SB Nation User Blog: Tifosa

Armstrong: 2008 Tour "a bit of a joke"

Tifosa — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:27:34 -0000

For anyone who thought this year's Giro was a bit light on the traditional trashtalking, perhaps the Tour will be more to your liking.

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald quotes from a new book by John Wilcockson, Lance Armstrong - The World's Greatest Champion (catchy title; I guess it's back to the drawing board for all you Roger Federer and Michael Phelps hagiographers out there).

Quoth the Herald,

In the book, Armstrong also reveals the strength of his belief that his winning days are far from over.

"I'll kick their asses," he told author John Wilcockson in a conversation soon after last year's Tour while discussing his planned comeback. "The Tour was a bit of a joke this year. I've got nothing against Sastre … or Christian Vande Velde. Christian's a nice guy, but finishing fifth in the Tour de France? Come on!"

Ooh, la la! Let the games begin.

Giro d'Italia, On the Scene at Stage 21

Tifosa — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:56:29 -0000

The setting for the Giro finale could not have been more dramatic. It was so much more special than the usual finish on Corso Venezia in Milan, marking a fitting end to the spectacular centenary Giro.

As usual on the last day of the Giro, the normal restrictions on who could go where in the finish area didn't seem to apply, so while the early riders were finishing, I watched from the spot just after the finish line that's generally reserved for those with photographer passes.

Dave Z

J.J. Haedo

Danny Pate

Gibo Simoni, one of my all-time favorites, did an extended interview with di Stefeno after crossing the finish line. At the end, they kissed each other on the cheeks, and I was saddened to think that it was probably a kiss goodbye. I doubt we'll be seeing Simoni ride another Giro.

Sivtsov

Popovych

Seeldrayers

Armstrong

Basso

Sastre

Menchov was an explosion of adrenaline and joy when he crossed the finish line just moments after his crash: roaring, leaping into the air, flailing his fists around. It was awesome! I've never seen anything else like it.

There was a long delay before the podium ceremony, and then there was a call for medical personnel to come to the presentation area, so we wondered if Menchov had been hurt in the crash, but a few minutes later, he ran past us to embrace his fans.

Menchov's exuberance carried over onto the podium.

Throughout the Giro, Menchov and Di Luca demonstrated mutual respect and admiration, and on the podium, they closed out their epic battle with an embrace.

The top three on the podium.

Coming onto the podium to accept the maglia ciclamina, Di Luca enjoyed the cheers of the tifosi, then sprayed them with champagne.

Di Luca's wife is as pretty as he is.

As the last riders prepared to leave the presentation area, Sastre had a chat, Quinziato had a laugh, and Di Luca, as always, had more autographs to sign.

I'll close with a picture that is one of my best souvenirs from the Giro. Two of the coolest people I met in the pressroom this year were Tom Van Asch and Patrick Verhoest, who were there representing the Wielermuseum, a cycling history museum in Roeselare, Belgium. Patrick emailed me this picture that he took of me (in the green shirt) asking Di Luca a question at the press conference in Bergamo. How cool is that!

Giro d'Italia, On the Scene at Stages 19 and 20

Tifosa — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:27:51 -0000

The ride up Vesuvius was incredibly cool. The ride to the base of the climb, on the other hand, was nightmarish.

We were staying in Sorrento, and the bike tour company's original plan was to have us start out on Friday morning from Sorrento, and ride along the race route to the base of the climb. Apparently, whoever planned this itinerary had never been to Sorrento, because it was obvious to all of us on the drive in on Thursday night that riding from there before the road was closed to vehicular traffic would be suicide. So, change of plans: they dropped us in Pompei, about halfway between Sorrento and Ercolano, the base of the climb, and we rode from there. While slightly less death-defying than the ride from Sorrento, the 20k or so from Pompei to Ercolano was hell. At Pompei, which luckily for the racers was not on the Giro route, the road surface was slanted, uneven, polished-to-a-gloss, black tiles. Once we joined the race route, the normal cobblestones were a definite improvement, but the traffic coming from every direction, the unpredictable and apparently lawless movements of the drivers, and the complete disregard for cyclists' safety was unlike anything I've ever seen in other parts of Italy. It was like playing a gigantic game of chicken with 10,000 New York City cab drivers.

It was a great relief to reach Ercolano and start the climb. The first three kilometers of the climb were pretty easy, and after that, it was a sustained, hard grade, with the only easy stretch of road being near the observatory near the five-k banner.

The views down to the bay of Napoli were spectacular.

The hardest part of the climb was from the two-k banner, seen in the photo above the fold, to the one-k mark.

After finishing the climb, I rode back down to the observatory, where the pressroom was set up, to have lunch and wait for the race to come by. The observatory was really cool, with a great slideshow of paintings and photos of Vesuvious and its various eruptions over the centuries. Unfortunately, the stretch of road near there was the flattest part of the climb, so it wasn't the best place to watch the race or take pictures. Since I was riding, I only had my pocket camera with me, and it's not really up to the task of shooting high-speed racing.

The tour group guides decided to take the bus back to Sorrento early, and there was no way I was riding back, so my bike and I took the train from Ercolano back to Sorrento.

The next day, we went to Anagni, and again, I took the train by myself to Rome when the guides decided to leave with the bus before the race finished. Next year, I'm definitley going to pass on the tour group thing and just travel with a rental car and my bike.

Philippe Gilbert was the stage winner.

Lotto teammate Jonas Ljungblad had this reaction when he rode across the finish line and saw Gilbert on the podium.

Ti-Thomas, looking all grown up, finished second on the stage.

Liquigas was leading one of the Giro's many team competitions. I think it might have been the hottitude classification.

With Di Luca's last realistic chance at gaining time on him gone, Menchov was looking pretty confident.

Di Luca smiled on the podium as the tifosi chanted his name, but a bit later, he looked sad as he sat on the Processo alla Tappa stage.

Basso's tan is coming along nicely. Will his form follow suit?

No happy reunion for these two former teammates, from the looks of it.

Armstrong looked whipped.

At the press conference, Gilbert seemed a bit bored as Menchov's Q&A dragged on, but he was all smiles when it was his turn.

-- Susie Hartigan for Podium Cafe

Giro d'Italia, On the Scene at Stage 18

Tifosa — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:39:39 -0000

Di Luca got a hero's welcome at the stage start in Sulmona, just 70 kilometers from his home in Pescara. Here he is riding from the sign-in area to the start line.

The Abruzzo city of Sulmona, site of the start of stage 18, is the city of confetti, the candy-covered almonds thrown at at Italian weddings. The streets are lined with shops that look like flower shops, but when you get up close, you see that all the flowers are made of candy. This friendly shopowner showed me the special Giro confetti flowers he was selling, and I bought myself a small bouquet.

A group of school kids lined up to watch the stage start.

I saw Francesco Moser at several stages, always with his bike, still looking like a million bucks at age 57.

The start in Sulmona had a relaxed, fun atmosphere. The riders knew they were in for a fairly easy stage, and everyone seemed in a good mood. Gone was the hysteria of the early stages, when the press mobbed Basso and Armstrong. Most of the foreign press were nowhere to be seen, and di Stefano and other Italian journalists goofed around as they waited for the riders, posing with the podium props.

Dave Z seemed rarin' to go.

Gustov was sporting a nasty patch of road rash from an earlier crash.

Dario Cataldo is another Abruzzese.

Scarponi always seems to be smiling.

Sastre and Lloyd looked like they were doing a radio check.

Basso looked serene, as always.

While Petacchi looked serious, as always.

Menchov seemed to be flirting with the idea of growing a goatee.

On the sign-in stage, Di Luca basked in the adoration of the tifosi.

At the mike, he thanked the crowd for their support, but asked that they cheer for everyone, and not whistle at any riders, as had apparently happened to Menchov and Pellizotti at the Blockhaus podium ceremony.

Even Lance Armstrong moved through the sign-in area unmolested by the press at this most mellow of stage starts.

Armstrong signed a fair number of autographs, but the autograph king was Di Luca. He was the last to leave the sign-in area, and when someone showed him that it was time to go to the start line, he just gave a little shrug, and kept on signing.

The riders assembled for the start in the beautiful Piazza Garibaldi.

-- Susie Hartigan for Podium Cafe

Giro d'Italia, On the Scene at Stage 17

Tifosa — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:55:51 -0000

"The earth shakes, not our heart.

Go, Danilo!!!

Abruzzo flies with you."

Di Luca fan or not, you would have needed a heart of stone to ride up the Blockhaus climb on Wednesday and not end up wanting Di Luca to win the stage. All the way up, almost every sign was for Di Luca, and they weren't of the typical "Go, Danilo!" variety. They said things like, "Il cuore di Abruzzo e con te," (the heart of Abruzzo is with you), and "Il terremoto non ci ferma," (the earthquake won't stop us), and again and again, "Grazie, Danilo!"

My bike tour group was staying in Silvi Marina, about ten kilometers up the coast from Pescara, so we rode from our hotel to Pescara, and picked up the race route there for the rest of the ride. Most of the people in my group who were riding that day went up in the morning, then descended before the race came through. I wanted to watch the race on the climb, so I started out by myself a bit later. In Pescara, I asked a couple of guys in club kit for directions to the race route, and I ended up riding to Passo Lanciano with them. They were part of a cycling club of Pescara lawyers.

Here we are at a bar where we stopped for a snack.

The ride from Pescara to Pretoro was gradually uphill, with a couple of short, steep climbs, but it was here, in Pretoro, that the climb really started:

Luckily, there were several public water fountains along the way, some in towns and some out on the open road, and we stopped at every one for fresh, cold water.

The hardest part of the climb was from the 15k mark, in Pretoro, to the 10k mark.

After that it was a consistent, slightly easier grade for the next five kilometers, to Passo Lanciano.

I had been hoping to continue to the finish at Hotel Mamma Rosa, but my ride back to the hotel was at Passo Lanciano, and I knew that if I wasn't there as soon as the race finished, I'd have to ride the 70k back to Silvi Marina, so I stayed at Passo Lanciano, five kilomters from the finish. Here are a couple of pictures of the race:

No stage win for Danilo, unfortunately, but the Di Luca lovefest continued the next day in Sulmona.

-- Susie Hartigan for Podium Cafe

Giro d'Italia, On the Scene at Stage 16

Tifosa — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:33:18 -0000

For the riders, it was a Monday in hell. For me, another fantastic day at the Giro.

Story and more pictures on the flip...

I enjoyed tghe ride up to Monte Petrano from Cagli, even with the ridiculous heat. The first half of the climb was quite hard, and I was glad I had looked at the profile in the morning, so that I knew it would get easier. The second half of the climb was more open, with long strairghtawsys between the switchbacks. Here I am at 3k to go, and under the 1k arch.

I rode up in the early afternoon, and although the crowds were not massive, everyone seemed in a festive mood. A group picnicking under the awning of a campervan on the inside of a switchback cheered for me as I passed, and after I rounded the swirtchback, one guy ran to the road, holding out a plastic cup to me. "Acqua?" I asked. "No, vino!" he said enthusiastically. Ha! Just what I needed in the middle of a climb in 90-degree heat. I had to decline, and a bit farther up, I declined a similar offer from another party of picnickers. Now, if anyone had offered me cold water, I would have been all over it.

At the top, it was still early enough that the security guy directing people off the road at the 150-meter mark, upon seeing the press pass, let me ride right across the finish line. I've never been able to do that before; it was pretty cool. Just across the line, as I was trying to figure out where to leave my bike for easy access after the race, one of the race organization guys struck up a conversation, asking me about the ride up. Before long, one of his colleagues came up and jokingly warned me that I'd better be careful, because the man I was talking to had a very jealous wife. "He's from Sicily," he said, "and you know what that means!" After assuring me that he was actually from Varese - where, presumably, the jealous wives are not so lethal - my new friend asked if I wanted a bottle of water. Yes! Now he was my new best friend. He led me to the area behind the podium stage where the bouquets and prizes were being laid out for the ceremony. In addition to a lovely bottle of cold water, I got a demonstration of how the team decals are put on the jerseys for the ceremony.

The guy in charge of the jerseys very entertaining. I asked if he had the jerseys in various sizes, and he said he had extra small, small, medium, and large. He doesn't have a list of the riders' sizes, he said, he can tell by looking at the riders which size they need. I wanted to say, "so, you estimate with your eyes," but I couldn't think of the Italian word for estimate, so I said something like, "so, it's not exact, it's done with your eyes." "It is exact," he corrected me, "with my eyes." He ran through some examples, "Di Luca: extra small, Basso: small, Cavendish: small, Petacchi: medium. Actually, he clarified, Petacchi was a medium at the start of the Giro, but now he'd lost weight, so he would be a small. Di Luca was an extra small, he explained, because he likes the jerseys to be snug, whereas Basso likes them looser. And Menchov? Medium. "But maybe today," he joked, "with all the sweating, Menchov will be a small."

At the finish, most of the riders looked about how you'd expect people to look after a 237-kilometer mountain stage in horrific heat.

Sastre, in his element, looked better than most after crossing the line.

Armstrong and Leipheimer finished together, both looking pretty ragged.

Popovich, having left everything on the road, collapsed against a fence after finishing, as seen in the photo above the fold. When he finally raised his head, he didn't look much better.

Valjavec is helped off his bike.

Rogers also looked spent.

Basso glistens in the sun as he prepares for the ride down. It takes more than 237 kilometers in hell to put a dent in his glamour.

Lovkvist lost the maglia Bianca to Kevin Seeldrayers on the stage.

Scarponi, who's having a fantastic Giro, actually smiled as he finished during Sastre's podium ceremony.

Simoni, whose Giro is not going as well, poured water over the back of his neck before changing into a dry shirt for the descent. Finally, he, too, managed a smile for the tifosi.

Di Luca getting ready to ride down after the podium ceremony.

Riders with less to show for their suffering finish as Menchov pulls on the maglia rosa.

-- Susie Hartigan for Podium Cafe

Giro d'Italia, On the Scene at Stages 13 and 14

Tifosa — Sun, 24 May 2009 18:05:10 -0000

In Firenze, the race security let those of us with press passes remain closer to the finish line than usual, in the area usually reserved for holders of photographer passes. It was exciting, but because I was up there rather than back with the soigneurs, I didn't get the usual post-stage pictures of the riders.

Che Polemica! On the Scene at Stage Nine of the Giro

Tifosa — Tue, 19 May 2009 08:31:51 -0000

I didn't get a lot of pictures at the Milano show, but this is my favorite, Renshaw and Boasson Hagen celebrating just after crossing the line. The stage headquarters was far from the finish area, so I skipped the podium ceremony to be sure I made it to the press conference, and I'm glad I did.

Giro d'Italia, Stage Eight Press Conference

Tifosa — Sun, 17 May 2009 09:21:43 -0000

Di Luca takes a question from Podium Cafe:

Translation on the flip...

Here's a translation:

Me: What does it mean to you that you have given to the Abruzzesi (the people of Abruzzo) a reason for celebration?

Di Luca: It's very important. You have seen that my region is going through a period that is not beautiful, and I have always said that in this month of the Giro d'Italia I was seeking to give them a month of amusement, of not thinking of all the bad things that have happened. Maybe in this month of amusement, of seeing the Giro d'Italia, the victory, or the victory to be made, is naturally dedicated to them.

The emcee of the press conference then announced that Esta The, the sponsor of the maglia rosa, had just announced that from now until the end of the Giro, one of the Esta The logos on the jersey would be replaced with "Aiutiamo Abruzzo" (Let's help Abruzzo), which drew applause from the press.

-- Susie Hartigan for Podium Cafe

Giro d'Italia, On the Scene at Stage Eight

Tifosa — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:37:51 -0000

Today in Bergamo, I decided to watch the race out on the road, rather than stay in the finish area. In my morning scouting trip, I found a good spot near the top of the steep climb into Bergamo Alta, about 4 kilometers from the finish. I timed how long it would take me to walk from there to the funicular that goes down to the Citta Bassa, where the stage headquarters was, and then to go down on the funicular, and walk to the stage headquarters, and I figured that if there wasn't a long line for the funicular, I could make it down in time for the press conference. It worked perfectly!