The Express before the Rise

The first week of this year's Vuelta ended the way it began, with Cancellara in the golden jersey. The Bern Express regain the leader's symbol today in a rainy Valencia winning by a large margin the second ITT of the race. He did so riding an almost carbon-copy race of the ITT he won at the Tour: he started slowly, did an impressive middle part distancing beyond reach every other competitor and finished strongly but not as strongly as in the earlier part of the race.

The most impressive rider in this first week has been without a doubt André Greipel, the German rider of Columbia-HTC won two stages (one after an amazing crash less than 3 kms from the finish line) in a row and weared the golden jersey into today's stage. Another rider who has been strong in this first week has been Vacansoleil's Slovenian sprinter Borut Bozic who was consistent in the Top 10 in the bunch sprints and who took Stage 6 as his first ever Grand Tour stage. Slightly disappointing has been Daniele Bennati instead (at least for me), with the Liquigas rider never finding his groove in the bunch sprints so far.

As far as the GC riders are concerned, the situation is pretty interesting. Cadel Evans leads the way, 1 minute and 12 seconds behind Cancellara, with a two seconds advantage on Piti Valverde and eight on Samuel Sanchez. Fulgsang, who is in 21st position so far, is only 51 secs behind Evans, and ahead of him we find riders such as Basso, Gerdemann, Vinokourov and Zubeldia. So I do believe that we're in for an interesting stage tomorrow, the first mountain stage of the Vuelta.

Tomorrow the race will arrive on the Categoria Especial Alto de Aitana, after the riders already went up and down seven times (four category 2 climbs and three category 3). It's a stage well suited for a long early breakaway while the leaders won't try anything before the last climb is well under way. The stage will not be decisive as far as the GC is concerned, and I won't be surprised to see a small group of 6-8 riders arrive together atop the Alto de Aitana.

I do certainly hope to be wrong and that already from the foot of the climb we'll see fireworks from the favorites, but I doubt this will happen.

Something Different

Today I won't be writing about someone else's effort or a high (or medium) profile team. Today I'm gonna describe the climb that I rode on my 19 years old and 20kgs heavy MTB.

I climbed the 20 kms from the town of Auronzo (864 mts on the sea level) to the Pearl of the Dolomites, the beautiful Misurina at the foot of the climb towards the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Here you can see what kind of scenery I had before my eyes when I collapsed on a bench completely spent:


It was a wonderful day for a ride and the first 12 kms until the resort of Palù San Marco (1125mts), where the Italian National Sky Team - or at least part of it - is having one of its summer camps, went smoothly despite my being completely out of form due to the sedentary job I have actually got. The road went gently upward until there but after that...

After Palù San Marco you have a couple of kms where the road hit an almost steady 6% crescent to 1250mts and ten you pass a sign or your right that read: 12% crescent ahead. My legs (who already rode 15kms in the morning) started to tell me "please, can we go home please?" to which I replied stubbornly that I wanted to climb higher. My pace slowed there and I almost never got above 10km/h again until Misurina.

The final 6 kms feature some breathtaking scenery with Mount Sorapis on your left and the Mount Cristallo (Crystal) right in front of you. And you know that at km 135 of the National Road 48 you'll find the junction that will take you to the Tre Croci pass if you turn left (it last featured in the Giro in 2007), but when you look to your right at the sign you're still at km 138,700 and you're still at the Hotel Cristallo where some of the paths leading into the Mount Sorapis begin.

I admit I couldn't do it all in one go, I had to take 3 breaks before climbing back on the bike to push it higher and higher, but the satisfaction on seeing the old hospital for asthmatic kids first (even though the slope was still going up at 7%) and finally the lake was wonderful. I reached my goal, took a picture of the scenery and sent it to a Dutch sports journalist who's a good friend of mine to tell him: "next time you come to Italy remember that the Dolomites are waiting for you" and I finally got my teeth on the sandwich I brought with me.

For the ones that feel bol enough to keep climbing after reaching Misurina there is always the road that leads up to the Rifugio Auronzo and the Tre Cime probably the most gruesome climb I've ever did (only once, back in 1997 and 10 kgs ago).

The descent back to Auronzo is a technical one until Palù San Marco, and I was unlucky since I found a damned Mondeo ahead of me that either couldn't drive or was the first time he did that road (I vote for the former). Luckily I could overcome him after 3kms and I was then able to hit 70km/h in one of the few straights before Palù San Marco. From then on it was like riding through butter with some of my strenght back courtesy of the cheese sandwich.

Right now my legs are killing me, but I feel nonetheless satisfied. The forecast for tomorrow is grim looking but if it's wrong and it doesn't rain I'll do another 20+ kms loop around Mount Rusiana.

Vuelta Preview

It’s about time for the last of the Big Tours to start. The Vuelta a España will start its 64th edition Saturday in the Assen circuit in Holland, the first time ever that the race begins outside the Iberian Peninsula. So the third major stage race of the year has decided to follow the footsteps of Giro and Tour in order to increase its visibility outside Spain.


The parcours this year is probably the most exciting of the three Big Tours, since I personally think that both Giro and Tour organizers could have done much better and provide us with more exciting races and stages. There are 3 ITTs for a total of just over 60kms and 5 mountain top finishes plus many other climbs and descents along the way. So if the contenders are game we may be in for some real fun.

Contenders we say, so who are they? The major headlines and a lot of the public’s interest are leaning towards the comeback of the great felon: Alexander Vinokourov. The Kazakh will be aching to show that he is still what he used to be (maybe even without external help) and that he can still race at the top level at 35 years of age and after a two-year ban.

Without last year’s top 3 finishers a favourite by default has to be Ezequiel Mosquera who finished fourth last year and would like to work on that result in order to climb up the podium, which would be a fantastic result for his Xacobeo-Galicia team, who were invited also to the Giro but performed poorly. Two other Spanish riders who will do their best to win it all are Alejandro Valverde and Samuel Sanchez, with the former that will try to avoid his customary day off that never allowed him to be a real contender in a 3-week race, while the latter will try to finish in the top 3 and also to arrive in top shape at the World Champ in Mendrisio which can well be perfectly suited for him.

A rider who will want to avenge a terrible season in Cadel Evans, since the aussie wants to put his horrible Tour behind him and have a strong Vuelta to show his team owners that he’s still in his prime and only had a (very) disappointing July. Another rider with something to prove, in his case that he can be a contender in a 3-week race and not only in shorter ones, is young Robert Gesink: the Dutchman will lead the Rabobank team in the Vuelta, which as said above starts in Holland this year.

The Saxo Bank team fields on paper a very strong side with the two Schlecks and youngster Fulgsang their spearheads. I sincerely doubt that both Andy and Frank will try to win the Vuelta; my opinion is that they will instead use the Vuelta as warm up for Mendrisio, where they can both be serious contenders. We can use almost the same exact words for Damiano Cunego with the Italian more focused on trimming his physical condition for the WC than on the Vuelta itself (and here I do believe he should focus more on becoming the next Bettini instead of stubbornly try to win another Grand Tour since he’s not gonna do it, but we’ll talk about that in another occasion).

The Liquigas team can be already happy of their season so far, with Pellizzotti finishing third in the Giro and winning the Polka-dot jersey at the Tour, Basso making his comeback to finish 5th in the Giro, Nibali and Kreuziger looking good for the whole Tour. Now Basso has stated that he’ll be a contender in the Vuelta, and I do hope for him that he’ll be; there are better chances for him now than he had in the Giro since now he’s more accustomed to racing while before the Giro he didn’t have much chance to race in order to get back the feeling of it that a rider needs. He’ll we helped (or he will help) the young Czech Roman Kreuziger that after more ups than downs at the Tour would love to prove that he can ride two top level Big Tours in the same season.

So, Saturday the bikes will roll in one of motorsports’ temples, with the Bern Express Cancellara in pole position to take the lead. The first hard mountaintop finish will be on the 8th stage atop the Alto de Aitana, but also in earlier stages (the one in Liége and the two in Spain before the ITT) we could be in for some real treats. Now it’s up to the riders to show that the organizers’ choices were right and that this race can be more exciting than this year’s Giro and Tour.

If I was to make a prediction I's say for the top 3:

- Evans

- Basso

- Mosquera

but not necessarily in that order.