Why did that suck?  Stage was incredible.

I love Nibbles.  Him and Cancellara are the best.  Alway attacking.  When I find out in 5 years that they are both dopers I think I will actually get upset.  I like them.

I also like Petey (Sagan).  Again, when he too is outed as a doper it will be a shame.

Both days were great to watch , inspired riding , but I couldn't help thing Testosterone patch 

fucking legend

https://youtu.be/xsZkxJm8djA

Astana rode like a class act throughout

John, nice call on the sprint.

The Giro is the spaghetti western of Grand Tours.
Once Upon a Time in the Dolomites.

V I N C E N Z O !  !  !

Most beautiful Giro that I remember

GiacomoVischi said:

Most beautiful Giro that I remember

If this guy is calling it...it must be.

I thought it was mega. I'm going to have some serious withdrawal problems to deal with this week.

Just what you thought you never needed: giro analysis from Michele Ferrari.

http://www.53x12.com/#!giro2016/aaa1r

"I believe that the difficulties of Vincenzo Nibali in this Giro, his unexplained drops in performance, in addition to the inevitable psychological repercussions, both depended on the wrong choice to adopt longer cranks."

Is this not a valid point?

It may be valid, but coming from the Doping Dr to the Stars who's been banned from cycling, and came up with many excuses to cover his client's doping. lets just say, a miraculous performance rebound in the last two stages because of 175 vs 172.5 cranks forces credulity to the breaking point. 

Dan Reiners said:

It may be valid, but coming from the Doping Dr to the Stars who's been banned from cycling, and came up with many excuses to cover his client's doping. lets just say, a miraculous performance rebound in the last two stages because of 175 vs 172.5 cranks forces credulity to the breaking point. 

The biggest issue is I've seen no proof that he did indeed switch to shorter cranks.  The second is his coach doubts it.  Nibali had been in 175's most of the season.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/racing/giro-ditalia/vincenzo-nibali-crank-length-giro-ditalia-230562

I tried switching to 175 cranks from 172.5 for the Mt. Washington hillclimb once.  I definitely had trouble with them as the climb wore on.  That doesn't mean they hurt Nibali.

What we don't know is if the other riders were fading or if Nibali got stronger.  

Take a look at Joe Dombrowski.  The guy was distanced in the early stages, and was mixing it up with the best in the late stages.  On the one hand, he was riding for Uran early, and given a freer hand in the final stages as Uran had dropped out of the top ten and was supposedly sick.  At the same time, he should have been alongside Uran in the finale of the first climbing stages, but wasn't.  He even got dropped on a flat section, as we saw above.  

If Dombrowski did it clean, then what of Nibali? 

Nibali had a better team around him from start to finish. Not only did they always have him protected at the front and in the mix, Scarponi and Kangert dropping back made all the difference on the two stages that mattered. Props to Orica for trying, but they don't hold a candle to Astana. Lotto and Movistar had nobody when they needed them. 

As far as doping goes, can we please just accept the reality of our sport? It feels like we all want pro wrestling to be real but it's not. It can still be one hell of a show if you allow it. 

What's weird to me is that people still think of "doping for/during this race" when the evidence is pretty good that even doping long ago has massive lasting benefits.

Totally agree with the above...your former ceiling is now your floor.  Which is another reason why doping bans should be permanent.  It's an easy sell.  It validates why lifetime bans are appropriate.  

Cross posted from Deals and Steals:

I happened to look at Steephill.tv today to look at who was carrying the Giro. There is an option to get legitimate streaming of the Giro for $14. It appears that this offer is only good today May 3. This link explains how it works. 

Seems like it might be a viable alternative to VPNS or pirated feeds. The crazy thing is that the regular rate is over $40 a month. Apparently one has to buy a bundle with a lot of stuff we don't need. I don't see that as a viable and plan on cancelling the service once the Giro is over. They do carry a bunch of other races like Flanders, Tour of Romandie, MSR and others. If the service works well I might rejoin next spring. 

Note that you subscribe for a month for $5 through Stack Social. When you redeem the coupon you add the cycling package for $9. Complicated, but hopefully worth it.

Thanks, Patrick. I signed up for fubo.tv using the Stack Social coupon. My subscription to the NBC Sports Gold cycling package (which streams Paris-Roubaix, TdF, and other ASO races) will end before July. But since fubo.tv also includes those races by virtue of carrying NBCSN (because of course it can always be more complicated!), I may continue with fubo.tv through July, and then re-subscribe next March. It should be nice to get all the spring Classics in one place. 

Fair warning: while the company (and the steephill.tv explainer) hypes their DVR capability, it seems that feature is unavailable for the Giro. So, here's to early mornings in May watching the Giro...I'm sure all the action will happen when I'm on my commute to work. 

DVR functionality works now. 

Picture quality was great, but hopefully they figure out how not to cut off the last 50K with the DVR functionality on fubo. I assume the race was behind schedule, but missing the finish was anticlimactic

Usually, there's a way to set when to stop recording, while I don't use Fubo, on other DVRs I set stage race and live events to stop recording two hours after. Eats up drive space but that's better than missing a sprint by 5 Km

[spoiler]
Is it just me or did it look like Caleb stopped pedaling just before the line?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/giro-ditalia/stage-7/results/

[/spoiler]

Wood chipper

Would love to see Dumoulin take the overall. I hope the loss of Kelderman doesn't isolate him too much in mountains. 

At at same time I'm a little saddened by Tejay's fizzle. 

you could set your clock to TVG's fizzlings

I've migrated my optimism to Dombrowski (c'mon stage win!), Talansky, and the crop of young Americans on Axeon (Powless, Costa, Barta)

Love the bunnyhop at 1:44
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1yfxDWMbsY

Today's stage was amaze
https://youtu.be/bAUc8TPUGXY