Monday’s stage 3 of the Giro d’Italia is more of the same if you watched today’s installment through fingers clamped over your eyes. Only it gets worse because there’s another 209Km from Amsterdam but this time south-west to Middelburg which is essentially an island reached by extended and extremely exposed sea bridges and dykes. This can only mean massive cross winds. The big sprinters’ teams will be endeavouring to do what they always do only under the hardest of circumstances. Hold on to your hats, it’s literally going to be a bumpy ride.
On Tuesday, there is in theory a rest day while the teams travel 1,000 kilometres back to Italy, hopefully by aeroplane. The bad news is that, as of writing, all of Italy’s airports are shut due to the pesky Icelandic volcano’s ash cloud so the teams may or may not be travelling in their team buses. Even if you have Team Sky’s bus, that’s not as relaxing as being able to spend Tuesday having a ride and massage.
Back racing on home ground on Wednesday, the Giro d’Italia starts properly on stage 4 with a 32.5 Km Team Time Trial from Savigliano to Cuneo. If you’ve never experienced riding a pace line, Michael Barry, Sky’s media savviness guru yesterday put on YouTube this master class in team time trial discipline, filmed in the countryside outside Amsterdam over the last few days of training.
Although on paper, HTC-Columbia are the team to beat having won this equivalent stage last year and Garmin-Transitions have at least two time-trial monsters on board in Tyler Farrar and David Miller, Team Sky are only an unknown quantity insofar as they are a new team.
It’s an open secret that Sky have been working on this stage and have as their silky Jaguar V12 inspiration track team pursuit multiple gold medal winner Bradley Wiggins. And as well as Mr Barry, the clearly well-drilled engine room of Steve Cummings, Chris Froome, Greg Henderson, Chris Sutton, Mathew Hayman, Dario Cioni and Morris Possoni is hardly a handicap, either.
Bradley Wiggins tonight lies 32 seconds behind on GC; if they can have a better day in the wind tomorrow, Team Sky could be going into Wednesday with a realistic chance of taking that back from Garmin-Transitions. It’s shaping up to be a fascinating Giro.
12 thoughts on “On video: Sky TTT Training”
I can’t believe some moron
I can’t believe some moron threw a bottle at them.
Lunatic , wonder was he
Lunatic X( , wonder was he aiming in anger at the team car? liked Wiggo’s response, got him fired up B)
colours of a mavic car.. 😕
You can see it come out of
You can see it come out of the window at 3:19.
Switch the video to 480p for
Switch the video to 480p for better resolution :B
Last four digits of the numberplate are without a shadow of a doubt – VB – 27 – visible at 3:19, unfortunately the camera view then changes before the first two pop into view, but from a later shot, I believe are 52,
Meaning that the Dutch numberplate for that Yellow Saab (?) is 52 – VB – 27
Internet detectives deploy!
i imagine teamsky got the
i imagine teamsky got the number plate, but whether they pursue it, well probably to busy with racing….
nice to know that seat ibiza 52-VB-27 gets done for littering 😀
I thought we only had tossers
I thought we only had tossers like that in the UK…I was under the impression the continentals were more accepting of cycling. Goes to prove that there are morons everywhere that we need to deal with!
I’ve just emailed an old mate
I’ve just emailed an old mate of mine who’s a Dutch-based UCI race commissaire, can’t help thinking he will know which rozzers to call. Would be so cool to nail the so-and-so. Any Netherlands cyclists on here?
By the way, the yellow car
By the way, the yellow car 52-VB-27 is a Seat Ibiza, isn’t it?
Alejandro Valverde wasn’t it?
Alejandro Valverde wasn’t it? Anyhow, it sucks. I fail to understand the mentality of those who do this sort of thing.
Just spoke to my old ex-pro
Just spoke to my old ex-pro mate who, it turns out, has just got home having been looking after the doping control for the Giro while it was in the Netherlands – he’s now a UCI commissaire. Talked through the Sky video and it seems that being hit on the head with a flying bottle is kind of the occupational hazard of looking like a bike racer in the countryside outside Amsterdam but nevertheless he’s going to have a look and report back. Fingers crossed. He says that’s a bit of a funny registration number…
love the Delorean at the
love the Delorean at the start 🙂
Uber-cool! My laps round
Uber-cool! My laps round Richmond Park in a pace line look sedentary by comparison.
Reminds me when I was hit by a flying Heineken can from White-van Man going down the Holloway road at 50kmh. If Heineken made time trials, they would be the best time trials in the world …