Giro d'Italia

Over the last few years I have come to enjoy watching the Tour de France. My favorite stages are the mountain stages, but I have come to really appreciate the flat stages with the big sprints at the end. For most of these years Lance dominated the race and it was all about watching Lance and USPS or Team Discovery. But with Lance retired, Team discovery no more, and the sweeping drug scandals, there has been some serious shuffling of teams.

During the Tour I keep up with the race every morning on my PC, and watch the spectacular finishes at home late at night. There is something mesmerizing about how the race unfolds, watching the break-aways that rarely succeed, and sitting amazed as the riders struggle up amazing climbs.

So when I turned on the TV the other day and saw that a cycling program had been recorded, I decided to see what it was about. The Giro d'Italia is a long, multi-stage race just like the Tour de France. I did some quick investigating on the internet and found that team Astana included some of my favorite riders - Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer, and Andreas Kloden. Shortly after that I found out that they were a very late invite, and had less than three weeks to prepare. Then, to my amazement, Alberto Contador grabbed the race lead (its a pink jersey instead of a yellow jersey in the Tour de France.) Of course Alberto did win the Tour de France last year, but still...

There are several American teams, including Team High Road (with George Hincappe) and Team Slipstream-Chipotle (with Christian Vande Velde and David Zabriskie).

In todays stage the big man Jens Voigt, who never misses a breakaway opportunity, joined one early in the race, then left them with 35km to go, never to be seen again. The man is crazy.

So there are only a few stages left, including key mountain stages on Friday and Saturday. You can bet I will be tracking this on the internet since I can't find it on live TV.

Ride like the wind Alberto.