Pro-cycling thread

Bernie Eisel (Eurosport) saying that the climb 20k out is too tough for the sprinters to survive in any position to be able to affect the finish.

swift has been climbing well. still fancy sagan though

impressed with how tao has been riding this race so far - always showing at the front at the right time, making sure he's in the right place

FDJ up the front bossing it again, impressive

one of their riders just pushed tao out the way though so that’s them cancelled

Ineos well represented on climb at 17k. I can see 4 including SwiftyBenSwift and Tao who is setting up Swift.

Error it wasn't Swift on Tao's wheel.

lovely pastoral scenes today in Padua

Knox and Masnada doing a great job here.

Love the way Almeida is taking this race on. Contesting sprints when he’s there. I suppose much of that is dictated by the fact there’s a chance the race won’t get finished.

anyone spotted lachie morton yet?

Did you expect to? I didn’t. He might get in a break in the third week in his preferred terrain, but going from ultra-racing to a GT was always going to be a challenge as he can’t have much in the way of top end.

Pink jersey to change shoulders tomorrow?Who could take it?

probably right. thought I might have at least seen him in some of the coverage - he's one of EF's biggest brands.

presume he's doing a valuable enough job carrying hod for the other riders. as you say, he might pop up in the break in week 3, having ridden himself into having some top end.

The main reason Almeida is in pink is because he was the best GC contender in the opening TT. This one is longer and he's two weeks in, which is uncharted territory for him I think, but I'd not be surprised if he's still in pink after tomorrow.

Of the others, Kelderman is most likely to challenge him.

The tt will be interesting, there are a few riders in contention who have never been allowed to ride one full-on, having been held back to serve their mighty leaders later on.

Women's team Equipe Paule Ka (Formerly Bigla) shutting down with immediate effect as their title sponsor haven't actually bothered to pay them. If the 4th placed women's team can't find a sponsor surely the UCI need to spend a bit of time fixing women's cycling.

Rather disgraceful way to treat people and so reminiscent of the way lucy martin was treated. Lizzy banks rode for them.

From what I've seen, today's crowd, although quite big, are well behaved

quite big

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Are you talking about his glutes?

I was talking about the massive penis on the side of the road.

I'm just happy I got onto the coverage

Anyone else see the fan/photographer falling over trying to get out of Almeida's way?

Looking at how the Giro is playing out, Geraint Thomas would be absolutely smashing it by this point...

good TT from tao.

GC set up nicely for week 3

Yeah classy move I thought - too many fans in the riders faces, he decided to elegantly topple to maintain social distancing instead.