Giro D'Italia 2016

Kittell has Gaviria and Ewen snapping at his heels and Greipel, Viviani and Cav there for when things go wrong. It'll be hard for him to beat Cav's tally.

Cippollini was quite dismissive of Cav in Rouler (not that they don't have history), claiming Cav's winning streak was due to a lack of competition rather than any ability. I think Cav in his pomp had plenty of ability, but is the sprint field better now than then ?

Gaviria has won one WT race, a stage of Tirreno. He looks promising, but that promise is nowhere near being confirmed yet. Ewen looks good, but the majority of his wins have been in small races, and so far in this Giro he's been nowhere near winning. He also needs time to develop.

Only Greipel and Cavendish offer a genuine threat to Kittel, but they are both the wrong side of thirty so will only decline now. If Kittel stays healthy, then I'd expect him to dominate Tour sprints for at least the next two years, but I doubt he can keep that going for four or five years. I could be wrong though.

Are sprints better know than before? That's a hard one to answer but I think sprint trains are far better organised now than they've ever been, and do a shorter, but faster leadout than in the Cipollini and Cavendish at HTC eras. Teams do a lot more analysis of the finishes and feed that into their strategy, but ultimately it still comes down to who can put out the most power, speed and control in the final 200 metres.

Now I've read the previews, that's what they all suggest too. Probably a bunch finish.

Ahhhh well. This is why I am not involved in pro cycling.

Well that was pretty emphatic.

What's Jungels doing contesting the sprint? lol

Snap extra seconds?

Guess if you're there you might as well have a go eh.

First medium mountain top finish today. Should be fun.

Mehtains

Last two stages have been bon shithotio

you can't compare kittel with gaviria. they haven't raced each other and with commitments to the same team, they probably won't. apples and apples but not applesauce.

Today's a Valverde kind of day.

He is my spirit animal

You kind of look like the Indian Valverde actually.

I hope Tom D hangs on to pink today and bloody valverde doesn't get it from him.

I've been listening to the daily podcasts here http://thecyclingpodcast.com/latest-episode . They're definitely worth a listen, great analysis and Moore and Birnie's inane chatter is funny.

Also, they revealed that Dumoulin eats either pizza or omlette sarnies as a snack before the podium. Makes me like him even more.

I've just cancelled my Eurosport subscription because it just doesn't work. I haven't got the fastest internet in the world but I'm able to watch every other streaming service with only small amounts of buffering. Eurosport I seem to have to refresh the page every minute or so because it constantly buffers then just freezes up. Fed up.

Are you using browser-based Eurosport player? It is fucking shit, admittedly, but try using a different browser perhaps. I think I have the best luck in Safari, maybe? Also, on the iOS app the damn thing works fine - even gives you HD I think.

cyclinghub.tv

iOS Eurosport works like a dream.

We resolved our Eurosport problem by turning down the quality of the picture slightly. It kept freezing as it was trying to stream it in HD which was just too much for our broadband to handle. Works fine now and is still a great picture.

I'd also say, if you possibly can afford it and can get it working properly - do subscribe. It looks like they operate on a fucking shoestring as it is. And a world without dodgy euro adverts is not a world worth living in.

The break is going to be allowed to take this then. Peloton has let them take 90 secs in the last 5km.

who was first up the first hill of the day?

My lord the models wearing the jerseys thing. I know it's Italy, I know it's pro cycling, but jesus.

They could at least put them in cleated shoes and make them hobble up the road, for the lols

Looks like there's gonna be a shake up... Nibbles is keen as mustard.