Off the bike, preparations have perhaps been less than ideal, but having finished fourth at the Tour of the Alps, Chris Froome says he has enjoyed “a perfect build up to the Giro d’Italia.”
“I think I’m a lot closer to being ready for the Giro than I was at Tirreno-Adriatico and we’ve still got two weeks now,” he said.
“I’ve been having a lot of fun these past few days, it’s short, explosive stages and it’s not something you can replicate in training. It’s really good to have been here and be a part of it.
“The Giro is a whole new challenge for me and a new motivation for me too. It’s a huge challenge to target the Giro d’Italia after winning the Tour and Vuelta last year and it’s a huge motivation for me to go for my third consecutive Grand Tour win.”
Speaking about some of his likely Giro rivals who he raced against this week, he said: “I don’t think we can read too much into Tour of the Alps, as some guys won’t have been at 100 per cent at this race but probably will be a lot better at the Giro.
"For sure, Thibaut [Pinot] is in great shape. [Domenico] Pozzovivo is in great shape and [Fabio] Aru is not far off. [Miguel] Lopez is looking great and it’s a little bit of a taster for what’s to come.”
Pinot took the overall, finishing 16 seconds ahead of Froome and 15 ahead of Pozzovivo and Lopez. The Frenchman said that due to the quality of the field, he saw this as one of the greatest victories of his career.
"It was an incredible race, across all five days,” he told Cycling News. “It was five days of battle. There were no gifts. I'm really happy to write my name into this race, which, for a climber, is very prestigious."
The final stage featured three ascents of the climb to Igls which will feature nine times in the men’s road race at the World Championships in September.
Pinot said of the course: "I guess the World Championships are going to be complicated and difficult especially with regard to having a 28 per cent gradient stretch with a short descent and no time to recover. Today we did not cover this last stretch so it's very difficult to imagine how it's going to be, but my feeling is this will be one of the hardest and toughest world championships in a long time.
On the day the first set of yellow lines were painted on a kerb, it was (arguably) implied that everywhere else was fine to park on. And so it...
There's someone from the cycle hire company in charge of steering it though. The drunks are just sitting, drinking, and acting only as stokers.
€30,000 for a bike with RIM BRAKES!!!??? (slowly retreats into bunker...)
My commute takes me past a very popular state secondary school (that was attended by a famous rock star and has his name on one of the buildings)....
Makes sense for the modernisation of the Roman Catholic faith. Ticked off women's ordination, married priests and same-sex relationships. Now they...
Also, I shall always be grateful to her and Jason for recording a little "good luck" video to me when I was about to embark on my season of cycling...
Troll 7 normal posters 0
Campagnolo "hub cap" tools for Record-style hubs should be on the list. They're expensive and not something you need very often, but the...
Really sad for all the staff who have lost their jobs, especially if the above is true and minimum legal notice periods were not met etc. Like the...
Isn't it the end user that should be choosing? The developer is providing what is requested (presumably based on feedback, marketing dept and so on...