It's Yer Giro d'Italia Rest Day Due Roundup!

 Okay, it's still a little weird that it's actually the second rest day already after just Stage 9, but Giro's gotta make money having other countries host the gig no matter how inconvenient for the riders, so here we are.  So what did we learn this fateful first week, (both) my faithful readers?  Let's review!

1. You did *not* see Yates winning that opening time trial.  I mean, you thought he'd do well, but be honest--not that well!

2. You did *so* see Yates cracking.  Not because of his knee, though that is what happened this time--but like clockwork, he'll do it at least once every Grand Tour anyway.  Heal up soon--and props to him for being determined to at least start tomorrow to honor the race!

3. Tom Dumoulin.  Frankly, I still don't see how a guy with his build can possibly ever have won a race as cruelly (and beautifully) mountainous as the Giro.  And seeing him just gutted after his time trial third place--which for almost anyone else would be a career highlight--really sucked.  But the way he worked like a dog then celebrated wholeheartedly for his young teammate and virgin Grand Tour stage-winner teammate Koen Bouwman was genuinely a thing of generosity.  You could do worse than the proud owner of the Trofeo Senza Fine for a worker bee, buddy!

4. Thomas De Gendt.  Like you weren't screaming your damn head off willing him to take that stage?  Own it, Pinocchio, you were so either!

5. Biniam Grmay.  Okay, he dithered around with van der Poel when he could've bridged up to the break just before the line, and misjudged a coupla sprints.  He *just* won Ghent-Wevelgem for !@#&'s sake--can we give him 10 minutes to get adjusted to the Giro before we vilify the poor kid when we all *know* it's just a matter of time?  Jaysus!

6.  Juanpe Lopez.  Dang, calling nature breaks for the entire peloton already? That kid's learned to wield the power of the maglia rosa pretty quick!  

7. Don't even say it.  Don't even say it.  I don't want to curse him. Mikel cra--entirely voluntarily chose to caress the glass-smooth surface of the brand-new tarmac *twice* yesterday.  Plus, he sorta owned up to being mildly dented, which stands to reason when you hurtle at said tarmac at like 70 kph.  Tratnik's out. Pello's scraped up pretty good. But Mikel *did* stick with Hindley Bardet and Carapaz the whole way up--and even attacked, woot!--the Blockhaus climb nonetheless.  Mikel, heal up fast--we believe!  And Bahrain, get your !@#$ back together and protect this boy.  Landismoooooooooooooooooo!

8. Y'know, I really like and admire Richie Porte.  But watching Carapaz's relentless blue train crushing the rest of the GC as their own high-quality helpers dropped off in exhaustion gave me instinctively creepy Discovery-Postal throwback vibes.  Plus, they're working for Carapaz, who is the nails-on-the-blackboard, hovering-mosquito, punk-!@# Landa backstabber in my ear.  Argh!

9. I am still trying to get my head around the dance portion of the Giro opening ceremony, though as i adore the Giro without reservation and in every way possible, it's clearly my fault for being a low-rent, cultureless American clod.  But--ah, forget it, it's clearly my fault!

10. Cav is !@#$ed without Morkov, which means he'll prove me wrong, take all the remaining sprint stages, and wear the points jersey on the final podium in Verona. Oh well Caleb--if you can avoid being spit out the back tomorrow, there's theoretically a chance the break'll choke and you'll come back and take your win!

11. Bauke Mollema.  You've still got plenty of time.  But we're waiting!

All right, that's the first week down.  Next up--well, it basically only *does* go up from here.  Aupa Mikeeeeeeeeeel!      

It's Yer 2020 Giro d'Italia in Previe--Wait, What the !#$% ?

 Look, this time last year I'd have been desperately posting some boring transfer news or weird cyclist rap video to tide us over til some nimrod tested positive for dope ahead of the holidays, and this time last *May*, I'd be posting about 4 different incredibly detailed guaranteed-to-be-unread previews by stage, overall course, GC contenders, puncheurs, sprinteurs, and every iota of sleazy gossip I could get ahold of.  But this is *2020* folks, the world is a bizarre, unfathomable hellscape, and frankly, between getting my head around the fact that nice Mads Pedersen barely got a chance to show off his world championship jersey and yesterday's racist sexist !@#$wit vomitous cyclist twitter explosion, it's a miracle I even realized it's time to preview even our adored Giro d'Italia at all.  So without further ado--and please, cycling, let me get this typed before things get even *more* screwed up--here's Yer Incredibly Abbreviated 2020 Giro d'Italia in Preview!

The Course: Who the !@#$ knows?  Half the guys are mistakenly gonna turn up at the Lombardia start, and for the rest of 'em, let's just say they're a liiiiiiiiittle up in the air, because all the roads that were meticulously paved in April have already crumbled into pave', and the Stelvio, to put it optimistically, already looks like Christmas, so the odds of it being actually passable are roughly the same as *not* finding Miguel Angel Lopez still frozen like a Popsicle to the inside of a snowplow in a deserted Alpine heavy-equipment parking lot sometime around next August.  Still, here's the plan, for now:

Week 1: We start off with a 15.1k individual time trial through Palermo with quite a dip after the first k or so then a pan-flat 2.7k finish. Stage 2: a 149k light roller with a 5%ish to 9%ish uphill finish the last few k.  Stage 3: screw you sprinters, we're in the mountains already--welcome to the always-thrilling Cat-1 Mount Etna finish! This should provide us the first check of whose Giro is already in spectacular disarray, subject, of course, to riding into form, wheel entanglements, ill-timed mechanicals, and unanticipated Earth-bound asteroids.  Stage 4: yep, it's mercifully flat, with the exception of a looooong if mild drag in the middle, and a rider-pleasing 800 meter straight finish.  Stage 5: We're rolling!  Bring your legs, and yer Dramamine, folks, as the unsung breakaway artists have a reasonable chance if they can make it past the occasionally 18% slopes of Valico di Montescuro without getting eaten alive by, hell, the 250-pound 6-foot natural climbers of Jumbo Visma.  Stage 6: less punchy, but a false-flat finish. Stage 7: Sure, the Giro itself cites "roundabouts, traffic dividers, pedestrian islands, stone pavers and speed bumps" as possible obstacles, but we know *those* never cause any problems--so get yer game on, Elia, we have faith!

Week 2:  Stage 8: snooze away til 90k, when Monte Sant'Angelo wakes you  up, then up-down til the final 2k.  This year, who the hell knows who'll take it? Stage 9: Snap out of it, climbers, we got 4,000 meters of climbing on our queen stage in the Apennines, including Passo Lanciano, Passo San Leonardo, and the final gasp up to Roccaraso with a 12% nipper of a last kilometer! Stage 10: Relax, GC, it's a rolling profile with a flat, fast 10k to the finish. Next up: a happy day on Stage 11 for the pure sprinters.  Enjoy! Stage 12: Get ready to cry again!  With the exception of the start and finish, it's constant climbing and descending, with some pretty sharp inclines to boot.  Oh, and two helpful speed bumps on the finishing straight. Are we there yet? Stage 13: 155k o' absolutely nothing, then two little climbs before flat again for the finale.  Isn't that a nice way to end the week?

Week 3: Welcome to the second time trial!  Not for the purists, this includes a lumpy 34.1k with gradients up to 19%, so bike selection will be key.  In the final k, you got three sharp turns, then 300 meters to steady yerself for the finish.  Bonne chance, suckers! Stage 15: back in the mountains, baby!  If you're choking on GC, now's a nice time to start making amends, particularly the last 15k uphill to Piancavallo.  Stage 16: Ciao, beautiful Udine! All the enjoyment of up and down circuits with a 20% gradient just before the final kilometer.  Ouch!  Stage 17: We are done screwing around, people: assuming they're not snowed in, we got Balbona, *then* Monte Bondone, *then* wee (ish) Passo Durone, and finally, the Climb of Truth up the Madonna di Campiglio.  Lookin' good for the final maglia rosa Nibs--at least we hope! Stage 18: cracked yesterday? Well, you ain't gonna like today: it's the mitico Stelvio stage, and yes, you're just *praying* that mother's snowed in and UCI, in a rare act of mercy, calls in the Extreme Weather Protocols to save you.  As if!  Stage 19: oh thank goodness: any sprinters left--and frankly, it's highly questionable Sagan made it past yesterday--have one final chance at glory.  Stage 20: it's last chance for the GC, assuming you haven't had any idiotic crashes, contracted any bizarre stomach ailments, or frozen off any useful appendages, and it is gonna *hurt*--the Colle dell'Agnello, the Col d'Izoard, a schelp to Montgenevre, and, if you weren't cursing the organizers hard enough, the gorgeous, lofty, and probably pretty darn icy hike to Sestriere.  Congrats, you just won the whole entire Giro!  Finally, we end the most beautiful race in the world with a third (!) ITT.  Now, ragazzi, you can rest! 

The GC: Who the !@#$ knows?  First, there's *three* ITTs, which, if history is any guide but the lumpy profile of the second is not, is !@#$ news for the climbers.  Plus, everyone, *everyone*, brought their absolute A-game to the Tour de France instead in the likely event it was gonna be the only Grand Tour to the start, much less finish, this year.  And aside from Nibali, who has been laser-targeting the Italian races this weird, abbreviated year and looks, honestly, as sharp as he's ever been, everyone's form is completely unpredictable as a result.  Defending champ Carapaz is no-show.  So in theory, and still at this moment, besides Lo Squalo: Miguel Angel Lopez. Fuglsang, except half of Astana's already been sent home--due to the pandemic, you cynics! Zakarin. Majka. Kruijswik, though particularly deep down, I don't really see it. Geraint Thomas--still pissed off being here at all, so he might as well stick it to his team boss for screwing him outta the Tour--and, last but not least, Simon Yates.  Aupa Mikeeee--what the !@#$ do mean he isn't here?!

The Other Stages: Sprints: still devastated by Peter Sagan's losses at the Tour?  Have no fear, he's out for vengeance, and redemption, at the Giro!  Unfortunately for him, so's Elia Viviani, with his impeccable home-race palmares.  Also on the hunt: Bling Matthews, Gaviria, who is looking awful fit, and Demare.  For stage hunters, we got a wide net, with guys like Warbasse to De Gendt to Ciccone to Craddock to ever-Carrot Pello Bilbao and, to everyone's joy, Giovanni Visconti. For the time trials--considering the terrain differentials, your guess is way, way better than mine!

Alright folks, in the off chance cycling's still actually on in *any* country after this week, I'm gonna call it here.  So let's pull out our fuzzy mascots, pink t-shirts, masks that go *over your nose while you're screaming at the riders !@#dammit*, and backwoods winter survivalist gear, pop the Prosecco for that late-season Spritz, and get this springtime show on the road! 

   

It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2019 Giro d'Italia racejunkie Awards!

Okay, so I've been a *little* bit discombobulated this Giro by Movistar sucking *again* with some guy from it who's not Mikel Landa winning instead.  But still and all, it *was* rather a ripper, so before the inevitable din and unbearable hype surrounding the inferior Tour de France kicks in, let's give credit where credit is (sometimes mortifyingly) due: It's time for Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2019 Giro d'Italia racejunkie Awards!  Prizes (I swear), should any winner be so desperate as to claim them: a stylin' custom-embroidered racejunkie cap to adorn yer head; a passel o' racejunkie stickers to deface every mountaintop sign to pass in a car so you can pretend you actually climbed the thing on yer bike; and, in lieu of the hallowed Trofeo Senza Fine, a promotional statuary tchotchke plucked right from my local secondhand store and engraved with *your actual name.* So own yer glory, and yer shame kids--it's damn-near-as-good-as-a-maglia-rosa time!

Talk Softly and Carry a Big Stick (Except You Didn't) Prize: hey, we *all* love a little pre-race smack talk.  After all, what better way to get the adrenalin flowing, the tifosi screaming, and yer rivals ready to stick a shank in your tire at 50 miles an hour? That's right, Simon Yates's suave suggestion that his fellow GC contenders oughta be "!@@#ing in their pants right now."  Um, are you sure that wasn't just what you thought they were doing when they were actually 20 kilometers up the road ahead of you instead?

Caught With Their Pants Down Prize: heck, mechanicals happen.  But when you really *don't* want them to happen, particularly when everyone's surmising whether you're about to take the entire show in Verona, is when your team car collectively decides now's a perfectly harmless time to drop trou at the side of the road for a little gruppo nature break.  Still, Primoz Roglic managed to get another bike and get on his way eventually. Oh, well--it's not like he wanted the final maglia rosa anyway!

Screw You Race Organizers! Award: Remember when time triallists were approximately size of the Abominable Snowman, and about as likely to disrupt the results of the final overall podium?  Yeah, well *I* do, and time was, whippersnappers, where only the rarest of GCs was actually decided by a freakin' pile of suckfest TIME TRIALS THAT NO PURE CLIMBER WAS EVER ABLE TO NAVIGATE COMPETITIVELY ANYTIME ANYWHERE EVER.  And yes, I'm a bitter Landa fan.  Do you *know* how much this race would've changed if the first day (and the last!) hadn't taken a !@#damn baseball bat to this poor kid's legs, and ego?  Perfidy, thy name is PLEASE PLEASE GIRO DON'T EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS EVER AGAIN!

Superdomestique-o'-the-Giro: speaking of whom, in my misery over Movistar's usual hosing of our little Carrot underdog, I *do* have to in all honesty give this one to, yep, this year's new and now reigning Maglia Rosa, Richard Carapaz, who genuinely dug in there with his last ounce of energy in the race's penultimate stage to smoosh the GC contenders to almost--almost!--give the stage to loyal, if overall generally a bit bummed out, co-captain Mikel Landa. Aw, thanks for trying Richard--now *don't* come between Mikel and the (I hope) Vuelta!

Fake-Out of the--Hell, of the Century! Award: so what're a ravenous press, twitterverse, and bored-as-hell tifosi supposed to think when a bunch of guys in intimidating-lookin' hazmat suits ostentatiously descend on the notorious Alexander Vinokourov's Astana team bus and disappear inside with what looks like some high-tech James Bond spymongering gear?  HOLY !@#$ STOP THE INTERNET AND FLEE FROM THE NARCS IT'S US POSTAL ALL OVER AG--uh, it's a minor new cleaning-product sponsor, like, *seriously* giving that filthy team bus a nice scrub.  Well now that we're all freaking out Vino, can you get a damn whiskey sponsor out here to calm us down?

Total !@#$in' Hypocrisy Award: so someone finally notices that Alessandro "Wheezy" Petacchi, already renowned for sucking enough asthma meds right before the finish line to open up the airways of an entire herd of stampeding wildebeest, is retroactively implicated in some *other* ancient doping scandal that's just now being revealed by clowns lining up to take down a doctor everyone already knew was a dope supplier now that they've benefited from all the !@#$ they took from him, and what happens? That's right, the noble head honchos over at RAI--who've previously had no reservations showcasing *other* former pros snarled in their own doping allegations, who shall remain nameless because I like them--take the strapping ex-sprint king right outta the broadcaster's box and into the annals of Guys We Knew Should Make Us Look Bad But Like Who Cared Until Now Anyway?, while fellow miscreants-turned-commentator-darlings David Millar and Christian Vande Velde get to laugh their absolute !@#es off over a beer.  I mean, not that Petacchi deserves a ticker-tape parade for his hijinks, but what the !@#$, people?!

Crash o' the Race (GC-Deciding): Y'know, in the absence of last year's defending-champ-who-declined-to-defend-his-title-therefore-dishonoring-this-beautiful-race-and-should've-been-thrown-into-a-viperous-gaping-snakepit, I was actually rather looking forward to see how runner-up Tom Dumoulin was gonna do--but we'll never know, because the poor kid was taken out by a nasty knee injury on Stage 4.  Didja see how he at least tried to get on the bike the next day before succumbing to the inevitable?  Now *that's* giving the race its due!

Crash o' the Race (Jaysus Thank God He's Okay!): speaking of asthma, this one's unfortunately for AG2Rs Alexis Vuillermoz, who actually did have a severe enough asthma attack on the Queen stage 16 to cause him to crash into a ravine, be rescued, hauled up, and treated, and, miraculously, climb back on his bike and proceed to finish the stage.  Forget the hype about all the Classics guys--now *that's* some hardman !@#$!

*I'm* Not Crying, *You're* Crying! Prize: he burst onto the scene in 2015, climbing (and smiling) like an angel at the Vuelta, where he wore the yellow jersey, and then in 2016 at the Giro, where he hit the podium.  And after that?  Well, despite a lovely stage win at the 2018 Giro, the poor boy was gobsmacked for damn near a year by a bout of Epstein-Barr virus, with naysayers wondering if he'd ever truly come back.  But come back he did, with a gorgeous victory on Stage 19 and a tearful celebration with his adorable parents.  Oh, shut up and pass me the Kleenex, you sentimental fool!

Fan !@#$wit Award (Were You Raised By!@#dam' Wolves or Something? Edition): look, we all live for waiting on a freezing roadside for seven hours in the vain and statistically unlikely hope that a passing domestique will toss a water bottle, an empty musette, or even a spit-covered half-empty gel packet, our way.  And honestly, most of these guys are nice enough to actually look for some eager kid (or grown-up!) to toss 'em to, when they've got quite *enough* to attend to at that moment, thank you.  But just a bit *too* eager was the big adult assclown who thought it was perfectly okay to bodily wrench a water bottle from the very mouth of poor Marco Haller like a medieval barber yanking a rotten tooth from some poor bastard's head with a rusty farrier's hammer.  Forget the fan--I'm inclined to award this one to Marco for charging over and berating the !@#$in' idiot!

Fan !@#$wit Award (Malice Aforethought Edition): between the too-close-flag-wavers, the selfie-stickers, the dog-walkers, and, may heaven protect our eyes, the exhibitionists running beside the riders screaming in their too-small banana-hammocks, it's often hard to pick who gets a Fan !@#$wit Award in the Giro or any Grand Tour.  But to their credit, at least they're just stupid--it's a whole 'nother animal when someone actively picks up a pale-blue cruiser bike and intentionally throws it in the race course, which inevitable near-catastrophe was heroically averted by another tifoso who immediately ran out into the road ahead of the charging peloton and retrieved it.  Holy crap, and I thought tossing tacks into the road was bad!

Fan !@#$wit Award (Vigilante Justice Edition): What's even worse than a stupid crash when you're riding like mad for the final podium?  The roadside moron who puts you there!  Undaunted by the ticking clock, though, Miguel Angel Lopez took the time to give the gentleman an etiquette lesson--if you can call smacking the guy upside the head til his hat spun out like a frisbee "etiquette." And while everyone was quick to assure that they don't condone violence, even the race organizers, with the power of expulsion in their hands, were inclined to let this one slide.  Hell hath no fury like a GC contender impeded!

Nice Guys Finish Last (But Also First!) Award: Chad Haga--who generously entertained the lot of us with his pithy #GiroOversimplified daily roundups via twitter--slogged through rain, sun, rain, and rain for three straight weeks and sat in the hot seat for damn near the entire final day before finding out the truly bitchin'--he won the Stage 21 time trial, and single-handedly salvaged the demoralized leaderless Team Sunweb's entire Grand Tour.  Nice to have something sweet to cheer about for once, amirite? Woot woot woot Chad Haga!

And Finally, the Punk-!@# Move of the Giro: y'know, I usually have a wealth of options to choose from here, as the race for the final maglia rosa grows more intense, tempers rise, and frankly, usually Alejandro Valverde is racing it.  But this year he wasn't, and aside from a little argy-bargy in the sprints from Elia Viviani, and Vincenzo Nibali clearly about to go completely over the edge at Primoz Roglic's failure to assist him in overthrowing, well, Primoz Roglic, this year was astonishingly civilized.  So here's a slightly revised "Dumb-!@# Move of the Giro" Award: for forcibly abandoning your own team leader Nibali (who could've really used the help, by the way) by getting popped for a 2013 Austrian doping scandal 5 stages into the race, Kristijan Koren, this one's for you!

Well folks, there's my Giro d'Italia awards for 2019--now either claim 'em, correct me, or hope to heck I don't have to give your sorry !@# another prize next year!

It's Yer Giro D'Italia in Preview, Part Tre: the Sprinteurs, the Climbeurs, and Puncheurs!

Sure, the race actually starts in a few minutes, but that don't mean we're done with our preview yet: while you're holding your breath while some poor bastard botches a bike change, we've got the sprinters, climbers, and stage hunters to break down!  So who've you got for stage wins, once you've been well and truly hosed by your GC picks?  These boys!

The Sprinteurs: let's be honest--recent bout of flu or not, if Elia Viviani is on half the form he was in 2018, he's a shoo-in for a passel of stage victories and the hallowed maglia ciclamino again.  First, the you-suck-uci-for-scheduling-the-amgen-epo-tour-o'-california-at-the-same-time-as-the-Giro has permanently gutted the giro sprinter field.  Second, this guy, unlike your typical sprinter musk oxen, can hang tough in all but the viciousest climbs.  Heck, if you can look fresher'n a daisy--or hell, an actual dead person--after last year's epic slog up the Finestre, as he did, what *can't* you conquer?  Still, there are a couple of other fast men here, most of whom are destined to crawl home weeping like wet-diapered toddlers after the first big mountain stage on Day 13, and scrappy little squirt Caleb Ewan, the tranquillo Fernando Gaviria, and Arnaud Demare could all dethrone, even if temporarily, the reigning king.  See that controversial Italian champ jersey they dropped on Elia?--kids, follow that!

The Climbeurs: look, if you can climb, you're a threat for Giro GC.  But some pretty amazing talent has been pressed into service, at least theoretically, for their team leaders, and all it takes is one captain's bonk for a mountain goat specialist to be let off the leash.  Ex-Carrot Ion Izagirre, who's whomped out an impressive palmares of his own this season.  Esteban Chaves, who if he doesn't get sick can charmingly crush just about anyone.  Carapaz, who better stick to backing Mikel !@#dammit.  Rafal Majka, who's pounded out a coupla Tour de France mountains titles. Pavel Sivakov--with poor Bernal out, now might be your moment. And of course, beloved ex-carrot Mikel Nieve.  Forza ragazzi!

The Puncheurs and Stage Hunteurs: Finally, the Giro is nothing if not unpredictable, and as the GC get too cagey watching each other, and hold back on the rollers to save energy in the big passes, there's some pretty wily stage hunters, and even out-of-place Classics guys, out for glory and a bangin' raise next year.  Tao Geoghegan Hart.  Bauke Mollema.  Bob Jungels.  Davide Formolo.  And I'm hoping that, as happens in at least one Grand Tour per year, some jailbait revelation or lifelong worker bee will pull a humungous solo breakaway and astonish and delight us all. Gooooooooo unexpected mystery man!

Welp, there's no doubt buckets more I'm missing, but them's my top picks.  Now let's get on with the show--and Landa, pleeeeeaaaaaaaase have a good ITT tomorrow!

It's Yer Giro d'Italia 2019 in Preview, Part Due: The GC Contenders!

Okay, tifosi, we got the corsa rosa down--now who's gonna rule it?  Probably one of these guys!

Mikel Landa: first, everyone can suck it for not including we love Mikel Landa in their top five.  Sure, he hasn't won a Grand Tour *yet*.  And with Alejandro Valverde missing in action with a gnarly butt-bone bruise, he'll lack some serious mountain firepower.  On the plus side, with Alejandro Valverde missing in action with a gnarly butt-bone bruise, he'll also lack the threat of a serious race-crushing bushwhack from his own teammate.  Of course, our luckless Mikel is down with a vicious toe-rub injury because Movistar sucks *and* all the gods of Valhalla are conspiring against him, but we know this--he's hungry, he's podiumed and won stages here before, it'd be bitchin' to give the unappreciative Movistar a giant !@#$ you as he bolts out the door to take Nibs' place at Bahrain-Merida, and, in a reasonably mountain goat's Giro where even the GC-blowing TTs are on the steep side, the boy can *climb*.  And even without Valverde, Mikel's got some hardcore backup: youngster Carapaz, who had a smashing Giro 2018, and Andrey Amador for the mountains, and JJ Rojas for some protection in the flats.  Aupa Mikeeeeeel--and the rest of you haters know what you can do with that!

Vincenzo Nibali: two-time Giro champ/don't forget his Tour or Vuelta either Nibs is focusing on the Giro this year, and that means one thing for the peloton: pain.  Pain on the climbs, pain on the rolling stages when he's in pursuit, pain on the flats when you can't even shake him, and most especially pain on the descents, where he'll blast by you and be enjoying a massage, a facial, and a cocktail back at the hotel while you're still white-knuckling your squirrely !@# down the first freakin' hairpin on the second-to-last Dolomite of the day.  Downside: second only to Tom Dumoulin's, his team's maybe not so strong as others' GC squads here.  Like that matters?  He's the freakin' Shark, !@#dammit!

Tom Dumoulin: all right, I'm still irked that someone the approximate body size of a steriod-suckin' Incredible Hulk can seemingly climb like a two-kilogram Chavito, but that aside, and ignoring his own grim outlook, Tom's gotta have nothin' but love for this route: he's got two whole weeks to conserve his energy before the mountains kick in, and he's got three whole time trials that, while not the flat profile beloved by specialists, nonetheless puts him on a bike that he can ride effortlessly while the other GC contenders are just praying to manage to stay reliably upright.  If he can minimize his losses on the giant passes, he could do this.  Aupa Mikeeeeeeeeel!

Simon Yates: the most excruciating "almost" of Giro 2018, when he bonked spectacularly on the grueling Finestre while that flailing spider windmill charged ahead for the win, he's got unfinished business here, and put a pretty sweet down payment on it with his late-season Vuelta win.  And while he says he's riding "conservatively" this trip, I assume that also means he'll be paying sharp attention to eating and drinking, to at least take one potential source of total collapse out of the threat pool. And who's he's got on his side? Cheerful Esteban Chaves, who'd also like to redeem a tough 2018, and we love fabulous veteran Carrot Mikel Nieve, who's already bagged the maglia azzurra and a buncha stage wins in this glorious race.  Hold your head together, and you've got a real shot at maglia rosa glory!

Primoz Roglic: look, I get it. He had a great Romandie, he's got a huge engine, he's an enormous talent.  But a three-week Grand Tour is an entirely different garanimal from a week-long stage race, and 21 days is plenty of time to grind even a strongman like this kid into a whimpering, jelly-like nub.  He's got only a handful of Grand Tours under his chamois so far--though who's to say this won't be his breakthrough?

Miguel Angel Lopez: he's young--in fact, last year's third place is also the reigning young rider champ.  He's brilliant--and has had a great start to his season.  And typical for Vino, who has been known to actually crush people into tiny carbon piles by the steely glare of his eyeballs, Astana has brought a squad, including twee-but-formidable Ion Izagirre, designed to kill. But I'm not sure Lopez's got this one just yet.  But I am sure that Vino'll make sure anyone who says that !@#$ is gonna pay for it!

And Finally, the Absentees: hey, I'm the first to say that that ungrateful arachnid-weasel is doing the Giro a favor by not showing up this year, but with happy lieutenant Geraint Thomas also delusionally thinking he'll get an equivalent shot at the Tour this year, that's two bigwigs out, alongside the ever-formidable mostly-bridesmaid Valverde that really open things up--and mercifully shield our eyes from the grotesque sight of Froome on a bike til his main goal in July. It'd be bull!@#$ to say that the absent won't define the race as the participants--so for the guys that are left, and particularly all my ex-Carrots in the house--now's yer chance to blow this race apart!

Well Giro fans, them's mine--next up, if I get around to it before a celebratory pre-race bar crawl with my Lupo Wolfie mascot derails it til after the show's already started, the sprinters, the climbers, and the 'nother threats!

It's Yer 2019 Giro d'Italia in Preview, Part Uno: The Course!

All right, we already know that the race organizers tailor-made this course to seduce Tom Dumoulin into participating by cramming in three freakin' time trials, instead of sensibly tailoring it to deserving natural climbers like Mikel Landa, in which case Dumo better cut the cagey psych-out crap with how out of form he is, be !@#damn grateful, and ride it if he's suffering from the !@#damn bubonic plague. Anyhoo, it being the perfect Giro, it's still a smashing course with plenty o' opportunity for unbelievable breakaways, spectacular bonks, and astonishing mountaintop triumphs, so what've we got? This!

The Overall: As I mentioned, this year's Giro's got *three* individual time trials, which means, no matter how climby they are, three opportunities for the mountain goats to fall over like dominoes on a quake fault and lose the race entirely to the Slightly- Less-Jolly-Than-Usual Green (well, actually red) Giant.  Dammit! Besides them, we have about 5 sprinty stages, 8 medium lumpy stages, and--the entire point of this three-week pain circus--5 big giant mountain stages.  Woot--bring it on, and gentlemen, I'll be sure to mimic your superhuman efforts by enthusiastically toasting you with an Aperol spritz!

The ITTs: we start, punctuate, and possibly podium-smashingly end the Giro with ITTs--no team ones, thank god--with 6k of flat and 2k of leg-nippin' nasty on Stage 1; a generally upward trending tho' not killer incline 35 k slog on Stage 9, and, to completely screw the GC for guys with a, let's say, imperfect grasp of time trial technique, on Stage 21, 17 k with a hill halfway, some last-second mountain points up for grabs, and a 4k descent at the end. Maglia Azzura hunters and crap bike handlers--keep yer eyes open!

The Sprints: like anyone cares, because it's the Giro d'Italia, but still, Elia Viviani put on a truly masterclass show in these last year, so I guess I gotta talk 'em.  Stage 3 stretches you out on the hills around Siena before a nice flat finale; Stage 5 pretends like the breakaway's got a chance with a hilly start then a pancake though awfully bendy finish into Terracina; then it's time for the mountain-shy to cringe home with some bull!@#$ stomach problem unless they can hold out til the flats pick up again on stages 10 and 11; and you get one more chance for glory on Stage 18--if you can make it there!  Sure you don't want to do the Tour of California instead?

The Rollers:   Stage 2's got a flat finish, so break at your peril and pray you don't get mortifyingly caught by the charging fast men in the last 200m; I don't know what the hell a "conurbation" around Rome is, but there is one on Stage 4, as well as a nice 4k uphill finale; Stage 6 is an exhausting 238k slog with a tricky twisty finish; Stage 7 takes us to L'Acquila with a teasingly flat run in until the road jumps upward; and Stage 8, our longest at 239 k, lulls you to sleep with with a flat 140k before kicking you in the nuts for three categorized climbs til a technical finish.  Then, a short'n'dirty stage 12 drags you *twice* up the 20% incline to Principi di Acaia, with the first Cat 1 beast o' the race, Montoso, to welcome you there; Stage 15, still a punishing 232k, takes us into friendly Il Lombardia territory, with the Ghisallo, Civiglio, and San Fermo.  Now take a rest day, honey--you're gonna need it through the big passes til Stage 19 gives you one last chance at mercy with a breakaway-friendly, low summit finish!

And Last But Not Least, The Entire Point of the Whole Race: yes, it's the mountains, baby!  Hope you caught your breath the first 12 stages, because now, it's a whole new world o' hurt: you ease in, sorta, as Stage 13 takes us up the Nivolet with a 15% finale; Stage 14's got 3,000 meters o' climbing in a quick 130k to Cormayeur.  But I hope you're not feeling too relaxed from your rest day--Stage 16 smacks you right in the Alps with 5,700 meters uphill, including the Presolana, the Cima Coppi (Italian for "We're !@#$ed") of the massive Gavia, and, if you're not crying in yer mamma's skirts yet, the mighty Mortirolo.  Whew, I'm I glad *that's* outta the w--aw, crap, it's Stage 17, with ginormous climbs and a vicious uphill finish!  But don't get too comfortable waiting out the sprinters and breakaway artists, and for !@#$'s sake, GC contenders, espresso up for your last chance to redeem your miserable bonk and 10 minute time loss on Stage 16: Stage 20 is a one-way ticket to hel--I mean, the smashing Dolomites, with 5,000 meters of suffer, including the Cima Camp, the Manghen Pass, and the Croce d'Auna to the last Cat 1 slog up Monte Avena.  Make it outta here alive?  Congrats, you just won the race--unless you blow it all on the ITT tomorrow!

Well, them's your 2019 Corsa Rosa basics, and remember, the Tour de France is for charlatans, braggarts, and media whores.   Next up: the GC Contenders--forza Mikeeeeeeeeel, and all of you lucky enough to participate in this beautiful event!

It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2018 Giro d'Italia Racejunkie Awards!

All right, half o' you didn't watch because of the start location, half o' you didn't watch because of that idiot, and the third half of you only watched it begrudgingly--but it remains an irrefutable truth that the beautiful Giro d'Italia is greater than any one (or even a multiple pack o') fuckwits, so now that the Prosecco hangover's warn off and the pre-Tour hype has barely begun, it's time to reward the beautiful, the ugly, and the just plain ludicrous with this year's Incredibly Prestigious 2018 Giro d'Italia racejunkie Awards! Prizes--I swear, for anyone bold, desperate, or self-Googling enough to claim them--a dashing custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling cap, a passel o' handsome racejunkie stickers to ruin yer bike, yer car, or yer face, and--last but *so* not least, an actual physical trophy dredged up from the best, worst, or most ignominious my local second-hand tchotchke shop has to offer. So celebrants, let's get to it!

Total Embarrassment o' the Giro: *why* did my beloved Giro pay that horrid windmill/daddy-longlegs hybrid 1.5 million euro to besmirch this race? Right, it must've brought in more attention than it cost. Except for the tifosi, who were pissed, and collectively (though theoretically possibly for a host of other reasons, even though we all of course know better) dragged the TV ratings down to the lowest in many years. Don't you ever, *ever* pull this crap again, race organizers!

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superdomestique! Prize: Yap, yap, in a creepily familiar US Postal feedback loop, a pack of humanoid robots damn near killed themselves and every other rider in the peloton for 21 consecutive stages setting the pace for that freak Froome on climbs, the flats, and the handful of meters back to the team bus after the line. But who this *really* belongs to is Thibaut Pinot's loyal teammates on his spectacular crack on the stage to Jafferau, who collectively nursed a dehydrated, feverish, vomiting, and ultimately hospitalized Pinot across the line miraculously within the time cut to boot before he was obliged to drop out on the penultimate day. Fortunately, our boy is reportedly recovering nicely, despite an apparent diagnosis of pneumonia and a doc-ordered three weeks' rest from the bike. Forza Pinot, and bravi ragazzi!

Aw, Suck! Podium Moment o' the Giro: C'mon Pozzo. C'mon Pozzo. C'mon Pozzo--aw, *dammit*! Next year, Domenico, I know you can do it next year!

Crash o' the Race (Aw, Rats!): surprisingly, and for once fortunately, it was a three week Tour o' Relatively Minimum Carnage out there. But still and all, it just plain sucked for hardworking Bahrain do-it-all Konstantin Svitsov, who crashed out with a crappy fractured vertabrae no less on the recon of the opening time trial course before the race even began. Heal up soon, Konstantin--hopefully you'll at least be back for the Tour!

Crash o' the Race (Totally Insignificant): speaking of which, who else wiped out on the recon, to immediate social-media humungo-ruckus and worldwide respectable-media hoo-ha, but to no practical effect on the man, or the race, whatsoever? That's right, this one's for Froome. Glad he wasn't hurt--if he was gonna lose the race, I wanted it to be fair and square, on top form!

Crash o' the Race (Totally Bizarre): and speaking of whom, how the *hell* do you even crash inching your way uphill? Yep, Froome again, Stage 8. Damn, it's like his fifth award already, someone get this guy a shopping cart!

Punk-Ass Move o' the Race: For !@#$'s sake, Froome--we know you won. By a lot. Was it *really* necessary to attack Dumoulin for a few meter's advantage when you were coming in together on like Stage 56 and already had the entire damn race wrapped up? Show some class whydontcha!

Associated Manufactured Controversy Award: speaking of our lovebirds, was it a deliberate snub that 2017 Giro champ Tom Dumoulin, who famously stated flat out that he thought Froome oughtn't to be riding the Giro, didn't immediately respond to Froomey's warm offer of congratulations-and-glad-I-beat-you? Or merely the distraction of the crush of fan and media attention surrounding Dumoulin the minute he took a breath across the line? Needless to say (and I include myself in this dim assessment) tifosi speculation took the low road. STOP THE PRESSES THE BROMANCE IS DEAD!

Total Eclipse of the Heart Prize: look, on his most benign day, Astana boss/future Emperor of All Earth Alexander Vinokourov would probably shank you for politely complimenting his shirt. But it was really quite touching after the climb to Jafferau to watch close up how he waited for, enthusiastically welcomed, and assiduously looked after each of his boys to straggle in over the line. Please don't hurt me for saying something nice about you Vino!

Nail-Biter Competition of the Giro: yeah, the maglia rosa. But no, this was the absolutely tit-for-that will-he-or-won't-he fight for the young rider's jersey between Carapaz and Lopez. Sure, they tanked Dumoulin's last hope of reeling back Chris Froome while the two whippersnappers were busy marking each other for white, but hell, Dumo's maglia rosa wasn't their problem!

Running Fan Incident Award (Sissy Slap-Fight Version): to be fair (for once), almost anybody, not least a rider fighting for the overall win in Rome, would want to punch the crap outta a stupid six-foot inflatable Tyrannosaurus Rex plunging and lumbering alongside as one tries to find one's line on a critical climb. But to his credit, Froome refused to slag--though he did shove aside--said dinosaur, diplomatically averring that he was merely moving the innocently stumbling Rex out of his way. Hey, I gotta call it like I see it--that was class!

Running Fan Incident Award (Wisenheimer Version): okay, normally I view the sort of publicity-slut camera-grabbing fans who run alongside the riders in neon banana hammocks or completely incongruous horned Viking helmets with the sort of nauseous semi-complicit horror an American feels at seeing a McDonald's tucked amidst the actual-human-food cafes two streets away from the Vatican. But I couldn't help but feel a sort of grudging, if completely inexcusable, admiration for the guy who managed to perfectly replicate an all-body Ventolin inhaler and still sprint uphill in the thing. An artist, you are, Anonymous!

I See a Red Maglia and I Want It Painted Black Award: no, they don't award it anymore, but gosh darn it, they sure ought to, because the dead-last rider crossing the line dead-last or near so in every stage for three weeks running is *still*, full-stop, one of the greatest athletes on the planet. Two-year's-running last place finisher/maglia nera winner/full o' stick-to-it-iveness Wilier Triestina Guiseppe Fonzi, this one's for you. Bonus award to the Giro organizers for playing the theme from Happy Days at your every sign-in!

Break o' the Race (Ex-Carrot Edition): He did it in 2011, he did it in 2016, and he did it again in 2018. Mikeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel (Nieve, that is)--happy birthday to you is right!

Break o' the Race (No I Am !@#damn Not Awarding It To Froome Edition): Slag him all you want for collapsing in the final week, and slag him even more justifiably for his sketchy UCI run-in that was justifiably howled about every single meter of the race, but damn, Simon Yates' 18k stage 15 run into (well, straight up) Sappada was a *move*. What happens in the future, I can't control!

All Right !@#dammit Even I Can't Be Sarcastic All The Time Cut The Kid A Little Slack Award!: Aru, man. I don't know if it's physical, I don't know if it's the psychological pressure of all the hype, I don't whether it's a team mis-fit, or what. But leave poor little Fabio Aru alone!

Crack o' the Race: no, I'm not giving it to Pinot--the poor kid was sick. But who *did* crack spectacularly was maglia rosa and seemingly-inevitable-top-o'-the-podium vincitore Simon Yates, who, as many resignedly predicted, would and did blow up, as is his youngster wont, the third week in heartbreaking and epic fashion with 85k to go on the Finestre. His stated reason? Fair enough--the boy was just damn *exhausted*. Still, he honored the pink jersey by digging deep and finishing the stage, and the whole race as well. Just maybe work on that long-term endurance thing on the off-season, kid!

Because I'm Happy Prize: sure, he had a bitchin' stage win on the Giro's first heights as a tip o' the hat by respectful team captain Yates after an exhausting most-o'-the-day break. But what completely blew me away was how, with absolutely nothing in the tank by the penultimate day's climb to Cervinia, wee Esteban Chaves still kept smiling even as he ground his way back to his team car after the finish line. Is it even legal to be that cheerful all the time?

Paint Job o' the Race (Jaysus H. Gaudy Freakin' Christ It's Not Even the Right Color Edition): Yes, Chris, you won the Giro, you get a big pink freakin' bike. But !@#DAMMIT THE MAGLIA ROSA IS NOT FLUORESCENT NEON PINK YOU TACKY SNOTTY MISPLACED SHOWOFF! Honor the maglia in yer paint job right, or stay the hell home. FFS, are you gonna light up the Tour de France finale in hi-viz yellow too? *Don't* do that again!

Paint Job o' the Race (Class Edition): a clean black Specialized frame. a subtle streak of magenta. a flash of matching bar tape. And the maglia ciclamino left to stand out on its glorious own. Elia Viviani, and whoever the hell paints yer bike, this one's for you. Nicely done!

The Sound of Inevitability Award: yes, I am going to hold an unreasonable grudge for all time against UCI for rescheduling the Amgen EPO Tour of California right up against the beautiful Giro, thereby depriving the latter race of the likes of Petacchi's beautiful blue train and most of the rest of the world's best sprinters for all time as, for some sick tiwsted rationale, they decide the payoff of one sprint in Milano after 2 million meters of climbing over 14 mountain ranges isn't quite enough and bail for the relatively modest coupla days o' pain in the US. So--with the exception of Sam Bennett's smashing second stage grab on the prestigious final day in Roma--Elia Viviani (fine and deserving as he truly was) had no possible outcome but to take the majority of the flat stages and of course the sprinter's jersey. Well done, but dammit UCI, fix this!

And Last But Not Least, the Road Graffiti o' the Giro: y'know, it still warms the cockles of my miserable cynic hypocrite heart to see the lovely tributes to Marco Pantani painted all over the road. And can anyone begrudge anyone writing encouragement to Aru, Dumoulin, or Pozzovivo? But for me, the immortal words (and accompanying tent set-up) at the foot of Monte Zoncolan handily pointing Chris Froome to a "VENTOLIN PUSHER" and, for some mysterious reason, also "P*SSY", will forever capture the very spirit of this year's Giro. And if you actually *had* that inhaler on hand (yes, just the inhaler you pervs!), that's a *double* trophy for you!

Well, them's your Giro Awards for this year. So swallow yer pride, waste yer time, and pick up yer prizes--just hope you don't earn another one next year!

It's Yer Holy Crap It's Time for the Mountains Giro d'Italia Roundup!

Okay, one prologue, a couple boring sprints, an ugly transfer day, and two bumpy wake-up calls later, we're finally back and well-entrenched on Italian soil, so to those just tuning in now (and those just waking up), welcome to the smashing 101st Giro d'Italia! So what've we learned, and what's a-comin'? This!

1. Shut up, Froome. Jaysus!

2. Elia Viviani is doing his team, and country, proud. See what happens when all the other top sprinters skip the race in favor of that stupid Amgen EPO Tour o' California or to hold back for the gaudy Tour de France?

3. As usual, the prologue !@#$ed the GC on Day 1. Word time trial champ--and freakishly inexplicable high-peaks whiz kid--Dumo slaughtered the field, with (to be fair, this sucked--I want him to get his !@# kicked staying upright) Froome bashed up from a recon ride and dropping 37 seconds (up to 55 now with him too nervous to use his mot--uh, mojo), flyweight Pinot at 34' on the day, piccolo Chaves at 47, perpetual almost Fabio Aru at 57, and Lopez at 1:14, so it's gonna be a looooooong ride back to the podium for most of 'em. Hell, since apparently being 2 feet taller and 80 kilos heavier won't do the trick, maybe Dumoulin'll have another--nope, I'm sure they've got his digestive system under control this time, you're all just hosed!

4. !@#$IN' HELL ASTANA, CAN YOU *TRY* NOT TO RUN OVER THE INNOCENT RACE MARSHAL/ROAD FURNITURE FLAG ALERT GUYS? Oh, that was the Tour de Yorkshire. !@#$IN' HELL ASTANA, CAN YOU NOT PULL THIS STUPID !@#$ AT THE GIRO OR ANYWHERE ELSE EVER AGAIN YOU EEJITS?!

5. Ya gotta love Riccardo Ricco'. After hiding behind the skirts of first his own girlfriend, *then* his own grandma when he got popped, he's finally decided to stick his hand up like that annoying kid in science class who can't bear to be ignored for two seconds with his new book "Heart of the Weasel"--uh, "Cobra", with the apparent revelation that while he'd definitely still dope today, as one must, he'd probably not be so parsimonious as to refuse to pony up serious dough for medical assistance instead of what he did last time, which was to stick his blood bag in his dorm fridge next to the mold-mangled remains of a two-week-old burrito and the disconcertingly off-smelling mayonnaise. Y'know twerp--everyone *still* likes Rasmussen better, so !@#$ off! David Millar, though, you might beat in a yearbook popularity contest, so I suppose that's something old boy!

5. Stage hunters, enjoy this while it lasts--'cause starting tomorrow, the time-screwed mountaineers are gonna jostle you for anything left that they think they can get. Aruuuuuuuuuuuuu--well, maybe you'd better hold off for a superhuman effort in week 3!

6. Ale Petacchi, who was notoriously busted for asthmatic-rhino levels of inhaler juice a ways back, was waxing poetic on his Twitter about his gorgeous 2004 Giro victories. Okay, he got a *little* wheezy in his day, but am I the *only* one who still loves and misses Fassa Bortolo's beautiful blue train from the long-past eons when sprinters still *came* to the mountain-monster Giro with joy?

7. Outside the bellissime roads of Sicily, meantime, Nacer Bouhanni has apparently gotten into a "violent" altercation with his Cofidis DS on team bus which, given cyclists' usual ineptitude at the manly art of the bar brawl, usually consists of nothing more'n taking a wild swing in someone's general direction with an empty bidon or, God forbid, attempting to give one's rival a "noogie", but with a trained pugilist on the downslide like Bouhanni could actually mean a pretty decent sucker-punch to the noggin. !@#dammit Bouhanni, hold it together--if you blow yer chance at the Tour team, who's gonna be there to body-check that horrid little punk Moscon?

Well, tomorrow the fearsome Mt. Etna beckons. Now *what's* that !@#$ you have to wrap all yer discreet motorized assistance with so it doesn't get molten by lava?

It's Yer Giro d'Italia in Preview, Part Due: The GC Contenders!

Look, let's face it--to my eternal enmity, and what should be the World Tour's eternal chagrin, ain't nobody sending their "A-Teams" to the beautiful Giro this--or lately, any--year, opting instead for the garish golden circus, and inevitably maillot-jaune-disgracing doping scandal, of the Tour. You *suck*, cycling! Anyhoo, the squads are contractually bound to send *somebody*, so here they are, and with any luck, the actual winner won't be *too* much of an embarrassment. Any anyway, it's the Giro--*nothing* will mar its beauty dammit, or else! So, in no particular order except the person who pisses me off the most first, the GC:

1. Chris Froome. First--shut up, Froome. Second, you're only riding this for (1) the 1.5 million euros you're getting, you overpriced ho and (2) so you've still got a Grand Tour victory this year on the (extremely) off chance the UCI shows some nuts and doesn't allow you to defile the Tour de France, which *itself* is such an insult to the perfect Giro that you don't deserve to ride it at all, you contemptible alien stick figure. Still, we're stuck with you *and* your hideous ungainly riding style. The hell with your recon of the route: can we just lock this monstrosity into a screening room with 360 degree displays of Contador, Pantani and Heras climbing so he can at least learn some grace?

2. Tom Dumoulin: Amazingly, Tom "Andre the Giant" Dumoulin has managed to turn himself into a 5-foot-2-inch, 120-lb climbing specialist, and while the whole cycling world--the sick freaks--'ll mostly be tuning in with a toxic mix of prurience, fascination, and dread to see if a graphic replay of last year's notorious Ass-Gate returns, I'll be watching wondering why I wasted my time on a stupid law degree rather'n some advanced physics crown that could enable me to figure out how his still-newish climbing ability is possible within the known or theoretical physical structure of the universe. Nonetheless, Dumo's riding, his stubble is carefully curated for maximum photo op, and he just insulted Froome today, so in my book, he's got a good possibility to win against the Evil Twig, tho' of course the winner should actually be Italian. So Forza Dumo!

3. Thibaut Pinot. Ah, Thibaut. So close, but yet so !@#$ed. The q is can he overcome his team and apparently mandatory ill-timed bad luck, illness or injury. The asnswer is, there's no shame in a podium, kid! Heck, why not be happy with a coupla stages or a lovely KOM jersey, to boot?

4. Miguel Angel Lopez. If this were the Tour, we wouldn't be having this conversation, talented as he is. But this ain't and we are. The mountains are a done deal--but can he survive the rest of the course?

5. Mikel Landa. WHAT THE !@#$ ARE YOU DOING MIKEL I TOLD YOU TO WIN THE GIRO TO GAIN UNQUESTIONED CAPTAINCY AND STREET CRED BEFORE GOING FOR THE TOUR! Now you'll just waste half of July shaking Nairo *and* that crafty little !@#$ Valverde off your wheel, not focusing on your external enemies. WHAT THE !@#$?

6. Fabio Aru: Let's be honest, the Next Great Italian Hope has seemed a little, well, melancholy at never having quite yet lived up to his potential. But you may surprise us, little flyweight--on a good day, you're still a panting, awkward, tenacious pleasure to watch, and if you can get your confidence up, your legs, I truly believe, can follow. Vai vai vai vai vai--and don't let the belittling press get you down!

7. Simon Yates: C'mon man. No matter how perfectly he sets this up, he's gonna collapsed like a 10-story house-o'-cards whacked by a bazooka. Yap, yap, Yates fans--I'm prepared to eat my words, but fairly certain that I won't have to!

8. Esteban Chaves: go to hell, can too either! So what if he can't do any of the other kinds of stages? No one cares about those in the Giro anyways!

Ok, barring catastrophe--or embodying it--there's yer GC. Tomorrow last but not least, yer sprinty-rolly-stagey guys!

It's Yer Giro d'Italia in Preview, Part Uno: The Course!

Right, half of you aren't watching the Giro this year due to the Israel start, and half of you aren't watching because watching Chris Froome is like watching one of those vomitous nature-survival shows when a GIANT GANGLY HAIRY--uh, HAIRLESS SPIDER FILLS THE SCREEN, except for three straight weeks, not one mere second of abject terror. But for me, it's *still* the Giro dammit, so for the remaining half of us who'll watch it, what can we expect? *This*, baby--now let the fight for the maglia rosa begin!

The Individual Time Trials: screw that opening team trial crap where they give the GC contenders with weak teams a catastrophically insurmountable gap on the first day--this year, the GC boys get to lose all that time aaaaaaaaall on their own, honey! Day 1: 9.7k of bendy, lumpy confusion with a surprise steep finale--not enough to help the climbers, but just enough to !@#$ 'em up. Stage 16: 34.2k o' Whoa Moly I Just Lost the Podium, including crash-inducing paving stones, roundabouts, and roads juuuust about wide enough to squeak a bike through. But don't worry, that's nothing compared to the coupla 90 degree bends right before the finish line--if you make it there in one piece!

The Sprint Stages: Honestly, who gives a !@#$? This is the *Giro*, dag nabit, not some Tour de France green-jersey orgasmofest, and damn near everyone who's not Italian and *can* sprint is riding the !@#$in' Amgen EPO Tour of California instead anyway as soon as they get a crap TUE from Liewe Westra's gullible doctor. Still, they put 'em in there, on stages 2, 3, 7, 12, 13, and sorta at the end 17 (plus the ultimate day in Rome). Elia Viviani, they're yours to lose--and if you do that in front of yer home crowd, take cover!

The Rollers: Neo-pro jailbait looking to justify yer puny salary by flashing your sponsor's logo for 6 fruitless hours o' headwind agony? Slightly on yer way down, and hoping you'll be let back up again? Or just the sort of unicorn breakaway specialist who can actually pull a Gilbert from 50k out without anybody noticing? Well--with the caveat that the Giro's "rolling stages" are "rolling stages" like gasping yer way up Mount Everest is a "nice little meander in the park"--stages 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 and 11 are for you. DON'T--STOP I--I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU KEEP LOOKING UNDER YER ARMPIT 50 METERS FROM THE LINE I'M GONNA HAVE TO COME OUT THERE AND KICK YOUR !@# BEFORE YOU EVEN GET CAUGHT AT THE LINE!

The Mountains: The hiiiills are aliiiiive...with the sound of "Oh, !@#$!" Yep folks, this is what you've come here for, and this is what the darling Giro, for all its management-based flaws, is here to give you. First, stage 6 welcomes us literally to hell with a 164k stage to the fiery slopes of the fearsome Mt. Etna, with the first assface taking a prolonged drag from a car (you remember they've got those newfangled "cameras" now, right?) getting ceremonially sacrificed to the volcano's lavalicious bowels. Then, the GC can knock back a coupla cold ones and chill absolutely worry-free til stage 14, when we we hit, after a coupla shortish-but-exceedingly-steep little nippers, the GC-smashing crags of the mighty Zoncolan. Ready for a rest? Well, welcome to stage 15 and the Dolomites! After an initial schlep up Passo dello Mauria and a relatively flat run to Cortina d'Ampezzo, you jog right up Passo Tre Croci en route to your worst.date.ever. with two more passes before a 10k right-uphill leg-snapper finale. Whew! But if you bonked badly on one of these puppers, never fear--the overall actually gets decided, if you haven't irredeemably !@#$ed it up already, on stage 18--where a nearly entirely flat profile lulls you to sleep before blasting you awake with a vertical airhorn starting at kilometer 170-- stage 19's brutal haul up the Colle del Lys, Colle delle Finestre, and--if you've still got any gas in your mot--uh, legs--theoretically the last summit finish of the entire Giro from the base at Bardonecchia. Finally, the two remaining survivors within, oh, 90 minutes of the leader's jersey enjoy the penultimate day's Queen Stage, with Col Tsecore's 12%-gradient sting, the relatively relaxing Col St. Pantaleon and--last but not least--the looooooooooong 19k drag up Cervinia. But even with that Skybot disgrace and unlikely Biggest Climber on Earth Dumoulin in attendance, and Movistar leaving its biggest guns to go all Donner Party on themselves at the Tour, there's still room for intrigue. Perhaps Nibali, encapsulating national pride with a high-peaks victory? And Chaves you sneaky little sprite, it's time to show the fangs beneath that smile and spit Froome out the back where he belongs!

The Finale: And, lest you were hoping for a careening high-stakes crashfest through the heart of some peaceful piazza, the organizers, in their respectful wisdom, are running the triumphal sprint in Rome through 13 laps in the actual Colosseum instead. Or, y'know, a ten-loop circuit with pave, whatever. THAT'S RIGHT BEYOTCHES, I'M A GLADIATOR--now if some !@#$witted fan doesn't knock me off my bike into the barriers with a !@#damn selfie stick in the last 20 meters, the glory is *mine*!

Well, that's the race course. Next up: The GC Contender! Wait, there's more than one you say? Did that little !@#$ get popped for good this time or something? Guess they gotta put up a coupla names just for show...anyway, see ya next post!

It's Yer What-the-Hell-Just-Happened Roundup and Here-Come-the-Mountains Giro Preview! #Giro100

Gavi-what?: So, you *just* figured out how to spell "Postlberger", and now you've got some *new* phenom to memorize? That's right, much as I want Andre Greipel to win every sprint, there's no doubt newborn baby Fernando Gaviria is the new jock-on-the-block, and I gotta say, sucks to be you if you're sprinting against this kid for the next, oh, 8 years or so. So go go Gorilla--but for Chrissakes beef up yer leadout train first!

Gone But Unfortunately Not Forgotten: In other Giro news, an injured Mikel Landa has decided to save Sky's !@# and continue on in the giro, to which team boss Dave Brailsford gratefully responded by kicking Landa right in the nuts, and an injured Geraint Thomas (not so injured he couldn't go full Cancellara in the time trial, but whatevs) *quit* the Giro, to which Dave Brailsford irritatingly responded by overthrowing the house of Windsor, clapping Queen Elizabeth and the rest of the royal family into leg irons and stuffing 'em into an unused utility closet in the Tower of London, and installing G on the Throne of England. Jaysus, Mikel, GET OUT of Team Craphole already, I know the dough is good but yer dignity is worth so much more!

La Vie in Rosa: Meantime, amiable giant Tom Dumoulin is comfortably in pink despite the fact that by sheer genetics he ought to be barely making it up the Dolomites sitting in a freakin' ski lift, but, with another time trial to go and two minutes plus on more natural climbers like Quintana Pinot (yes, he's a GC contender *now*, !@#$ off) & Nibali who can climb Everest without drawing a breath, it's apparently all but certain that big Tom'll not only stay there in the maglia rosa but beat 'em all by 3 or 4 days to Milan. What the !@#$ is *wrong* with the world nowadays, am I the *only* one who thinks it's gone all topsy-turvy?

Up, Up, and...Well, Good Luck Staying Away!: And, forget this Mount Etna/Blockhead !@#$--it's almost time for the full-on total mountains onslaught of the most beautiful race on Earth, so get set and embrace the pain cave, baby! Today: we're only a few short kilometers away from the gentle climb to Oropa, and if these nits just mark each other like spineless lilies and wheelsuck in Valverdean proportions, well, at least they got another chance to reclaim their rightful place in history on Monday's Queen Stage 16, a brutal haul up the Mortirolo with its 16% ramps, followed by the Cima Coppi at the fabled (and feared) Passo Stelvio and its hairy descent, then a quick jaunt for some more suffering over the border in Switzerland up the Giogo di Santa Maria, and a damn near 100% downhill plummet into Bormio. Okay, Mikel, we know you want and of course deserve this one--but it's gonna depend on yer descending, so please, you and the other guys just stay the hell upright, okay?! And don't worry big Tom, you'll get your breath back on Stage 17's comparatively mellow roller with early ups Aprica and Passo del Tonale before a chill middle part then last uphill grind to Canazei--which won't really help you if you cracked on Stage 16 and Nibs (tho down a key domestique) Thibaut and Nairo actually pulled their !@#$ together and attacked!

News It or Lose It: finally, no Giro would be complete without the two Bardiana-CSF nimrods who tested poz and got pulled immediately prior to the first day's start line getting popped for sure on their B-sample and promptly fired by their team, which apparently is totally cool for the race organizers to have the rest of em continue but raises the entertaining prospect of whether the kids are gonna blame (1) just had sex (2) didn't have enough sex or (3) yet *again* ordered an unregulated supplement off the internet like the rest of their similarly dimwitted pro-cyclist miscreant buddies. Ah, well--you guys got nothin' but time now, so choose yer excuses--and start cultivating the right friendships in anticipation of your eventual returns to the peloton--carefully!

Jailbait! Pink Gorillas! Disturbing Analogies! Slap-Fights!: It's Yer Giro d'Italia Week One in Review!

Okay, the first week of this year's monumental 100th Giro d'Italia has been accused, in some circles--as in, say, the legendary Mario "the Lion King" Cipollini's--as being a bit of a snoozer. But whaddaya expect--they gotta throw the few sprinters at the race *some* kind of a bone before they send 'em home crying like Cavendish when he loses, right? And you actually missed, if you weren't paying attention or, frankly, just laid a little too hard into the Aperol, quite a bit. So before we hit the serious mountains with tomorrow's hopefully GC-awakening slog up to Blockhaus, let's review!

Hijinks!: Yes, sincere congrats to the first two twits (Stefano Perazzi and Nicola Ruffoni, both of Bardiani-CSF) to get popped for doping before the race even it made it to the pre-show press conferences. Well, *that* restores the public faith in clean sport! Bonus points to Team Bardiani management for immediately throwing the riders under the bus (they wish literally!) as the usual "rogue elements" with the squad staff "completely unaware of the drugs we personally provided them (wait, did I translate that right?) and, of course, for UCI for immediately clamping down on this disgusting scourge by--uh, yeah, letting the team ride the race anyway. Bets on which Bardiani innocent gets busted next!

Jailbait!: look, if you *remotely* saw anyone from Bora-Hansgrohe coming--which, to be honest, has been primarily known as "Peter Sagan's squad"--much less their actual sprinter's lead out guy who happened to be riding his first stage in his first Grand Tour ever when his sprinter lost his wheel and his whole purpose in riding the Giro vanished in a second, you are a lying lying lying liar, or else the actual and direct hand of God reaching down and propelling an entirely surprised youngster Lukas Postlberger across the line and into the holy maglia rosa on Stage 1. Even better, the kid showed more tactical sense and cool under insta-pressure as some serious GC riders a good decade his senior. Best of all, the RAI commentator's endless delight since that fateful day in yelling "Postlberger!" at completely irrelevant times during the race ever since. A sweet start to an illustrious career, Lukas!

Pink Gorillas!: Meantime, big friendly lug Andre Greipel, who looks like he could kill you merely by thinking in your personal direction but who never misses an opportunity to warmly thank and congratulate his competitors, his teammates, his soigneur, the podium babes, or any rider who manages to stay upright during an on-the-fly nature-break, also took a smashing sprint and spent a lovely day in pink, generously allowing Caleb Ewan to take a stage as well, along with an astonishingly fast Fernando Gaviria. You're just so *nice*, Andre--*please* don't bail, the race organizers *swore* there's another sprint day in there somewhere!

Disturbing Analogies!: Speaking of Gaviria, who's already bagged *two* wins so far this race and donned the newly-returned maglia ciclamino, I gotta say he's an early lead contender for the 2017 Giro d'Italia racejunkie award for quote o' the Giro: "I think getting to Milan will turn Fernando the boy into Fernando the man." Y'know, um...yeah...no, there's just *no* commentary on that that *wouldn't* be disconcerting. Anyway, nice to see you riding so well, kid!

Lava Lumps!: naturally, the *biggest* disappointment for the tifosi this week was the vaunted Stage 4 hike up Mount Etna, not only because the volcano didn't explode and bury the Team Sky bus under a cloud of caustic ash and lava, but because the GC riders completely wussed out of *any* kind of move and that little weasel Thomas still managed to grab 4 bonus seconds over his team's rightful GC captain, Mikel Landa. Good little attack on today's stage though, Mikel--you'll have plenty of time on tomorrow's ginormous climb to stomp him tomorrow!

Slap-Fights!: Back in the peloton, an epic slap-fight between key Nibali domestique Javi Moreno and demon-squad Sky's Diego Rosa ensued after Rosa started it by giving Javi a shove and a startled Moreno reasonably responded, leading to the obvious result of the race organizers kicking out Moreno on account of Rosa being a total ass. Stop it, guys. Just--stop it. With most of you, it's like watching a unicorn and Tinkerbell getting into a to-the-death cage-fight in front of a howling bloodthirsty crowd of dew-drunk wood-sprites. It's *embarrassing.* Now hash it out like *real* cyclists, by surreptitiously lowering the other guy's saddle by a millimeter and freaking him out for 200 kilometers! Anyhoo, here's the Thrilla in Manila (Etna, whatever):

Fan Failures!: Finally, endless curses to the dimwit fan with either an overextended arm or a moron freakin' selfie stick who apparently thought it would be a good idea to steal DiData hardworking nice-guy Kristian Sbaragli's liver right off 'im and try to sell it on the black market, 'cause the eejit damn near succeeded, and as the wounded victim helpfully pointed out, it could've caused a hell of a nasty crash in the peloton, as well as the marginally lesser problem of personal disembowelment. !@#dammit, do I *have* to do yet *another* "Etiquette for Tifosi" post *every* Grand Tour--because I can only say "JAYSUS GET YOURSELF AND YOUR APPENDAGES OFF THE COURSE YOU !@#$WITS" so diplomatically!

Well, that--and the fact that an Italian astonishingly hasn't won a single stage yet this Giro, which the Moreno-less Nibali still better pull off tomorrow or he's gonna look vulnerable--was the week that was. Onto Week 2, and the *real* start of some major GC slugfests!

It's The 100th Giro d'Italia! A Short Tribute to Michele Scarponi at the Giro

Look, there's no doubt that, with the tragic and untimely death of Michele Scarponi, the 100th edition of the mitico Giro d'Italia will start off, as it will finish, with inestimable grief and loss. And lest there be any tinge of hypocrisy on my end, let me state unequivocally that I stand by every wiseacre thing I ever blogged, tweeted, or said about him in the 11 year history of this wretched screed. But it also can't be denied that Scarponi's ineffable mix of showmanship, grinta, human frailty, and utter ease as either a captain or painfully self-sacrificing superdomestique were quintessially, well, Giro. So with that in mind, a brief tribute to the history of Michele Scarponi at the most beautiful race on earth:

2202: In his maiden Giro, with Acqua e Sapone, Michele bags a fine 18th overall. Not bad for a whippersnapper!

2003: Now with Domina Vacanze (oh! these lovely lost squads!), Scarponi goes two better in the general classification. Steady!

2004: What the hell? Why wasn't he here?

2005: Now with Liberty Seguros, Michele still finishes, this time at a yeoman's 47th. Just you wait though, until...

2006: As Operacion Puerto unfolds, taking half the active peloton and his own squad's now-notorious management with it, Scarponi DNFs. And of course, he misses 2007 and 2008 as well, leading to...

2009: A new gig at Androni, where he superdomestiques the great Gilberto Simoni, wins stage 6 on a solo break, pockets a thrilla of a stage 18, *and* pulls off a wholly respectable 31st, a fine preview of...

2010: His breakout performance as a serious GC contender, taking a smashing Stage 19 mountain sprint over the returning Ivan Basso and a jailbait Vincenzo Nibali on his way to 4th overall, which brings him...

2011: To the Disney sparkle princesses at our beloved Lampre, where he takes the prestigious red points jersey and grabs the second step on the podium, 6 minutes down (and it's !@#damn impressive he did) on the year's winner, Alberto Contador (yeah, I stick by that!), proving it's no fluke when...

2012: Ryder Hesjedal wholly unexpectedly emerges triumphant, but Scarponi still claws his way to just-shy-of-the-final-podium in 4th again, before:

2013: He scrappily holds onto 4th again, until...

2014: Now with Astana and its erratic raging (but wily!) boss Vinokourov, even he finally bails on stage 16, after which...

2015: He takes this one off, until...

2016: When, in what would sadly turn out to be his final Giro appearance, he stops cold on a mountainside on the way to near-certain stage victory to hang back and help his struggling captain Vincenzo Nibali not only on the stage, but to seal the overall victory (and winning a prestigious 2016 Giro d'Italia racejunkie Award in the process). Grande Michele!

May the 2017 Giro d'Italia live up to his impressive legacy. Grazie Michele!

It's Yer Quasi-Literate Guide to Italian Cycling Terms, Part Uno!

Yeah, yeah, cobbles. But frankly, I'm so preemptively nauseated at the thought of Tom Boonen not winning his final Paris-Roubaix, and the incredibly anal-retentive obsessing over who caused Sagan's Flanders fall when we all know the important thing is what's the proper term for his current facial-hair configuration that I Just. Can't. Even. So, as we look ahead to the smashing 100th Giro, what do you do when your own country's commentator is a !@#$wit? That's right, scam some virus-laden illegal Italian feed, but for now, you need to know what they're sayin'! Ergo, a crash course in General Bike Racing Stuff:

Squadra: yer team. I.e., "how dare you not respect the fabulous Giro enough to bring your A-squadra, you Tour de France-whoring publicity pigs?"

Testa della corsa: the head of the race. Usage: how the !@#$ can that robot Valverde be alla testa della corsa for the 16th straight stage?

Fuga: the breakaway. Example: look, Amets is in la fuga agai--wait, he's not even *racing* anymore? What the hell is *wrong* with you freaks?

Gruppo: the peloton.

Gruppetto: the autobus (the !@#-end of the peloton, not the team bus).

Gregario: yer domestique. Poor bastard!

Velocista: sprinter. Example: how the !@#$ is that 200-pound velocista suddenly out-climbing Alberto Contador? Ohhhh...

Il doping: doping. No, serious!

Scalatore: climber.

Tappa: the stage.

Cronometro: the time trial. As in, "Are you kidding me? We're allowing a !@#$in' 45k flat cronometro to decide the *Giro*?"

Partenza: the start line.

Arrivo: the finish line.

Podio: the podium.

Ristoro: the feed zone. I think. Such as, "can you *get* through this freakin' ristoro without tossing your musette into my wheel, you !@#clown?"

Discesa: the descent.

Pendenza: the percent gradient of the climb.

Tornante: hairpin turn. Like, "Oh, !@#$, did that guy just fly off that tornante?!"

Vincitore: the winner. Correct usage: "Yay! Mikel Landa e' il vincitore!"

Maglia: yes, the coveted jersey! Leader is maglia rosa; mountains is maglia azzurra; young rider is maglia bianca.

Salita: the climb.

Podio: the podium.

Caduta: a fall. Dottore!

Ammiraglia: the team car. Yeah, this is all *your* fault, you @@#-strategy-spewing nits!

Well, them's the basics. Next up: bike parts, medical crap, and, *what* are they shouting at those guys?

It's Yer 2016 Racejunkie 10 Cycling Things I'm Thankful For This Year (And a Few I Ain't)

Yes, Thanksgiving in America is upon us, that heartwarming time of year when long-lost relatives from far and wide gather to spout their offensive political views, try to refrain from stabbing each other with forks, reach harmony over universal condemnation of the gravy, soothe still-wounded spirits in a slap-fight over the last piece of chocolate-cream pie, then retire to watch the football game where some lazy oaf falls asleep and completely hogs the sofa before everyone else shifts uncomfortably for three hours on ottomans and folding chairs, only to sob on the way out the door how the family oughta get together more often--uh, to enjoy a perfect Norman Rockwell holiday where the turkey is moist, the mashed potatoes are slathered with butter, and not a spot ever falls on Grandma's crisply ruffled apron. And for we cycling fans, what better opportunity to ruminate on our beloved sport and consider the Ten Cycling Things I'm Thankful For This Thanksgiving (And a Few I Ain't)? Ergo:

1. Alberto Contador is free. Whatever happens at the Tour, this boy's finally got his wings back at a team that'll really appreciate him!

2. The 100th Giro d'Italia. Truly, have more beautiful words *ever* been uttered? A toast to il grande Giro!

3. The Vuelta a Espana. Look, forget that gaudy showdown in July. Here's where the real GT hardmen have at it!

4. Nacer Bouhanni. Who *else* has single-handedly decided the prestigious Tour de France green jersey by TKO of a rowdy hotel guest the night before the Grand Depart? That is *class*, baby!

5. Didja see Tom Boonen is coming back to try for his 5th fabulous Paris-Roubaix? Didja didja didja? Allez Tommekeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

6. 2016 UCI Road Race Champ Denmark's Amelie Dideriksen. C'mon, did you even *remotely* see that coming? You did not either!

7. Esteban Chaves. Like you don't either, you cynics, I see you melting--*and* he can kick your !@#!

8. Alexander Vinokourov. Oh, go to hell, with that revolting oligarch outta the game next year we gotta have *some* guilty-pleasure arch-villain to root for!

9. UCI Doping Controls. Just kidding! Unless you're a Masters rider, or a kid racing yer tricycle around the schoolyard still hopped up on leftover Halloween candy, in which case you're guaranteed to (1) get popped and (2) earn a lifetime ban, they're useless. Dope on, kids--throw in a few hookers, and in 10 years you can have a lucrative new autobio on the bestseller list, too!

10. My dear Tweeps. So much raging bias and unsubstantiated gossip, *so* little time for me to spend on stupid "work." At least that's what I hope my boss don't find out!

And a Few I'm Not:

1. Team Sky. Official Motto: Screwing Ex-Euskaltel Riders Since 2010. Just go *away* already!

2. Speaking of whom, Brad Wiggins. Just *retire* already ffs, while your legacy's still halfway intact!

3. Where the hell is we love ex-Carrot Amets' Txurruka's new World Tour contract? Team camps are starting, give the boy a day to pack his gear whydontcha?

Well, them's mine, and if I missed anything, have at. In the meantime, enjoy yer dinner, and back away from that last slice of pie, pal!

It's Yer Smack-Talk, Scandal, 'n' Road-Race Roundup!

Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye: look, there's no doubt Oleg Tinkov's brought a lotta, well, liveliness and publicity to the staid ol' sport o' pro cycling. But in the last coupla years, bravado and showmanship has deteriorated into vengeful malevolence and, let's face it, just bat!@#$ *crazy*. So it's with great delight that, after two years of Oleg publicly slagging dispirited Grand Tour superstar Alberto Contador as a lazy, talentless, over-the-hill never-was, I report that Alberto finally broke his diplomatic silence and came down like a bolt o' lightning on Oleg's sorry pissy head for his last race for House Tinkoff in Abu Dhabi: yes, the new Trek-Segafredo signing posed with his jersey zipper witheringly undone and the logo ergo squashed to the side for his official team photo. From Contador, that's like pinning Oleg down and scrawling "I'M A GIANT !@#HOLE" on his forehead with permanent marker and tattooing "KICK MY !@#" on his back in humongous Pippo-sized ornate script. Take *that*, you crass oligarch !@#$er!

Millenium: okay, it's actually "just" the 100th edition of the beautiful Giro d'Italia, but I'm sure *hoping* it'll last at least another 900 years, and the organizers of what looks to be quite a mountainous, smashing centenary edition can--after prematurely kidnapping Froome, Contador, Dumoulin, Nibali, Aru, Purito and Chaves and smuggling them to an undisclosed location in the race organizers' basement--breathe a sigh of relief that they won't *quite* be monstrously treated as a second-class race to the crappy Tour this year of years: yes, wee Nairo Quintana claims *he's* now interested in the Giro-Tour double that even Alberto failed to accomplish, which either means (1) he's aiming for the Giro-Tour double or (2) he doesn't think he can win the Tour de France against Sky's stoked-up android Discovery army, and wants at least to be able to claim--without an asshat team boss like Oleg disparaging the measly accomplishment--that he bagged a truly history-making Giro. Whatever the hell gets you there, Nairo--but am I the *only* one in a spitting rage because the Giro deserves so much better?

To Catch a Thief: meantime, in a grim glimpse o' the future for even stellar pro cyclists, 2002 Vuelta a Espana champ Aitor Gonzalez was arrested for robbing a cell-phone store, making, well, probably dozens of cycling fans to shake their heads in sorrow at what becomes of a former sporting hero after the pedals are unclipped the podium babes step off and the cameras go home. Helpful career advice: you'll make a *lot* more money, and suffer a boatload less consequences, if you forget the mask-on-your-face-and-finger-pointed-in-yer-pocket-like-a-fake-weapon trick and become a monumentally stupid no-questions-asked mystery-package courier for a giant untouchable World Tour team. Thank you Aitor, no charge, always glad to help a roadie in need!

Moto-!@#$er!: and, what would UCI's vaunted campaign to run over--uh, protect--as many cyclists as possible be without one last bit o' carnage to screw a great athlete's off-season? Yep, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio busted her hip just in time to jack her winter training when some careening twit didn't notice a 5-foot-tall-plus woman in bright spandex riding a, y'know, entirely unexpected *bicycle* in a *bike race* the eejit was *working in.* Get well soon Ashleigh--and get a !@#damn drivers' license that's worth something, you incompetent !@#clown!

When Pigs Fly: finally, it's nice to see that British trackie Jess Varnish, who got completely unjustifiably slammed as a disgruntled !@#$ cyclist after accurately raising that British Cycling technical director/total doping apologist Shane Sutton is a low-rent misogynist pig, was finally vindicated this week after an internal review confirmed that, yes, Shane is a few grunts short of being qualified to wallow in a barnyard manure pile. What was that you told her to do Shane? Oh right, now that you're too old to ride, head off into retirement and start having babies--or maybe for their theoretical sake, better not, jerk!

It's Yer 2016 Giro d'Italia Racejunkie Awards! #Giro

Feeling unaccountably wistful whenever you see something pink? Suddenly unable to enjoy your morning !@#dammit-I'm-not-drinking-this-in-Italy espresso? Already drained and disoriented from going back to your normal sleep patterns or, even worse, having to pay attention again at 'work'? Yes, tifosi, you've just been nutwhacked with Post-Giro Letdown Syndrome--but fear not, we here at racejunkie have got the cure! Prizes for the winners, if they've got the time, obsessive interest in Googling themselves, and total lack of anything interesting to do but read this crap: eternal glory (or cringing shame), and a free stylin' embroidered racejunkie cap! Ergo, campioni, it's Yer 2016 Giro d'Italia Racejunkie Awards!

1. Punk-!@# Move of the Race: ok, bear with me here, because I *am* gonna give even this guy a little credit later on. But Michele Scarponi, punching the air in triumph *right* next to sweet, despondent Esteban Chaves' head as they crossed the line after Chaves' crushing loss of the maglia rosa on the decisive penultimate stage. For *shame*, Michele--what next, yer gonna teach yer freakin' parrot to squawk "neener neener" whenever the poor kid walks by?

2. Astanashing Publicity-Ho Turnaround of 2016: good luck, whatsyerface! You *suck*, Nibali! Huh, nice you managed to salvage some dignity there. HOLY @#$% YOU'RE GONNA WIN THIS THING I ALWAYS SAID YOU HAD IT IN YOU CAN I BRING YOU A LIMONATA/COOL YOU WITH A PALM LEAF/WASH YOUR STINKING FEET/ARU YOU LITTLE !@#$ GET OVER HERE AND START PAINTING HIS BIKE PINK! Alexander Vinokourov, I hate myself for loving you!

3. Sissy Slap-Fight of the Giro: oh sure, there were a few snarls of annoyance, emphatic elbow-flicks, clearly rude gestures, and exasperated slammings of the handlebars--but for sheer pointless, if heartfelt, drama, you can't beat FDJ's Alexandre Geniez physical and verbal assault on AG2R's Hubert Dupont at the line over what appeared to be the most trivial of offenses. Fingers were wagged, OMG a collar was pulled--damn, I'd hate to see the bloody warfare by Geniez over a *real* insult!

4. You Are My Sunshine, My Only Sunshine Award: Gee, my legs felt good today! Boy, did I crack this afternoon or what! Did you know it's my parents' first trip to Europe? My, that crash sure smarted! Hey, I *just* lost the maglia rosa! Also Class Act of 2016 and Bestest Smile in the Peloton--Esteban Chaves, this one's for you!

5. Holy Crap It's All Over Oh !@#$ Moment o' the Race: a moment's inattention, a frightening flyer of bike and man, a fractured rib and crushed dreams after endless impregnable days in pink--Steven Kruijkwijk's terrifying somersaulting smash into a 7-foot wall of ice ended his Giro dreams in an instant. Cycling, how cruel thou art!

6. Corollary Tough Guy of 2016 Award: yep, Kruijswijk. His certain victory gone, the boy plugged on, honoring his team, the race, and himself, bringing a still-amazing-when-you-think-about-it 4th-freakin'-place to Torino. Incredible work by an incredible young talent--however the hell you pronounce yer name, I'll never underestimate you again!

7. Superduperdomestique Prize: yes, he's a doping skankwad with a history of weaselality. But holy !@#$, would Nibali have been steamrolled without him. Sitting back for half an hour on the side of the road, forgoing his own inevitable Giro stage triumph, chillin' with a beer, getting a haircut and hopping on the computer to manage his retirement portfolio while he was waiting to help his team leader with nary a complaint to be heard--*that* is sheer worker-bee perfection. Michele Scarponi, I gotta give credit where credit is due!

8. Crash o' the Race, Decisive: yeah, yeah, same one. Kruijswijk, come get yer prize!

9. Crash o' the Race, Oh No Oh No Oh No: A resurgent Ilnur Zakarin's devastating--and temporarily totally incapacitating--zoom into a stony creekbed. The kind of thing that makes you wonder, ought they be filming this if his family is watching? Incredibly fortunately, just a coupla super-painful, season-screwing fractures, and a cheery post-hospital selfie. Geez, we're glad you're okay! Corollary Touching TV Interview Award: you'd barely know that coolest-name-in-the-peloton Rein Taraamae had won a stage at the Giro d'Italia at all, the way he was so clearly focused on his teammate's well-being. Stand up guy, stand up champion!

10. Crash o' the Race, Just !@#$ing Stupid: he's *so* close to the line, in a brave--and possibly even successful--ripping attack in the final meters of a three-week-long behemoth of pain, suffering, and ignominy. And what should appear like some hideous race-!@#$ing nightmare? That's right, some nimrod's shod foot *right* into the race course, and Sonny Colbrelli goes flying like the Wright Brothers on steroids. Forget those useless ad-covered'barriers'--what we need is some straight-on barbed wire to contain these eejits!

11. Tifosi !@#hat Award: with a mercifully distinct lack of free-ranging livestock, family pets, or oblivious toddlers this Giro, we still managed to shame ourselves mightily. On the last climb of the entire race alone, I counted a Pony, a Pig, and a Banana Guy, each one causing a GC CONTENDER DESPERATELY SEEKING TO GAIN RACE-DECIDING SECONDS !@#DAMMIT TO ACTUALLY HAVE TO SWERVE OFF HIS LINE! Jaysus, what're you gonna try next, sucking the freakin' oxygen right outta their starving gasping lungs by setting off smoke flares on the racecourse? Oh, wait...

12. What the Ungrateful !@#$ Award: look, I know you're sprinters. And I know that, once you hit the Dolomites--or hell, even see them looming 10 stages away in the distances--the terrain is just not for you. But dag nabit, the race organizers went OUT OF THEIR WAY to cater to you boys this Giro, and what do you in return for their kindness? *That's* right, use the beautiful Giro as a lowly training !@#$! for your *real* season's objective, the Tour de France, where no doubt you'll stick it out straight through the Alps to the final line in Paris. *And* you wore the holy maglia rosa to boot. Marcel Kittel--*not* *cool*!

13. God I Love Italy Award: now and forever, "PANTANI" spray-painted on every roadside snowbank, inch of tarmac, and homemade banner. Say what you will about the subject, but that is devotion, my friends!

14. I Call Bull!@#$ Award (Time Trial and Mountain Stage Edition): Foliforov, man. Are you *kidding* me?!

15. I Call Bull!@#$ Award (Sprint Edition): Giacomo Nizzolo's moment o' glory, interview o' glee, and subsequent spirit-crushing defeat on the final day in Torino. If Robbie "Head-Butt" McEwen sez it's okay, it *must've* been okay!

16. Darned Decent of 'Im Prize: look, I *know* you all think Vino shoved a rocket up his--uh, in his pocket on the rest day, but it *was* right for Nibs to go over and give props to Esteban Chaves' darling family--at least before Vino horned in for the huggy-kissy "I *made* you and you *owe* me!" photo op!

17. Cry Me a River Excuse o' the Race: not to minimize the very real effects of the dearth of a very handy item like, y'know, oxygen, but jaysus, Valverde, the "altitude"? Isn't that where you gallivant off to 'train' every year? Get thee to the Tour then if you can't handle the Giro!

18. TMI Statuette: Of all the reasons to bail outta a Grand Tour--the air-sapping bronchitis, the explosive diarrhea, the imminent biological passport bust--this is for Tom Dumoulin, brought down by the humblest of enemies, the gnarly saddlesore. Heal fast, Tom--and even better, heal discreetly!

19. Gratuitous T&A Prize: no, no, not Pippo Pozzato (for once). Don't know what the white, pink, blue and red jerseys are for? Yeah, well, you still don't know now either--but boy, don't they look hot on those models every morning!

20. Most Likely to Have His !@# Kicked By His Team Boss Award: No, he wasn't a particular favorite for a podium sport. And let's face it, our lovably erratic Moneybags has really got his eye--and horsewhip--set on July. But Oleg Tinkov surely expected *something* outta this race, and Rafal Majka, unfortunately, didn't give it. Like a college kid being stalked by a mask-wearing psycho perv in an isolated cabin in a third-rate horror flick--Rafal, GEEEEEET OUUUUUUT!

21. Questionably Enjoyable Race Tactic o' the Giro: Cannondale's Rigoberto Duran Duran, giving up the ghost after a rather middling campaign by throwing all he had left in the service--darn near successfully--of fellow countryman and opposing squad denizen Orica-Greenedge's Esteban Chaves. Why the hell not--beats all that "Vincenzo and Alejandro" yapping!

22. Overhype o' the Race Prize: Yes, I *know* it's dear Mikel Landa. Shove off! Bite me! Saving Grace Consolation Award: dear Mikel Nieve, a stage win *and* the blue jersey. Mikeeeeeeeel--both of you, you smashing ex-Carrots!

23. Last But Not Least, the Miracle On Ice Award of Giro d'Italia 2016: It was the Clif Bar! A nice spa facial on the rest day! No, the acupuncture! Whatever, Nibali--you recovered, enjoy the maglia rosa, *and* ignore the petty haters whinging about "integrity" and "blood bags" while you can!

Well, that's the best of a shockingly exciting thrilla of the Giro d'Italia 2016--same time next year, if you're not all disgustingly aiming for the circus-freak Tour de France instead!

It's Yer Giro d'Italia Eve-o'-the-Rest-Day Re-Think and Recriminations Roundup! #Giro

Well, between the first truly excruciating mountain day and GC-smacking uphill time trial, it's been a lively coupla days at the Giro d'Italia, and what do our boys have to think about while they rest, sleep, ride, and fend off screaming phone calls from enraged DSes and humiliated money-bags sponsors? This!

1. Blazing uphill TT winner Gazprom's Alexander Foliforov. When Alejandro freakin' Valverde wonders about your performance, you *know* there's something !@#$ed up going on. Damn, the Russians have upped their sporting performance since they stopped doping after the last Olympics!

2. Vincenzo Nibali. Lo Squalo can be a legendarily award-winning whiner, but big points to him for collecting himself enough after his despondent post-ride press-avoidance and general misery to send out a friendly, "oh, well, what the hell, tomorrow is another day" kind of tweet this evening. Hey, if Alexander Vinokourov's about to knock on your hotel room door to kick your worthless !@#damn !@# from here to Kazakhst--uh, offer warm words of comfort and support--before you even get to see if you can crack Kruijswijk on GC, you might as well go out with class!

3. Kruijswijk. Speaking of whom, I have no reason whatsoever to doubt this guy's integrity, but leaving aside the shocking Foliforov and teammie Sergey Firsanov, seriously, what the !@#$ is someone built like him even doing in the maglia rosa in the second week of the Giro after a freakishly precocious uphill mountain time trial? It's another Dumoulin dilemma. What next, Andre Greipel's gonna spit Alberto Contador out like a loogie on the Alpe d'Huez at the Tour?

4. The Tifosi. Now, I *get* the enthusiasm. The screaming, the yelling, the flag-waving, the joyous adrenalin rush of having sporting history pass by literally within in an inch of the end of your nose. Heck, I've been there, and I dearly hope to be there sometime soon again (helloooo, Alberto's 2017 Giro d'Italia swan song!). But Giro fans, if nothing else, exceedingly respect the race and its participants, and frankly, as an American, I am *outraged* to have our country's slightly-unrealistic-but-deeply-sincere exceptionalism well and fairly smacked down by incredibly overbearing--and GC-ruinously harmful--Italian fans. In addition, they're lucky even the stoic Nibali didn't reach down grab a spoke and skewer those clown-wigged blockheads like a kebab. Hey, have you eejits been watching the Amgen EPO Tour of California? *We're* supposed to be the obnoxious ones!

5. Chaves. Y'know, I absolutely love Orica-Greenedge, but Alejandro Valverde showed up here with a *really* stacked deck o' teammates, and what climber-supreme Esteban Chaves and his fine squad have been able to accomplish is truly amazing. And, he's being really nice and not at all snotty about it. Forzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa wee Esteban, I can't wait to see you've got left in the tank for the rest of the week!

6. Alejandro Valverde. After yesterday's inevitable annual Green Bullet Grand Tour meltdown, to his credit, Alejandro managed to *somewhat* redeem himself today, and there's still a good amount of road left to go. More, he's got the similarly ageless superdomestique/depending-on-your-viewpoint-prior-Giro-champ Michele Scarponi, who turned in a smashing ride today. Revenge, thy name is stage win!

7. Brad Wiggins. Nope, I don't say *that* noodge of a name too often, particularly in connection with a compliment! But what he *can* do, is give the Shark some bike throwing lessons. Students, compare:



Panache, *and* dead-on accuracy!

8. An Astana-Movistar Alliance. Yes, absolutely--both Nibali and Valverde have an excellent, sensible interest in ganging up on Steven Kruijswijk in the remaining fight-to-the-death in the Dolomites. But c'mon, neither Astana nor Movistar can halfway keep the peace and collaborate within their *own* squads the last coupla years, much less make nice and join forces to actually accomplish something together--though if Vino wants it, Vino will get it, or *else*, Movistar!

9. The Remaining Stages. Chill out, Sleeping Beauties: tho' stage 17 is a short sharp day o' relative pain, you *do* get a puncheur-friendly gasp o' high-altitude air on Stage 18, before a leisurely spin to the Cima Coppi up the Col d'Agnello on Stage 19 and the penultimate day finalizes the podium atop the Cols du Var, la Bonette, and Lombardia. Here, yer last chance to dislodge the reigning maglia rosa before you get to collapse for a few weeks at the line in Torino--plan your efforts well, prepare either your pile-o'desperate-excuses or unctuous sponsor-credit speeches accordingly, and always expect that wily Valverde to try something!

Okay, we'll see how the team managers spin things overnight. I'm thinking lots of thumbs-up bed-time selfies, gourmet-mag pics of optimally nutritionally-balances meals, and at least one gratuitous butt-nekkid massage pic from Pozzato. Vai vai vai vai!