Another day completely on the road, to be followed by a rest day. I guess the same could be said of the Giro... I hope to be live-blogging the ITT Thursday morning, provided Sage doesn't drag me into Manhattan too early.
Today's stage was hoped for some action among the main movers, but apparently they're all laying low, for once. Instead, Franco Pellizotti -- who has a history of making some moves at the Giro, I'm told -- got around Axel Merckx, who again narrowly missed in his quest for a stage win at a grand tour. Pellizotti moves up to fourth overall, raising some questions in the media if his Liquigas team should forget about Danilo DiLuca and turn its efforts over to helping Pellizotti. This is utter nonsense, of course, but then plan A ain't looking so hot either, so I guess it's worth asking.
- Stage coverage, courtesy of the usuals: CyclingNews, or maybe Pez, or of course Bicirace.
- Luis Perez of continental Andalusia won Stage 1 of the Catalunya in a long break.
Notes and links flowing, on the flip:
Rest Day No. 2 will no doubt bring us some good reading, with a slew of comments from the contenders concerning Thursday's flat 50km time trial, as well as the prospects for the remainder of the race. I'll tackle this in the a.m., but we are getting a preview of the main themes:
- Basso feels great;
- Savoldelli needs a change of scenery for his allergies to clear up;
- DiLuca is confident, for no reason I can discern;
- Cunego is quietly confident... that he can beat Simoni.
Oh, and they finished surfacing the Plan de Corones, or will have in a few days. As for the other news:
- Pez relives Stage 7, which looks a lot better through their eyes, as always.
- One of VeloNews' remaining readers reports on the Corones, with pictures. Should a magazine be embarassed when it gets scooped by its readers? Just asking. Anyway, nice work, Igor Tavella, whoever you are.