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

['Dale]

Andrey Amador (Movistar):

“That was our first approach to the mountains and the final climb didn’t really suit me, so I was a little bit further back. I was able to catch back up and defend by taking the pink jersey. Alejandro [Valverde] is in a good position, everything is in tact, and now we move into the tough mountain stages and we will see what we can do.”

['Dale]

????????????

 

Amador becomes the first Costa Rican to wear the maglia rosa. He leads previous race leader Bob Jungels, who drops down to second overall.

['Dale]

Tomorrow

Much much higher mountains

 

 

????

[jimmycool]

Tomorrow

Much much higher mountains

 

 

 

Thanks for the updates Punchy. 

[tombeej]

Tomorrow's stage is going to be a big one. 

 

Besides the climbing, the biggest thing about tomorrow is the fact that the race happens at very high altitudes (they go over 2000m five times). 

 

Some people react better than others to high altitude. You never know how your body is going to respond until you're up there.

 

So don't be surprised if we see some people have a bad day tomorrow and see their GC hopes evaporate.

 

[Click on image to enlarge]

 

[tombeej]

The first big climb of the day is the loooong 70 km of solid climbing up into the Dolomites to reach their first summit of the day over Passo Pordoi (2239m above sea level).

 

It's a magnificent mountain. The views from the top are apparently about as good as it gets.

 

 

[tombeej]

At the start of this month, just 3 weeks ago, the OGE guys tried to recon the Pordoi, but found it completely snowed out.

 

[tombeej]

There were reports from some quarters today about snow 10ft deep at the top of the high passes they'll be crossing, but that the weather has been good these past couple of days, so the riders should have an 'easy' crossing this year.

 

These snowy passes always produce some of the most iconic images in the world of pro cycling every year, especially when the skies are blue and you can see them in all their glory.

 

This photo was taken this afternoon of the Passo Pordoi. Doesn't look much like the supposed '10ft deep' we were hearing about earlier, but the good news is that we should have a clear run all the way through tomorrow. 

 

https://twitter.com/jesdevallier/status/733702926288453632

['Dale]

Awesome images there

Yip, altitude test for the GC biggies

I'll be glued to the screen ????

['Dale]

quick look at the overall and Amador is in pink after yesterday's heroics. It could be a short stint for the Movistar man, given that he struggled somewhat on the final two climbs of the stage.

['Dale]

It's a relatively flat start but then the road gently starts to climb, all the way up to to the first summit of the Passo Pordoi at 2239m at 95km.

['Dale]

 

And we're about to roll out for today's Queen stage at this year's Giro d'Italia. Grey skies above but not bad conditions for this time of year.

['Dale]

The riders have now rolled out from the start and we're almost done with the neutralised zone. As soon as the flag drops we'll be off and racing for stage 14. We can expect attacks from the gun as teams try and send riders up the road.

['Dale]

And as predicted we have a number of attacks early on the from the peloton and like on stage 13 they come straight after the flag is dropped. Will Movistar look to control this from the start?

['Dale]

Astana have a few men near the front but they're just monitoring who tries to escape rather than setting the tone and pace for the stage. All together though after 7km of racing.

['Dale]

Lotto Soudal have tried to send a number of men up the road but nothing has stuck just yet. We've covered around 10km of racing, and it's all together at this point.