So now that all that nonsense down in the boot is done with, time to recap what went on in the rest the continent. Hometown (or I guess homecountry) hero Tom Boonen rocked the Tour of Belgium, taking two stages and most remarkably of all, coming in second in a 15k ITT to maintain the race lead. No telling what other tricks the 24-year-old classics rider/group sprinter/chrono-man has up his sleeves. Speaking of former winners of the Champs Elysees sprint, creaky old Jan Svorada and Ag2r’s JP Nazon each took a stage at the Bayern Rundfarht, which is perhaps the European road race most in need of a name change. Jens Voigt snared a TT win, and Andreas Kloden finally showed up this season, taking the final stage in a breakaway. But when the smoke cleared, it was Gerolsteiner’s chrono specialist Michael Rich who took the overall, with T-Mobile’s Kazakh menace Alexandre Vinokourov in second.

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FULL LISTING OF PICKS LOCATED HERE.

The Giro is over. So what are you going to do for the next month while you wait for the Tour to start? Work your mind-numbing, spirit-crushing job? Log hours of hard training time in hopes of maybe snaring a 20 dollar prime at some Cat 4 stage race? Clearly not. So this is what I propose: play Pick the Tour. It’s very simple. Spend countless hours researching the European cycling scene, then, based on your study, select winners for each of the categories we select (listed below).

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Consensus seems to be that Lance Armstrong’s success has been good for American cycling. And yeah, Lance has gotten a lot of otherwise oblivious people onto bikes (usually flimsy little Treks), and has opened up a few more eyes to the fact that there is a world of professional cycling out there. But Americans, being Americans, have latched onto a series of half-truths about pro cycling, it’s hurting American cycling, and it’s all Lance’s goddang fault.

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PSYCH! Everything went exactly according to plan in the final stage of the ‘05 Giro. The field piddled along at 27 kph for a while (oh yeah, it was downhill, too), before Discovery fired up the first of the 12 finishing circuits. Some Australians tried solo moves before Petacchi and Fassa kicked the GI tract out of everyone else for stage win #4.

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Now that was exciting. Simoni, DiLuca and Rujano take off on the old-school gravel road, putting 2 and a half minutes on Savodelli. What does Il Falco do? Stays cool as the other side of the pillow, that’s what. He lets Wim Van Huffel (what a great name, eh?) and Lotto set tempo, then rakes back nearly a minute of the lead. Definate lack of props to Simoni for not convincing Rujano to let DiLuca back on; the Man in White tore sh!t up on the gravel Col de Finestre, a little cramp on the downhill shook him off, but he definately still had gas. Mad props go to the very diminuative Rujano for showing Simoni how it’s done the second time up Sestriere.

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Was Basso denied this year’s Giro by less than 10 micrometers (10µm of stomach virus, that is)? After his second stage win in a row (his rivals can’t play the GC card in a TT), it sure looks that way. While race leader Savoldelli held tough for 4th on the day, his closes rivals, the quiet Jose Rujano and blather-prone Gilberto Simoni each lost over two minutes. I guess Gibo didn’t find “dinner” quite to his liking. Still, the Lampre rider has one last shot at getting his just dessert (how’s that for beating a dead metaphor?). Tomorrow’s stage, with three categorized climbs and a hilltop finish, however, plays well to these two climbers, and with the Giro on the line, the action should be *hot*.

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After announcing that he saw today’s today’s stage as “an appetizer” (that’s “anitpasto” en italiano), Gilberto Simoni rode it as just that; not a filling meal, but certainly enough to whet his appetite for later. While Ivan Basso came back from the dead to claim the stage (a much easier thing to do when you’re 42 minutes down on GC…), Gibo, along with Wim Van Huffel and Jose Rujano (remember when he was just a KOM contender?) left maglia rosa Savoldelli behind with 6k to go. Il Falco kept his fast-becoming-trademark cool, and lost just over 40 seconds, leaving him a slim 58 up on Il Ragno (”The Spider;” ie, Simoni). Not so lucky was the reborn DiLuca, who lost nearly 3 minutes, dropping him to 4th overall, all but out of contention.

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So after Sunday’s debacle, I was ready for a little revenge on the various bike shop teams of Aspen [BTW, the “Telco” guys are really “Jelco” guys; they’re from Ajax Bikes, I believe]. Today’s course was a short circuit that basically went up moderately, and then down less moderately. I think the loop was 3-5 miles long; I have no idea since I was racing on Bubba’s *sweet* Orbea Orca, to get the bike noticed, and perhaps the only part about it was the utterly incomprehensible Shimano Flight Deck computer. I got the thing stuck on kilometers and then it just kept rotating through its various functions. Anyway, we did 5 laps, which meant that the selection would be based entirely on cranking watts.

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You’d think that coming off a rest day, with only one other flat stage left in the race, the handful of remaining sprinters would be raring to go today. But you’d be wrong. As the Discovery Channel-lead peloton languished 20 minutes behind, young Frenchman Christophe Le Mevel sprung away from his breakaway companions with 2k to go, taking his most impressive victory to date. Notably less psyched was second-place finisher Christophe Brandt, who crossed the line 9 seconds later, punching his handlebars in frustration because, clearly, they had been the reason for his defeat.

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So it’s a Giro rest day; that means no news, right? No way, man. The world of competitve cycling never stops turning. Let’s begin on the home front where American U23 phenom Tyler Farrar (gotta love the victory salute) was recently reported to have signed with Cofidis. Well, turns out he didn’t. Or at least he hasn’t. Yet. Farrar, who currently races for the domestic HealthNet squad, is the first American to ever win a major Eurpoean U23 race and seems all but destined to land on a ProTour team within the next few years.

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