[Closed] Giro d'Italia 2022 thread (incl velogames) CONTAINS SPOILERS

Is it that time already?

Bit disappointed Pidcock isn't racing (after he'd said he was gonna have a pop at GC), but yeah Carapaz is the safer bet and appears to be the favourite.

Simon Yates and Almeida also podium contenders - but we'll all be rooting for Tommy D on his comeback, surely?

SO many names - What about Jai Hindley who finished second to Tao a couple of years ago? Great racer but I can't even fit him in my team!

Lots of illness KOing riders:
Chavez*, Geoghagen-Hart and a few others have pulled out entirely due to illness.
Pidcock has some sort of mystery ongoing stomach problem.
Think Hindley has been sick recently and is going to be a bit undercooked. Bora have an interesting squad with him, Kelderman, Buchmann, Kamna. Or possibly they all fall away on the same stage late in week 2.

Don't really fancy Dumoulin with the lack of ITT - and what is there is climber friendly. Not sure he has his best climbing legs back yet, would love to be wrong.

Carapaz, Yates, Almeida the bookies favourites. Seems about right.

*Still seems to be on velogames and bookies

Pidcock is racing MTB at Albstadt and Nove Mesto instead of the Giro. Expect to see him at the TDF though.

I foresee plenty of last minute team changes for me

I have used my usual random selector... No doubt I will romp to victory once again 🤔😳

Can i ask, is it worth the subscription to Discover+ to watch this or is there a better option?

Thanks!

Discovery used the same coverage/cometary team as GCN, but GCN have no ad breaks. I suppose it depends if Discovery offers coverage of other stuff you want to watch. £40 for a years GCN is pretty good value, we've already watched all the spring classics and so on

Thanks nbt!

Thanks @nbt, entered.

Richie Porte to snatch another GT podium and go out on a relative high.

You heard it here first.

It's on Quest+1 which is channel 70 on my box.

I take it that it's not being televised on ITV then??

No, nothing on itv for this. Gcn, Discovery/eurosport, or as above Quest for highlights in the uk

Morning bump, get your teams in to the mini leagues folks

In!! Now to await total failure again 😂

Will have to sit down tonight and concentrate on my team. Trying not to just pick favourites such as Thomas De Gendt, but try and get a decent team booked in this time. I usually lose at least one rider in the first couple of days.

Thanks nbt.

Is it a pick a team and stick with it or can you change it every day?

you can change up to the deadline, then it's fixed. Deadline is 12.30 CEST (13.30 uk time) Friday

https://twitter.com/procycletrumps/status/1521830024856457222
I got Bardet first time so I'm not tryng again else I'll jinx him

and for anyone still struggling to pick a team:
https://thepelotonian.com/2022/05/03/velogames-preview-italy-2022/

Thursday bump. You have till 13.30 friday to finalise your team. I've made dizens of changes already

Evening bump

No Pidcock 😔

MOrning bump. You have about 5 hours left to get a team set up as I type this. You can join the league later if you want but the team must be finalised and entered by 13.30 BST

OOOPS! I got my date maths wrong, the deadline is 11.30 BST, I added an hour instead of subtracting

but while I'm here - Stage 1 preview

https://inrng.com/2022/05/giro-stage-1-preview-visegrad/

As far as GC favourites go, I'm really interested to see Carapaz vs Yates. They're both a bit inconsistent but also both really opportunistic so it could be a really good race.

Today's stage looks interesting. Most pundits putting MvdP as the favourite so it's either going to be cool watching him boss it or interesting to see how others beat him. I think I'd like to see Caleb Ewan win.

Interesting the parcours this year, a lot of climbing, but very little over 2000m, so if anything this will benefit Yates, especially as little TT'ing as well.

S4C seem to be showing it live in the afternoons with a roundup in the evening.
It's in Welsh obviously but the racing is in the universal language of the peloton maaaaan! 🙂

Just spotted that Biniam Girmay is racing so have changed my mind. He’s my fave for today

Cracking finish, bit gutted Girmay didn't win even though I am a MVdP fanboy.

Nice opener!

Caleb Ewan seems to be developing "Geraint syndrome" and an inability to stay upright in Grand Tours.. after Tour de France last year, he gave it is a good crack though. MvdP came through like a rocket though, especially when you look at his positioning half way up final climb

Good stage but why are they in Budapest? It’s not even got a border with Italy

Good stage but why are they in Budapest? It’s not even got a border with Italy

Nor did Ireland, the Netherlands or Israel.

Good stage but why are they in Budapest?

If I had to take a guess, I would say sportswashing and lots of money.

Just a wee note to say that MvdP came 5th in the TT at the Tour last year having only raced about 3 TTs as a pro. Won't be surprised if he gets quite a good result today.

Good stage but why are they in Budapest?

Well it was supposed to start there in 2020 but Covid stopped that. Stephen Roche who won the Giro in 1987 now lives in Hungary so I'm assuming he had something to do with it.

Another entertaining day, not normally that bothered about ITT's but I think the velogames team has definitely added a bit of spice.

That was an absolutely storming ride from Ben Tulett. Phenomenal.

Won’t be surprised if he gets quite a good result today.

Second is a bit shit for him isn't it 🤪🤪

Well, MvdP did ok I guess. I've grown used to the fact that Simon Yates is a decent TTer but certainly didn't expect him to melt everyone's faces off. Still lots of people close on GC, and reassuring to see that Guillame Martin has lost some time that he'll get back in a breakaway.

Here's inrng's preview for today: https://inrng.com/2022/05/giro-stage-3-preview-balaton/

Each of the favourites has a good story if they win so it's hard to pick a fave for me.

Jan Tratnik abandons. First of my team to fall.

Feel for you YoK he was one of my quiet hopes. Suspect I shall remain propping up the bottom of the STW league 😅

Afterburners on...... and boom!

What can you say?

Still got it!

Wow I thought he had gone far too soon, bloody good win that.
I like Orla's outfit today too 🤪

I thought she was heading straight out as a dancer of debatable reputation

Orla's outfits are legendary, they need a FB feed on their own. You're hosting a cycling show, but going straight to the nightclub after...... what do you wear?

Cav is my man crush and I don't mind admitting it.

The year is 2054. 'Surely Cav is past his best now' say the pundits as he wins his 350th grand tour stage.

Any channel showing it without Hatch commentary?

>Any channel showing it without Hatch commentary?
S4C, with Peredur ap Gwynedd

Missed the first three stages and didn't hit record 😭

Where's best for write ups? I think my usual go-to (Cyclingnews I think) is now paywalled for me...

Ta

>Missed the first three stages and didn’t hit record 😭

This article suggests you can watch the highglight shows on quest / discovery + for free by signing up

Thanks nbt 👍

Note, the S4C coverage is welsh language commentary...

On another note - Lol

https://twitter.com/DanDeakins/status/1523335234380439552

This transfer is crazy.

I don't think the cycling is in the free catch up. That's just the dregs of an already awful package @nbt @13thfloormonk

This transfer is crazy.

didn't give it a second thought until I looked, 1800 odd km and 22 hours of driving, bit of a logistical nightmare that

Riders are flying, but someone will have to drive the buses and team trucks. I'd imagine they'd have set off yesterday

@13thfloormonk

CyclingTips paywall can be overcome by using in cognito on Chrome. There is also an offer on for a year's membership for $9.99 running until the end of today (auto-renews at $40)

Re: transfers, tour of Hungary starts on Wednesday so perhaps teams with sufficient number of buses can leave a bus and teams cars in Hungary and have more waiting in Sicily.

Not sure if pro riders use several 'copies' of the same bike or have a proper A bike and don't really like using the back up. Either way guess some poor sods are driving to Sicily.

Not sure if pro riders use several ‘copies’ of the same bike

will depend on the team budget I would have thought,

Stage 4 Avola - Mount Etna

https://inrng.com/2022/05/giro-stage-4-preview-etna/#more-40685

Think the burden of taking pink too early might lead to something of a stalemate amongst GC contenders. One for the opportunists.

Fascinating thread on the 2002 Giro here from a fairly notorious Twitter source.
https://twitter.com/oufeh/status/1523937827234492416?s=21&t=KqpAateHpJ0E8xjUOOcGZA

So I am paying for Euro/discovery...why is there no commentary?

Miguel Angel Lopez has climbed off, left hip injury apparently 🙁

Etna!

Any channel showing it without Hatch commentary?

He's actually not too bad, they rotate the commentators a bit on EuroSport now so you don't have to sit through 6hrs of the same guy.
Robbie McEwen is a co-commentator at the moment, he's good.

Edit: Sean Kelly is maakin de cal-cul-aation about time gaps now.

This is shaping up to be a goodun. Taaramae, in my dream team, looking strong.

Nibali pops!

Kiss of bloody death right there...

I've had two winners and a second and a third yet am something like 8,000th in the league 😳

So ....

Plenty of the big names have either quit or have fallen away from GC on the first mountain stage... Bit disappointing.

Plenty of racing left still to come...

Please let 'Yatesy' be ok. It looked as though he had a knee injury, but I didn't see the crash.

Any channel showing it without Hatch commentary?

He’s actually not too bad

He's fine IMO, but having come back to watching road racing after a bit of a break, I've notice he's got more lyrical and Kirby-esque. Might not be to everyone's taste.

Plenty of the big names have either quit or have fallen away from GC on the first mountain stage… Bit disappointing.

It's looking quite interesting now with some good climbers holding holding a solid lead over the favourites. I suspect Ineos were working to limit the losses yesterday, rather than to go for the stage.

It looked as though he had a knee injury, but I didn’t see the crash.

It looked like a fairly slow coming together of several riders in a narrow street. I'm not sure Yates actually went down. Maybe he just knocked his knee.

I suspect Ineos were working to limit the losses yesterday, rather than to go for the stage.

Ineos seemed to be riding on the front for little actual purpose. Weird. They had no particular reason to be there but the whole team was setting tempo on the front of the peloton, it just seemed like burning energy for little actual reward. At one point Carapaz had to do a fair chunk of work to get back to the front - not sure if he had a mechanical or just went to the team car or what but he was way down in the field for a while before clawing back to the front.

there was a suggestion that they were pushing the pace to see how Yates would respond given his pparent knee issues.

"Quite well" would seem to be the answer

I hear Richie Porte was transferred off the mountain by helicopter. Is he the Ineos leader now?

yeh yeh racing, but the topic of the day has to be - Orla's socks. And high heels. WTAF?

Snoozefest with a good sprint yesterday. Fast-forwarded to the last 5km, then watched Robbie McEwan and Adam Blythe do the sprint analysis on the Breakaway show which is always interesting.

Apparently if you can knock out about 220W for 5 hours you could have finished in the bunch yesterday: https://cyclingtips.com/2022/05/by-the-numbers-just-how-easy-was-the-giros-stage-6-snoozefest/

Hilly, probable breakaway stage today.

https://inrng.com/2022/05/giro-stage-7-preview-potenza/