Brutal stage

Good win for Mohoric, he rode strongly in that last hour and then just held on to front spot. Poor old Chavez is still out there somewhere.

Bennett takes 3rd. Thought that was good from Mohoric after getting into a less than ideal position.

Poor Esteban is right, hopefully he'll still be smiling

Tomorrow's stage looks pretty good. 2x Cat 3 climbs along the way. I doubt they will get rid of the sprinters, but there's a short ramp at the finish which will definitely see them being distanced.

Looks like another Wellens/Battaglin type of finish if the breakaway survives.

Yates again, in commanding style. He's got a lead of 47 seconds over Doumolin now and looking very strong on the climbs. Froome out of the top 10, which includes Rohan Dennis in 7th and Smiling George Bennett in 5th for all us Kiwi fans.

great ride from Yates, needs to keep picking up those seconds though

Impressive again from Yates.

Suppose he's going to try and hammer it home before the ITT at stage 16. He was only 20" behind Dumoulin in the opening stage.

Could be a stage for Sam Bennett tomorrow, very flat.

probably needs to get another 40-50 seconds

This Giro has hardly started yet, the 3 biggest mountain stages have not yet happened (which includes Saturday's final at the Zoncolan).

I remain doubtful that Yates can sustain this type of performance over 3 weeks in grand mountain stages.

Dumoulin hot favourite, but watch out for Pinot and Pozzovivo, both are in great form and will ride hard in the long climbs.

Pozzovivo is a big surprise to be so highly placed this far into the race. But yes, we haven’t seen any true high mountains yet, so it’s hard to read much into Yates’ form until he’s gotten over the big lumps.
And Dumoulin will put time into him on the TT. His bro just lost a minute and a half to Tejay VanGarderen over a similar distance in California, and Dumoulin is a step or 2 above TJ.

I'm not sure i agree with that - Yates is the better climber & the fact that the has got a 40+ second gap before the ITT (like you said: before the serious climbing has even begun) makes him the favourite in my opinion.

Pinot & Pozzovovo are in the running as well - but not sure whether their TTs are better than Yates (Pinot used to be terrible - but I know he's been trying to improve recently)

Can't wait for Saturday (& Sunday)s stages

I think today will be a little dull.

Oh man what a finish from Bennett! Watts galore.

Woo hoo Bennett again!!!!!

It was a dull stage.

Don't care. One of our own has won the stage

Meh, sad existence for him. Wasn't much going on, and shite weather, but the end was exciting.

Fair play to Bennett, particularly going on his own there. Another stage that looks to suit him tomorrow too might have a chance to catch Viviani, 22 between them.

I was looking up previous Irish Giro stage winners, of which Roche is the only other. Had a wee nosey over at Sean Kelly's palmares. Always a good read. Mad.

I watched a video the other day of the An Post Chain Reaction team going for a mosey in King Kelly's "trophy room", more like trophy basement. All his old jerseys and the cobbles and everything were there, I'd say it would be great for a look around.

Pinot and Pozzovivo are both poor TT riders. But both (in particular the former, but the latter is in superb form as evidenced in Romandie) are normally better climbers than Yates.

Its however possible that Yates has climbed up one ladder this season, we will soon find out.

Also if you look at his classics results, he was only outside the top 20 of a monument that he started, 5 times in the whole of the 1980s. And he won 7 of them. And 2 more in the 90s.


Phenomenal win by Bennett today, showing the awareness as well as the speed and using the breakaways as a bridge. The way he’s riding in this Giro you start to think he might have a little bit more to his bow than just a finishing kick.

Bora sent Bennett and Formolo to the Giro and their big names Majka and Sagan to California. At this stage, it looks possible that they’ll get better results at the Giro.

Viviani takes today's stage, Bennett second.

Just seen the finish. Viviani slapped them all down today.

Gaviria also looking very rapid in California. I think he will win a handful of Tour stages this year.

Bennett seems to be a a sprinter too small for the big boys but can survive a climb. Similar to Freire... If perhaps not quite as explosive as him either.

Bennett is doing really well in the GC. Excellent cyclist.

Who cares about ozzies

Gaviria was looking strong coming into the season, looked very strong yesterday.

Edit: above, sad existence.

By Christ you're a twat.

Mick only has himself to blame for that.

tbf it was piss poor trolling.

No more than MM.

wake up to find the boyfriend pumped sand in to your vagina?

This thread has been pretty much spared the petty, shitty trolling.

You guys are ruining it. Take it outside and stick to the cycling.

Just woken up to see that my Bennett mistake...and it was a mistake has been the calalyst for the unpleasantness that often lies just below the surface of many threads.

Sorry.

apologies Mick didn't realise it was a genuine mistake...

No worries, I didn't know what was going on to be honest. I'm guessing you were talking about George Bennett, as opposed to the Irish sprinter Bennett? George is a kiwi, I'm enjoying watching his exploits. So Nardol made a goose of himself there anyway.

But this thread has pretty much been a great chat and kept clear of any sort of spite despite the temptation for trolling the doping angle. It's been great

Apologies to anyone except hooker who took offence at my vagina comment.

I'm not the one from a nation who recently had a referendum ( or politiking of some kind) on the issue of my flag looking too similar to the Oz one

It's been a great thread for cycling chat.

So let's keep it that way.

Should be an epic one today....


I'm shouting for Tom anyway. Long steady climb go at own pace and hope he doesn't lose more than 15 seconds. Keep the gap below 1.20 for the TT and he is in with a serious shout.