Mara-vigliosa! Managing Mark Cavendish! And, It's the Mountains, Baby! #tdf #GiroRosa

'S Wonderful/'S Mara-velous: yes, with Stage 7 already underway, prior champ Mara Abbott made it a two-fer yesterday at the Giro Rosa with another blazing uphill triumph, as even the indomitable Marianne Vos finally cracked on the mountain, attributing her high-passes bonk and blown GC to a changed training regime that's got her focused more on mountain biking this year and, to be fair, *still* leaving her able to win almost every race she sets her pedals on. Geez, if this is her "weak," everyone else on two wheels ought just stay home entirely when she's not! Meantime, as they right passed through her hometown, the race paid particular tribute to injured-but-still-race-lovin' 2012 Giro Best Young Rider Elisa Longo Borghini. Here, yesterday's roundup as Mara grabs the (latest) victory: Today, Giorgia Bronzini and the other sprinters go for blood. My fave source this year for great GiroRosa coverage: Jen @ _Gavia_. Thank you Jen!

Temper, Temper!: y'know how you're in some big-box store the size of Austria and some HORRID SCREAMING CHILD 10 internal kilometers away in the TRAUMATIC-FOR-NO-REASON- AISLE starts howling in a TOTAL SENSELESS BLOOD-CURDLING MELTDOWN for like 10 minutes like some GODAWFUL DEMON-SPAWN FIRE-ALARM and you have to shove your nearly full giant cart in the detergent section and run traumatized outta the store before you jam chopsticks in your eardrums JUST TO STOP THE AGONY? Yeah, so that's how OPQuickStep handles Mark Cavendish on the team bus when he loses a stage! And then, after his head's spun around 360 degrees he's ejected some poor sod out the window to his doom and he's spewed a bunch of acidic bile all over the walls, he becomes, his DS assures us, a "good lad" again and is right cheery around the dinner table. Hey, I'd be happy too, if everyone was too freakin' scared to contradict me! Oh, Cav, it's so *nice* to see you getting back to your old self...

Climb Every Mountain (Or Team Sky Will Eat You For Lunch): and yes, it's finally the mountains at the Tour, baby! Yap, yap, Froome--what I want to know is, (2) is Purito gonna show us he's in contention this Tour de France and (2) can Contador truly dance on the pedals like he used to, or can he merely mark right now and save his hopes for the last week's Alps? Me, with guilty pleasure Vino out of the picture, a shameful, dirty part o' me can't help but root for that hornet-in-UCI's-pantaloons, Alejandro Valverde. As for Cadel, I think he'll be just fine. But you faithful readers can all (well, both) prove how wrong I am in a coupla hours!