On travel all day today, and am just plugging in for the first time in 24 hours. The next two weeks are pretty discombobulated (consarn that day job!)... but I doubt we'll miss anything important. I plan to be here live for the ITT tomorrow, if not every stage in week 1.
Anyway, back to the feedbag... I find a lot of the pre-race copy unreadable, just bland quotes about riders promising to do their best, so there's a lot of that I won't get into here. The only collection of talking points I can't resist is BiciRace's. Meanwhile...
- Pez heroically rides the first stage for its preview. All 6.2 km.
- Daily history dose: Pez recalls 1960. Still waiting for that "Giro through the eyes of an obscure anglo" piece, c'mon guys!
- CN is mostly the roundup coverage I can't get motivated to link to, but at least they can tell us what the Chicken thinks. Rasmussen is, like Riis, a Dane-gone-Italian, so he's got an interesting potential home field angle going.
- Speaking of interviews, Bici chats up spring stud Alessandro Ballan, now on holiday.
- Stole this from VeloChimp: a list of web streams, some of which might be showing the Giro. Free. [Confession time, I gave OLN my money yesterday. It's for the good of the Cafe.]
- Sports Illustrated catches up with Lance for a splashy cover story. Is anyone else depressed by the nation's biggest sports mag focusing its cycling coverage on a guy who was last seen in a support car?
- This is cute: three days after we did it, VeloNews looks at the teams. Guess that new interactive editor knows how to surf. Drew already gave them a sound thumping for their CSC comments, two threads down... Not to be outdone, Daily Peloton looks at the teams, four days after we did.
- Eurosport gets Gibo Simoni's betting advice. Hint: he's not touting Cunego. Definitely cultivating a Mozart-Salieri thing...
- Cosmo dresses down Milram for their ludicrous two-old-sprinters strategy.