Ah, the calm before the storm. I'm plum out of Tour preview thoughts for the moment. Hopefully the race will start soon. This is a good time to welcome all new members and lurkers, as well as Tour-only Cycling fans. It's a great month, no matter how you look at it. Meanwhilst...

First, a special Podium Cafe welcome (back) to ProCycleGear.com, a returning sponsor from last year. I know it's MSM behavior to talk up a sponsor, but I checked back in with them during the Giro and was astounded at some of the kits they had in stock. Doesn't hurt that their prices easily beat my local shop. Check them out...

Today is closing time for the Tour de France Virtual Directeur Sportif competition... new entries must be received by NOON TODAY. If you've entered, check your email inbox sometime before Friday, in case I need corrections from you. If you're wondering, we've had a lot of entries. UPDATE: and we're out!

Some 36 people signed up for the first-ever Podium Cafe Tour de France Quick Challenge. Check out the list.

Speaking of contests, Versus emailed me about some of the goodies you'll be hearing about non-stop for the next month:

• They'll be running a sweepstakes all month where you can win a SAAB, or if you're even luckier a Cervelo SLC-SL.
• They're also running a fantasy Tour contest called the Kenda Challenge. The link isn't working yet; I think the launch has been delayed while their lawyers look into how badly they ripped off the Virtual DS.
• Finally, there's the SAAB Widget, the coolest idea of the three, where you can predict -- and then check -- the HR, wattage, and other real-time stats of several riders.

Meanwhile, in other big media news, Cycling.TV has gone BETA. I haven't had time to check it out, and there was some chatter here about potential login issues, though there have been some pleasant surprises as well. Send in your comments here.

Finally, I've taken to posting nonsense in the Cafe Happy Hour section without notice. Some things are demeaning to our Front Page... and yet somehow still worth posting.

Oh, and a poll...

Poll

How much advance notice would Vyatchislav Ekimov need, right now, to ride in and finish the Tour de France?

• None
• Up to two weeks
• Up to a month
• More than a month

  127 votes | Results

Slowly but surely the need for Feedbags is being overcome by the much-appreciated submissions from hither and yon, particularly the Gossip Column. So think of this as more of a weekly catch-all for anything so utterly unimportant that it hasn't been blogged about yet.

Thought of the day: Is Fabian Cancellara the reason there's no prologue? Le Tour don't like reruns, and nothing could be more certain than the likelihood of a week of Cancellara in yellow, if they stuck by the usual prologue and flat stages opening. The clear message of an opening road stage is that they want a lot of guys to have a shot at the first maillot jaune. Don't be shocked if they skip the prologue more than once in the next decade. Of course, a mid-range, flat ITT on day 4 will probably put Tony Spartacus in yellow anyway...

Email of the day: Not all spam is bad. I open a fair amount of it, just because you never know who's emailing the Podium Cafe, or for what reason. [Someone in Ougadougou? Is this about the Tour of Burkina Faso? You think I'm kidding.] So when I got an email from Banesto today, complete with a subject line in Spanish, I opened it without a moment's hesitation. Was Pedro Delgado reaching out to me? Did I win a retro-90s jersey or something? Not exactly: "Banesto pide vuestra colaboracion en actualizacion de claves para evitar el phishing!" Something about spam. Still, I'm saving it.

Fair is Fair: Apparently Shimano is demo'ing its new DuraAce gruppo, hot on the heels of bitter rival Campy and its Super Record rollout. I'm a Campy snob, and anyway I can count on Mr. Van P to explain the ins and outs. But I felt an obligation to acknowledge the new DA, after posting giant pictures of the Record derailleur on the front page.

h/t Drew: Pez also has a review of SRAM RED, which deserves equal ink, for sure.

LPR signees? La Gazzetta says Davide Rebellin is on the verge of "signing with LPR-Ballan for 2009." Rebellin's movement makes sense. What doesn't make sense is the mention of Ballan... is it possible Alessandro Ballan is going over too? Nope, that's just their secondary sponsor, makers of garage doors. Whew!

Il Tricolore: Mention has already been made of the absentees from Sunday's Championships of Italy, but here's la Gazzetta's shortlist of favorites: Riccò, Garzelli, Cunego, Gasparotto and Reb.

Phil and Paul: Get reacquainted with two voices you'll be hearing at home enough to wonder if you need to set a couple more places for dinner. Pez talks with the duo at the Versus press conference (do people attend these things? really?), and the VS site has the annual pre-Tour essay from Phil. He still wants Astana around, and actually admits to being a friend of Pat McQuaid. McQuaid has friends??

Apologies to the Virtual Musette, but it's time for the Feedbag to go native... [Oh, and credit to Sui Juris for my classy new column icon!]

Best news of the day: Pez is back online! Here at the Cafe we've been lucky to limit our one major outage to hours, not days, so I truly appreciate what a long week it's been for one of Cycling's most entertaining institutions. Don't miss their review of Dura Ace 2009, where Japan's gift to Cycling looks more like Record than ever!

No shortage of folks professed wonderment at Alejandro Valverde's ITT win yesterday, along the lines of "where did he pull that from?" Cycling Weekly tries to answer the question.

VN gives some details on the proposed Sochi Tour, set to make its debut in May, 2009. Another calendar matter: there will be no Pro Tour grand finale event for '08, as had been contemplated, but the UCI are still plotting something for '09.

Boonen-Gate updates: The headline at Tom's website reads Tom Apologizes, and you can get the whole statement, along with a note that the Quick Step team has re-upped with its title sponsor and its marquee rider for three more years. His Mom's Blog hasn't been updated in a month, but her most recent entry continues the subtext of the entire blog: that their lives are too stressful. Not to make excuses, but I suspect that if the "why Tom?" is ever answered, it will be attributed to their rather abnormal lives.

Finally, don't forget that the 2008 Tour de France Virtual Directeur Sportif Competition is open for business. Deadline (July 2) is still nearly three weeks away, so this is hardly an urgent reminder.

The Virtual Directeur Sportif has been updated for the Giro-only competition, and Vamos Alejandro continues to kick ass. However, the standings right now are pretty misleading, since the top score is 1192 points, and the final day will see points awarded by the thousands. Vamos is riding the stage wave of Sella and Bennati, with assistance from Pellizotti... but only Save Ferris! has a chance of a lucrative GC placing. So it's not over, by a longshot.

VDS MVP... gonna be a tough one. Usually it defaults to the winner, and the points have been set up that way. But if Contador hangs on with no stage wins and only a few days' worth of minor points, he may not be the best guy to have. A better bet (not to toot my own horn, but...) may be Riccardo Riccò: he's got the white jersey sewn up; will finish anywhere from first to third on points, and might steal the maglia rosa or at least a podium in the process as well. My guess is he'll fall just short on the latter score, but with stage wins and other jerseys, he'll be as valuable as the overall winner. Sella, of course, has a lock on MVP on a cost-benefit basis.

Cycling Weekly writes a Podium Cafe-style list of predictions column... so I don't have to. Personally I love it when big media types put their forecasts into print... and re-run the old ones to show how off they were. Chapeau!

Don't miss maglia nera Markus Eichler's Diary over at CN. He's pretty funny and interesting.

Interesting interview over at VN: Slipstream Chairman Doug Ellis. Not often you hear from management.

Usual fun coverage over at the Gazzetta roundup (English page), including DiLuca identifying the location of his next attack, and Alberto Contador getting drunk:

Pez bums around the Dolomites, so you don't have to.

Ricco, meanwhile, is asking the media to ask Simoni for help in the climbing stages. Former teammates doesn't always equate to allliances on the road. Message to DiLuca: Pellizotti won't help you for free either.

If I could wave my hand and arrange the GC top 10 heading into the final-day's time trial to Milan, here's how it would go:

1. Riccardo Riccò
2. Emanuele Sella, at 0.10
3. Danilo DiLuca, at 0.15
4. Domenico Pozzovivo, at 0.16
5. Jurgen Van Den Broeck, at 0.20
6. Franco Pellizotti, at 0.22
7. Gilberto Simoni, at 0.26
8. Denis Menchov, at 0.45
9. Alberto Contador, at 0.52
10. Marzio Bruseghin, at 1.01

With our internal doodsmak-ing and the Dopinator in full operation today, it's time to find something fun or happy or, well hell, something besides doping to discuss.

Today's Italian word of the day is... caduta

   
Not having fun yet? I didn't think so. Perhaps a visit to the Cobra website will put your concerns over the mental state of Italy's hottest young talent?

Probably not... a better bet would be to check in on the progress of Wenatchee, Washington's Tyler Farrar as he prepares for the Tour.

Back to the Giro... Nobody can inject more drama into a pancake-flat stage like tomorrow's run to Carpi than Mauro Facoltosi:

Short and easy, the fraction of Carpi also present a final full of emotions, as outlined in the land of great sporting passions which is the Modena. It still lambiranno establishments of Ferrari and will visit the historic Military Academy of Modena, the first to lead in the beautiful Piazza dei Martiri di Carpi, which will welcome the runners with his jumping pavé will be the only real difficulty of a completely flat stage.

Go here for the longer version in Italian, or go below the fold for the Google Translations version.

Continue reading this post »

I picked a rather eventful morning to sleep in, it seems: feeds crashing, bikes airborne, and no shortage of nits to pick with the course. All that, and the first successful breakaway of the Giro. Not too shabby!

First item: apparently Cycling.TV has lost the feed just before the finish two days running now. I experienced this firsthand yesterday but managed to jump over to RAI in time for the conclusion. Today I missed the stage, but apparently it happened again. We have gripe sessions here from time to time about tech issues with their coverage. Mostly they're infrequent, and with a few exceptions most of us who rely on their service have little trouble. But the dropped feeds... that's bad. Apparently our reputation for, um, free speech has caught their attention, and Cycling.TV parks someone on the live feeds everyday. Today's poor guy mentioned a couple things of interest, namely that he's sent around some email internally about the problem -- sounds like they need a wake-up call -- and that the site will be upgraded in some unspecified way next month. Anyway, it's been a frustrating couple of days, but I think we've let Cycling.TV know that the problems cannot continue, and I think at least some of the people there agree. So we'll see where this is headed. For anyone who wants to continue this topic, Crashdan has started a thread in the FanPosts section.

Frustration was the name of the game on the road as well, as David Millar of Slipstream submitted his entry for admission to the Bike Toss Hall of Fame, thanks to a broken chain in the last KM of a day-long, successful group escape. His form is outstanding:

[update] Sporza has it on video. I can't find any clips of Riccardo Ricco's entry (help!) Here's Riccardo Ricco's tepid version... but compared to the standard by which all bike tosses are measured, Millar's is pretty solid.

1997 Tour de France, stage 20 (via SmithersMpls)

Then there are the endless transfers, the subject of frustration to the various traveling caravans, from the riders to the journos. There is a great story on Pez today where Richard introduces us to an important metric: the F-Bomb Quotient. Probably not new to the journalists who've been reluctantly covering the Giro for the better part of a century. One additional onion in the ointment, not considered in my earlier analysis of the transfers, is traffic. It's one thing to say a 130km transfer up the Tyrrhenian coast sounds acceptable; it's another if you have to wait in traffic for three hours before even getting rolling. Apparently the organizers aren't creating getaways for the teams, and the highway crews of southern Italy aren't especially interested in the presence of the Giro either. Welcome to southern Italy.

[update] Things could be worse: they could still be on Sicily. Apparently that lovely volcano the peloton traversed on Monday is erupting.

This isn't a proper feedbag, since I've been out of the loop all day and am not feeling very well informed, but I have discovered a few nuggets.

• Daniele Bennati's win today was his first ever stage of the Giro, largely because he'd never ridden it before. For whatever reason, his former employer Lampre didn't send him, and I'll hazard a guess that with Damiano Cunego in the fold they simply didn't want to bring a sprinters' squad the last couple years. Even Napolitano was left off in 2006.
• Weather all over the Boot Tuesday looks like crap for the foreseeable future. Somehow I doubt whatever afflicts the Sicilian tarmac isn't going to be much better in Calabria. Hopefully there won't be any surprises for the peloton, and carnage will be at a minimum.
• The finish might not be a problem, at least. Granted, my information comes via Sherlock, but the finishing straight is on the Lungomare, the road along the beach, rather than in the town center. Pazzo hasn't launched a Giro stage before, but Catanzaro is hosting the finish for the sixth time ('30, '54, '65, '72/Merckx!, '96). 
• If you're watching this stage and have kids, you shouldn't miss Strega Nona, a tale of life in Calabria. Just sayin.

• Over at the Gazzetta, they've published the Start Order for tomorrow's team time trial.
• Usual pre-race chatter there: DiLuca says he's got his eye on Kloden primarily. Handicapping for the TTT focuses on Slipstream, High Road, CSC and Astana.
• VeloNews is on fire today: regarding Soler, the sandbagging continues. They also have an awfully familiar-looking assessment of the startlist. Professor Wilcockson is touting Matt Lloyd to do something.
• In the CN notes, CSC reveals its plan: defend the white jersey!
• Some official stuff: this sponsor list is a handy way to figure out all the competitions. Apart from the four jerseys (leader, climber, points, youth) there's the stage winner, deliciously sponsored by Parmeggiana Reggiana. There's also the Fast Team, Super Team, and GP Combattivitta. Apparently the honor for the last-placed rider is still an unofficial matter. Also, if you want to buy your kid a jacket for $100, the Giro Fashion Store is for you!