They certainly have end-loaded this year’s Giro. After nine days (don’t forget to check out stages 1 through 4), lots of probing GC moves, lots of rain, lots of heads-up racing—which is what I think you want out of the early going in a Grand Tour. I could perhaps stand to see a few more sprint stages, but being entirely honest, those guys get enough chances to win already, don’t they?

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Anyway, I’m on pins-and-needles for Tuesday’s hilltop throw-down. Hoping Ryder can steal back some time while the Top 10 watch each other, but it might also be nice to see Evans or Gesink throw a punch or two.

I’ve had a pretty good run with HTRWW this spring, but last Tuesday, a few things went wrong. A perfect storm, if you will. The still-buggy result is this Lost Episode—scheduled to go live last Wednesday, offered now (along with stages 5 through 9) because it’s a rest day and you’ve got nothing to do until Tour of California this evening.

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A hilly stage race that—were it not for some lousy weather—might not have even had a hilltop finish. Still, the tight time gaps lead to some hard chasing and interesting sprints, and a renewed appreciation on the part of yours truly for the skills of Gianni Meersman.

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The race was also a bit of a blow for the Sky-is-Doping storyline. Yes, the team controlled the racing, but they didn’t dominate it, relying more heavily on sprinters’ teams and Movistar toward the end of the event, and coming apart almost completely on the final hilly stage.

Coming into this Sunday, there were a lot of big squads without a classics win, and only one classic left on the table. One came good with some spectacular teamwork and and cool-as-a-cucumber riding.

Also featured—more electronic shifting follies, some road blocking, an arm sling, over-aggressive spectators and a gigantic panda costume. What’s not to like?

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Did a course tweak just work out? Certainly the race-winning move employed the aggression and pluck that had been missing from the (successful) attacks in previous editions. And the cast of characters battling at the front brought some new names and new faces to the fore.

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Also, I could have spent all day riffing on the technical errors in the race video production—bad or absent time checks, cameras missing important attacks, and a 5 minute gap in the production feed covered sloppily by 60fps replays—which, honestly, were of such irrelevant things that I wondered a if the producers had ever seen a bike race before.

A surprisingly cagey effort from a certain overwhelming favorite, better known for watts than wiles. Startlingly good weather for a race and a year notable for nastiness. Omega-Pharma stacks the front with riders and comes away with…ok, I guess that’s par for the course this year. Did I mention it was the fastest Roubaix in the modern era?

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No Pokemon this time around, but some sweet, John Tesh-inspired #jams:

Don’t want to come across as too unimpressed with the new course, but the gaps between the hills are such that it plays out a lot like a cobbled Amstel Gold—mercifully, without the finishing climb so riders feel at least slightly motivated make a move rather than wait for the inevitable selection.

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Only Lotto really contested the pre-race storyline, and did a pretty nice job of it, putting their lieutenants in control of the break all day, and giving their trump card more than a fair shot against the two most impressive riders of the season so far.

Echelons, a tremendously long break, inopportune flats and tumbles—it’s beginning to look a lot more like spring, despite the stubbornly wintery conditions in Northern Europe right now.

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Definitely a mixed bag for the favorites going into the Monuments next week: two abandons—one intentional, one not—a breakthrough win, and active, aggressive races for a bunch of potential spoilers. We’ll see who scoops up the Cadbury Eggs when the chips are down next Sunday.

So, after some brief site downtime this week (I’m posting this on 3/22/13, but back-dating for the purposes of continuity, Cyclocosm is back—as is HTRWW. Still have a few fixes to make on the HTRWW Podcast feed, but we’ll get there.

How The Race Was Won – Milan-Sanremo 2013 from Cosmo Catalano on Vimeo.

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Chris Horner thinks it’s the lesser of the two spring stage races this season, but I’m not going to let that deter me (mostly because of P-N’s convenient weekend finishing date). There were at least two interesting sprints, some intersting tactical riding in muck weather, and the usual mayhem that makes bike racing fun.

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(There’s a page that has *all* the How The Race Was Won videos — have you told your friends, family, and coworkers about it yet?)