since May 2004 forfeit. Oh my! TAS also goes to town on the Spanish judicial ruling that attempted to declare the Puerto evidence off-limits for additional cases. Good times all around. Anyway, that thing is coming Monday. Doping decisions just aren't a Friday sort of deal, especially not the Friday before Milano-Sanremo.

Me, I'd rather write about Milano-Sanremo. So I'm going to.

So he tells de Telegraaf. He wants to stay with Rabo, though it's too soon to say if the interest is mutual.

[update] OK, we already knew the 2011 part, my bad. I think the story was about wanting to come back to Rabo, but at this point you should probably ignore me.

Milano-Sanremo defies prediction. It's the sprinters' classic, but that hardly helps narrow down the possibilities. Especially since it's not always the sprinters' classic. Just ask Fabian Cancellara, who won with a 2 kilometer escape not too long ago. This year's race repeats the finish of the past two years along the Lungomare Italo Calvino. So someone out there - Philippe Gilbert, perhaps? - could repeat Cancellara's feat. At a loss to predict the outcome of this year's edition of La Primavera, I turned to that infallible oracle, the Magic Eight Ball.

Will we see a first-time winner at La Primavera?
Magic Eight Ball says: It is decidely so.
Alrighty then.

Will this year's Milano-Sanremo end in a sprint?
Magic Eight Ball says: Better not tell you now.
Quite the tease, this Magic Eight Ball.

Let's see what the Magic Eight Ball has to say about the favorites.

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The Countdown is pleased to take a brief respite from the grey skies of our native Flanders for a holiday of basking in the sunshine on the Italian Riviera. Yes, it's MSR week, where we put mud and cold behind us for a beauty of a more... obvious sort. With temperatures in the upper 50s, it's time to shed the wool layers and black socks, lay out on the beach for some vitamin D replenishment, and generally dry out. Should be a lovely week...

3. Everyone Else Will Win

With Tom Boonen firmly installed (cough) as the favorite to win Milano-Sanremo, the Man from Mol is fighting back with every bag of sand he has, telling Sporza:

Daniele Bennati is the main favorite for me. Maybe not the most likely name, but he is good at driving, like his Liquigas team. Perhaps Liquigas drives the same tactics as us: a long, hard race and a sprint with a depleted group in Sanremo.

Is it me or does he sound a bit unpersuaded by his own words? Like a guy who feels unbelievably confident but has to go through the motions of talking down his chances? Maybe it's a language translation thing.

[Speaking of translations, my favorite Dutch word of the week is "klopt," as in, "Boasson Hagen klopt Petacchi in massesprint." Google tells me it literally means "true" but it translates to "beats" in context. It also sounds exactly like what happens when you hit someone in the helmet with a wooden shoe -- onomatopoeia that also works as a metaphor for vanquishing an enemy. Want me to use it in a sentence? Here goes: I will klopt Ursula in the VDS this week, mark my, um, words.]

Anyway, Bennati thinks Freire will win. Freire is picking Petacchi. Petacchi picks Allan Davis. Davis has tabbed Hushovd as a "sure thing." Hushovd says the pressure is all on Farrar. Farrar thinks Cavendish has another trick up his sleeve. And Cav is picking... OK, himself. Hey, it's worked before. Oh, and Bwin has installed as the favorite... Andre Greipel. Who isn't on the startlist. Can I get a bet down there?

2. Meanwhile, Back on the Cobbles...

What, there's an actual cobbled race today? That would be Nokere-Koerse, which loops around Greater Nokere for a few hours. The best description you'll likely find in English is here. Bottom line: it tends to finish in a sprint, despite the line being at the top of the Nokereberg, a 350-meter cobbled hill in the 5% incline range. Along with Sunday's Ronde van het Groene Hart, Nokere-Koerse is a great opportunity for smaller teams or riders on the big squads who weren't chosen for the Italian Vacation to make a name for themselves before every last classics guy on the planet descends on Brussels Airport sometime Sunday afternoon. In short, for the guys at these two races, this is a big deal.

The races themselves don't seem much alike; Nokere-Koerse dates back to 1944 (huh?) and runs the Vlaamse Ardennen while the Green Heart Course kicked off in 2007 and rides around the flat Holland provinces. But spring racing is never easy, and weather or strategy can turn either one into a relatively hard or, um, less hard day in the saddle. So bike racers will race their bikes in interesting ways... but one way would make this even more interesting: if someone pulled off the Forgotten Double. With only three years in common it hasn't happened yet, but Wouter Weylandt won both a year apart. He's not here, so it's up to someone else. Like Jens Keukeleire. Full startlist here. Neither RTBF nor Sporza show signs of live video. Bummer... 

1. Locked and Loaded

El Pistolero himself, Alberto Contador, will set foot in Belgium with the intent to race his bicycle, as he apparently has committed to riding La Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. He has ditched the Vuelta a Pais Vasco and Volta a Catalunya in order to ride the Classics this year, for the first time since 2007. He will also ride the Criterium International/Jens Voigt Invitational, facing Lance Armstrong in a race for the first time since the 2005 Tour. It's been a while since a Tour winner did something in the Ardennes, but sure would make for good fun.

Cuddles' Corner!

"Yesterday Edvald Boasson Hagen won a stage of Tirreno Adriatico and celebrated by flapping his arms, alternating left and right, in a shameful, terrible display. Obviously this guy is going to win more than his share of races, so something must be done about this. Can the Podium Cafe solve his problem and design a victory salute for the Lillehammer Lightning?"

I don't have a great deal to say about Tirreno-Adriatico, since it's a training event and since Gavia won Italy in the custody battle. Except this: is there another stage race in the world where the stages overshadow the overall? Le Due Mari features some really excellent stage battles... and I couldn't care less about Garzelli versus Scarponi. No time trial, smallish climbs (the race's hallmark, really), and again, it's a training race, except to the guys at the head of the field coming into the finishing town. Then it was truly game on.

Which is why today's sprint seemed so important. The sprinting crowd was very much in effect at T-A, and yet there had only been a couple true sprint finishes before today, where a bunch gallop was a virtual lock: long, flat run-in, sprinters getting tired of missing out on the action, seventh day of cold, wet racing which would tend to diminish the mental and physical state of someone looking to try a long solo effort. It was business time.

Now, my shtick (several years running) on Milano-Sanremo is that anyone can win, in a variety of ways. The climbers can attack on the Cipressa or more likely the Poggio. The all-rounders can sneak away on the descent into San Remo. Italy breeds a whole separate class of riders -- climbers who can sprint -- seemingly engineered for this terrain. Then there's the effect of 300km in the legs, which can scramble the conventional wisdom.

But for now, let's put aside the Garzellis and Pozzatos and focus for now on sizing up the sprinting peloton for the main course, La Primavera.

Edvald Boasson Hagen, Sky

Form Indicator: Well, he just dusted Alessandro Petacchi in Italy on a nice, flat run-in. Other than beating Mark Cavendish in the Madison or Shaun White in the halfpipe, I don't know what he has left to prove.

Team: The Silverbacks were in charge today, beating Lampre and Liquigas to the front of the bunch. Surely this made all the difference: Petacchi had to come around (and couldn't), Farrar got boxed in, and I'd have to rewind the tape to figure out where Bennati disappeared to. The lack of a Columbia presence at the front has thrown the pack into chaos, and Sky have as decent a chance to fill the vacuum and establish some order as the next team. Barry, Sutton, Henderson and Flecha (if he's not freelancing) are all cool-handed veterans.

Obstacle: Boasson Hagen hasn't done a 300km race as the leader of a pro team. I'm sure he can survive, as he did last year in service of Cavendish, but will he have the same blinding speed after that distance? Will he manage to fight to the front after the long ride and the Capes and Cipressa and Poggio?

Survey Says? Odds-on favorite right now. By Friday he will have been declared the winner in advance. Eddy is saying he's not as sure. Neither am I.

Carry on...

Continue reading this post »

It must be Milano-Sanremo Week.

Lars Boom seems to think so, anyway.

It is nice weather on the poggio. - http://moby.to/vwa3f8
about 1 hours ago via Mobypicture

Basta with this rain and snow!