A review of the Giro in Belgium
Published by Halverde on 5/10/2006 at 13:29.
We've not actually written anything about the Giro so far, and so -- in keeping with our offbeat image -- we've decided to discuss it on the one day nothing is taking place. We actually considered waiting until tomorrow and writing a review of the rest day, but we think that we probably won't be able to get away with things like that until we've got at least a handful of loyal readers who'll laugh at whatever rubbish we put on here.
Savoldelli won stage one, which is BAD. He'll probably win the whole Giro now, and keep up his modest FACADE whilst he's at it just so we feel guilty about badmouthing him on here all the time. We've noticed that Basso has been looking incredibly troubled throughout the whole race so far -- maybe he's read the nasty things we wrote about him? It's ok Ivan, beat that awful Salvoldelli guy and we'll love you as much as we love Valverde. Stages two and four were rubbish, that Australian fella won.
Stage three was the most enjoyable by far, and not just because most of the coverage was taken up with showing us fat Belgians holding dogs because the motorcycle and helicopter cameras weren't working. It was one of those stages that remind us how much better the Giro is than either of the other two Grand Tours -- where the Tour and Vuelta have flat, mountain, or time-trial stages, the Giro offered us a new setting: "challenging". The "challenging" setting features Beglium, rain and cobbles, but not quite enough Belgium, rain and cobbles to make it into a Northern Classic. We'd call it 10% of a Northern Classic, which is still fairly Classic-y. Petacchi rode 50Km on a shattered kneecap, only to discover that he'd been shown up by Christophe Brandt who'd finished 26th on the final climb with a broken arm.
Because we're not proper cycling journalists like Cycle Sport, we haven't quite worked out how to quantify excitement down into a number between one and ten. But we are reasonably versed in saying things are better than other things, so we've decided that so far the Giro 06 has been...
Better than: Manchester Regional Track League
Worse than: Criterium International
Must do better. Unless you want to lose our support, you MUST make them ride over a dirt track with sections at 25% within the next fourteen days.
Savoldelli won stage one, which is BAD. He'll probably win the whole Giro now, and keep up his modest FACADE whilst he's at it just so we feel guilty about badmouthing him on here all the time. We've noticed that Basso has been looking incredibly troubled throughout the whole race so far -- maybe he's read the nasty things we wrote about him? It's ok Ivan, beat that awful Salvoldelli guy and we'll love you as much as we love Valverde. Stages two and four were rubbish, that Australian fella won.
Stage three was the most enjoyable by far, and not just because most of the coverage was taken up with showing us fat Belgians holding dogs because the motorcycle and helicopter cameras weren't working. It was one of those stages that remind us how much better the Giro is than either of the other two Grand Tours -- where the Tour and Vuelta have flat, mountain, or time-trial stages, the Giro offered us a new setting: "challenging". The "challenging" setting features Beglium, rain and cobbles, but not quite enough Belgium, rain and cobbles to make it into a Northern Classic. We'd call it 10% of a Northern Classic, which is still fairly Classic-y. Petacchi rode 50Km on a shattered kneecap, only to discover that he'd been shown up by Christophe Brandt who'd finished 26th on the final climb with a broken arm.
Because we're not proper cycling journalists like Cycle Sport, we haven't quite worked out how to quantify excitement down into a number between one and ten. But we are reasonably versed in saying things are better than other things, so we've decided that so far the Giro 06 has been...
Better than: Manchester Regional Track League
Worse than: Criterium International
Must do better. Unless you want to lose our support, you MUST make them ride over a dirt track with sections at 25% within the next fourteen days.
