Giro Stage 18 - Borgo Valsugana to Treviso (156km)

mewso

Time for the GC to take a break and the last chance for the sprinters. This is just for the win as Demare has the Cicliamino sown up. Some hills along the way but nothing that would be expected to cause sprinters any serious problems. Demare is the obvious favourite but there are a few here who would have expected to get a win somewhere along the line who are in danger of going away with nothing - Gaviria, Cort-Nielsen for example. Gaviria has been close a couple of times and is the most likely I think outside of Demare but there is always a danger Cav sneaks it and Hatch starts talking about legends, history and more guff. Best avoided.

Betting

Arnaud Demare 3/1

Mark Cavendish 5/1

Matthieu Van Der Poel 5/1

Phil Bauhaus 8/1

Fernando Gaviria 10/1

Magnus Cort Nielsen 12/1

Alberto Dainese 12/1

Davide Ballerini 22/1

Simone Consonni 25/1

seaviewphotos

Almeida out of the Giro after a positive Covid-19 test result, good for Carapaz as I was counting on him putting in a real good TT.

mewso

Bad for the race though. I wonder how isolated the rest of the UAE team were from him.

seaviewphotos

The rest of the team have tested negative, hopefully they'll be allowed to race.

mewso

The Cav love in. Give me a break. These decisions were made at the start of the season. Cav for the Giro, Fabio for the Tour. Why do people keep expecting this to change. Still it is Lefevere so anything goes but surely it can only be if Fabio gets injured that he gets in.

seaviewphotos

Would be nice to see Gaviria win today's stage, I'm not sure that Cav has the speed after 17 stages. Hard to see anyone beating Demare.

retalivity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119116418#Comment_119116418

Good thing Almeida was always 2m behind the main group at all times, and his teammates were always miles away!

Mefistofelino

How tall is Affini? The break looks like someone taking his kids out for a ride.

Mefistofelino

The Whoop "advertorial" comments from Hatch and the others are getting wearing. I'd be more forgiving if they just came out and said "buy a Whoop thingy" as opposed to the pretence that the "Strain" factor is anything other that a way of flogging an expensive HRM platform.

eagle eye

That stiff short kicker at 55km to go might be interesting. I can see VDP trying to go and on a stage like this you might see Ineos let Narvaez go, De Gendt and Vendrame might be interested. That'd be a strong group if they got away.

Groupama mightn't have any real interest in chasing it down. I can see them sitting back and only taking it serious in the last couple of km if it's on.

Rui Costa was driving it on there and you can see a lot of tired legs in the peloton.

mewso

That strain thing is a load of cobblers.

Costa getting an earfull over that 😂

ILIKEFOOD

A whole supermarket!

Mefistofelino

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119117702#Comment_119117702

Or a hole supermarket.

retalivity

Break have a chance here

Macy0161

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119117021#Comment_119117021

I have watched very little live, but the Heart Rate stuff has popped up in the highlights. The whole strain thing seems to be a thing for a few on my strava timeline here too. Can't say I've ever really been interested in whoop, but I'm deliberately skipping the supersapiens bits of the cycling podcast as I don't want to be sucked in!

mr spuckler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119117847#Comment_119117847

Incredible that they've been able to hold out to such an extent. At 5.5km now but in the last 3 km they've only lost about 10 seconds!

MangleBadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119117847#Comment_119117847

Peleton haven’t been able to time back in the last 5k

The amount of people I see with wearables and I think to myself what are they doing with the numbers other than maybe knowing they did their 10k steps? It's an amazing amount of data to give away or pay to give away in some cases.

Lionel drives me mad on the cycling podcast.

UAE need to put Costa on the front now and do the effort he did earlier when it wasn't wanted or needed 😁

MangleBadger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119117877#Comment_119117877

Recent article on the accuracy of wearables.

They’re not even consistently inaccurate. I’ve an Apple Watch and at most it tells me I’ve done a decent amount of exercise whether that is 4000-5000 calories burned doesn’t really matter

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/research-spotlight-wearables/

De Bhál

this looks like it'll be very tight

mr spuckler

Great result for the break! Delighted to see that. The splits are crazy though, Hindley is miles back and not exactly moving quickly.

De Bhál

you'd have to wonder how Wiggins is getting paid for his input

MangleBadger

Very good interview by DeBont there.

breezy1985

Holding the break to 2 mins seems an awful waste of energy now.

Rumour is Hindley had a puncture within 3km

Mefistofelino

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119117959#Comment_119117959

F*&k yeah

De Bhál

Jai Hindley sounds like a native European trying to speak English

retalivity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119117940#Comment_119117940

Id rather hear from the poor driver who has to cart him around all day, he's horrific. And the guys on comms and in the studio licking his arse...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119117996#Comment_119117996

Hannah is the one I feel sorry for, total professional. Goes out of her way to get interviews and pieces of interest to report back on and has to work alongside that fool. Zero reason for him to be over there, him on the bike adds little and is just another unnecessary moto on course.

Mefistofelino

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119117940#Comment_119117940

To be fair, he was probably nervous. As Hatch kept informing us today, the Pinarello HQ is on the outskirts of Treviso and Bradders owes them about €20k from when he had his two companies liquidated 18 months ago.

Probably afraid someone would come looking for their money.