The Giro, my favourite tour of the year is only 2 weeks....

[Gen]

According to sky

 

Unfortunately Mikel Landa has been forced to abandon the #Giro through illness. We will provide more details as soon as we have them.

 

 

First word of him being ill.. nothing earlier when he was dropped. . I reckon this is just an excuse.

[carbon29er]

Last time Sky will try copy DDD by having a braai on the rest day. Clearly Landa took too much sausage.

 

[Gen]

It's very strange. . This morning during I ter views he was upbeat and confident for the stage.. there is something else going on here.

[Bonus]

Landa abandons. #giro

His position was irrecoverable. No choice but to abandon. I wonder what the back story is . . . . .

[Gen]

His position was irrecoverable. No choice but to abandon. I wonder what the back story is . . . . .

Definitely think there is a back story.. one we will never know

[carbon29er]

His position was irrecoverable. No choice but to abandon. I wonder what the back story is . . . . .

[tombeej]

Can't remember which hubber it was, but last year when the rumours started to link Landa to sky and everyone was frowning because the Skyborgz are meant to be so clean etc , the one hubber came out and said that we will soon see this year if Landa was able to produce the same results at sky under "clean" circumstances or weather he would fail like so many others inducing Porte, Uran. Guess we have found out there was more to the Astana team than has been proven.

 

This one?

 

I still had this in mind when I was trying to decide on my Giro fantasy league team. I had Wellens in my team and was going backwards and forwards. Like a chop I dropped Wellens and put Landa in his place. Don't know what I was thinking.

['Dale]

This one?

 

I still had this in mind when I was trying to decide on my Giro fantasy league team. I had Wellens in my team and was going backwards and forwards. Like a chop I dropped Wellens and put Landa in his place. Don't know what I was thinking.

That's rof

['Dale]

n the meantime, the chase group has grown. The 10-rider group consists of Guillaume Bonnafond (AG2R-La Mondiale), Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiani CSF), Giulio Ciccone (Bardiani CSF), Darwin Atapuma (BMC), Nate Brown (Cannondale) Damiano Cunego (Nippo Vini Fantini), Georg Preidler (Giant-Alpecin), Egor Sillin (Katusha), Ivan Rovny (Tinkoff), Riccardo Zoidl (Trek Segafredo) and are 1:56 behind as they head towards the feed zone.

['Dale]

With Roche at 6:49, will Team Sky attempt to salvage their GC hopes or will they look to stage wins?

['Dale]

The leaders are onto the second climb of the day with a 2:30 advantage over the three chasers, who are in turn 27 seconds ahead of the maglia rosa group.

['Dale]

The average speed of the first hour of racing was 39.4kph.

[ScottCM]

This one?

 

I still had this in mind when I was trying to decide on my Giro fantasy league team. I had Wellens in my team and was going backwards and forwards. Like a chop I dropped Wellens and put Landa in his place. Don't know what I was thinking.

 

Exactamando my friend, should have know those wise words came from you.

['Dale]

After some horrible weather over the weekend, the riders can expect much nicer conditions for today's stage. It is cool enough but there is only a light breeze and the sun is trying to break through. There is a chance of rain later but let's hope that it holds out.

['Dale]

184 riders set off this morning. There are two non-starters for today's stage and they are Fabian Cancellara and Alexey Tsatevich. Cancellara has had a rough Giro d'Italia after falling ill just days before the start and he decided to pull out following the time trial. Tsatevich, on the other hand, was given the boot by his team after spending much of Sunday's time trial drafting Giant Alpecin's Tobias Ludvigsson.

[BDF]

With Roche at 6:49, will Team Sky attempt to salvage their GC hopes or will they look to stage wins?

Still a long way to go but nearly 7 min is a lot to make up with a reduced team at that. If it were my call I would go for stage wins and maybe attack the KOM jersey.