Features

The 2011 Giro d’Italia gets under way in Turin on Saturday, and some very tough stages particularly in the final week or so could see an epic battle develop for the maglia rosa – perhaps even going to the final day’s individual time trial in Milan. Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas, who rode the 2008 Giro with Barloworld, isn’t racing, but he’s looking forward to watching the action of what should be a thrilling three weeks’ racing every bit as much as the rest of us. Here’s our stage-by-stage guide to the race together with the British national champion’s expert analysis of the route.

It doesn’t hurt THAT badly. Getting a metabolic assessment where you cycle to your max with a weird mask strapped to your face is never going to be particularly pleasant, but I’ve known worse. Sure, you’re in pain, but it’s only really bad for a matter of seconds and, unlike an interval training session, you don’t have to start again after a little break. Just tell yourself that it’s all for the greater good and it’s fine. Well, ‘fine’ might be pushing it. It’s bearable.

It was quite easy really, across Kent as quick as possible, hot-tilt boogie through the Chunnel and out along the North coast of Europe for not long at all to a romantic dockland suburb of Gent and the even more romantic Fomule 1 hotel where the smell of Death stalks the corridors, or maybe it’s just the critical mass of B.O., for too little sleep and the standard Continental insufficient pre-ride breakfast of bad coffee and Nutella filled rolls.

We are riding on mythical roads owned by gods and legends, but today I’m not worshipping. Instead, I’m being sacrificed on their cobbled altar, a dish of the day served battered and numb. This is what it feels like to ride the pave – welcome to Hell…