Pro Cycing News – WTF, amico?

Seriously. I know, both from comments on yesterday’s post and recent forum postings that at some point today, the ’06 Giro route was officially available. But it has since been take down. Cyclingnews, VeloNews, Daily Peloton, they’ve all got nothing on it. It’s still only 4 pm in Milan, so concievably, the presentation may not yet have taken place. Serves me right for not sleeping in until noon, then. From what was available earlier, though, it seems pretty clear that the controversial final split stage sends riders up the famed Ghisallo climb in an AM TT. According to Pez, mere mortals should expect to spend 45-60 minutes struggling up the 12km climb (around 9 mph), though Paolo Bettini, according to this Live Report, shot up it in under 20 minutes (at a highly dubious 24 mph) at this year’s Tour of Lombardy. At any speed, though, the combined distance of the two stages is far less than what you’d see in a conventional Grand Tour stage. Since pretty much everyone was waiting to see this (apparently epic) Giro route, it’s hard to find other real news out there, but as always, I’ll manage.

The ACCPI aren’t the only riders on the warpath at the moment; check out Dave Zabriskie’s latest update. Postal DS Sean Yates and other members of the media found themselves under fire from the former maillot jaune for being a bit over-critical of his performances and riding ability. The Utahn’s rebuttals would perhaps carry a bit more punch if he got himself a copy editor, but I suppose busy professional cyclists don’t have time for things like that (or to *ahem* respond to my request for an interview). Maybe, to revive the media’s faith in his bike handling, Dave should sign up for next year’s Red Bull Road Rage, (which has yet another report under that link), although DaveZ might have bigger fish to fry, such as the Olympic TT title in 2008. Hopefully, the medals will be higher quality than these newly-announced Olympic Mascots, which look like pretty much every other species-indeterminate, Eastern-manfactured plastic doll I’ve ever seen.