I guess I'm not as surprised as a lot of people that Paolo Salvodelli won the Giro d'Italia. The biggest reason I'm not too surprised he won is because the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team hired him to captain their Giro effort. Maybe there weren't a lot of other Giro General Classification contenders available when Discovery had to decide who to hire, but they picked a pretty crafty rider who found a way to hang on with minimal team support in the high mountains.

Salvodelli's achivement looms larger for me because I watched Floyd Landis suffer mightily with the yellow jersey in the Tour de Georgia, unable to personally answer every attack in Stages 4 and 5. Salvodelli had as little of his own team's help in the Italian mountains as Landis did in Georgia. The difference is that Salvodelli found a way to win anyway.

Everyone's talking about how great this Giro was in comparison to its recent predecessors and they're definitely right to make the comparison. I was really curious what was happening in the race while I was up in Vermont with Kathleen on our mini-vacation (although I never let my curiosity interrupt what we were doing). If our vacation had fallen in the middle of last year's Giro, I would have forgotten about the race after we were an hour away from our house.

The parts of Stage 19 that I have been able to see on my TiVo have been terrific. I'm hoping to have time to watch the climb up to Sestriere tomorrow morning.

Graham Watson wrote a great summary of Stage 20 and retrospective on the Giro for ThePaceline.com. I've always admired Watson's photography, but I didn't realize how good he is as a writer and a cycling analyst. [ Registration required for ThePaceline.com articles. ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An Altitrainer appears to be
a training device used in conjunction
with a stationary bike or treadmill.
Is this the device that was seized
by Italian police?
[ Photo: SMTEC, S.A. ].

Robbie McEwen of Davitamon-Lotto edged Fassa Bortolo rider Alessandro Petacchi in the Stage 10 finishing sprint into Rossato Veneto. Petacchi was set up perfectly for the sprint, but later said that he misjudged the sprint and started sprinting too early.

The big story of the last stage before the Dolomites, however, was the police investigation that took place Wednesday, where Italian national police reportedly sought and confiscated a device called an Altitrainer. Early Italian wire reports and the stage summary on Velonews indicate that it's a tent that simulates the composition of air at high altitude, although the information I found on the Internet leads me to believe an Altitrainer is better described as a training device used in conjunction with a stationary bike or a treadmill. Devices like an Altitrainer apparently are not considered illegal by either the International Cycling Union (UCI) or the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), but they are illegal in Italy.

The UCI issued a press release that questions the efficacy of the raid, beyond illustrating the difference between Italian law and professional cycling rules.

Although there were a couple of other items seized, the Altitrainer appears to have been the original target of the search. As such, this is the first time in my memory that a police investigation has been launched at a professional cycling race over what could be called a fitness gadget.

I'm aware of the fact that the Altitrainer that I'm showing in this article is not a hypobaric tent, and this conflicts with several accounts of the investigation. I suspect that the Altitrainer in question is not a tent because I doubt that there would be two different altitude training devices called "Altitrainer", and there is a fair amount of information (both on the Swiss manufacturer's website and in sports medicine journals) about the Altitrainer product shown in the photo.

I suspect that the confusion over the true nature of an Altitrainer stems from the fact that the Italian police have described but have not shown the Altitrainer to the media covering the Giro. Perhaps the reporter who first heard about the Altitrainer and its hypobaric properties assumed it was a tent and several subsequent reports repeated that information as if it were a fact.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The Fassa Bortolo train stayed on the tracks on Monday, and the result was that Alessandro Petacchi sprinted to his first victory of the Giro. Paolo Bettini of Liquigas and Aurelien Clerc of Phonak finished right behind him.

Danilo DiLuca continues in the pink jersey, maintaining his 9-second advantage over Ivan Basso.

Tomorrow is a rest day in the Giro d'Italia. Each of the Grand Tours has two such rest days. Between tomorrow and the second rest day on May 24 there will be two relatively flat stages and four fairly mountainous stages.

This is also a good time to take a break from following the Giro for a little while, because a couple of people have said that Operation Gadget feels like "all cycling all the time" lately. I hear you.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

During the coverage of the Giro d'Italia Stage 8 Individual Time Trial on OLN, the analysts noted that Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team rider Paolo Salvodelli worked on his time trial positioning in the Allied Aerospace Low Speed Wind Tunnel this year during the off-season. Initially I believed it because Salvodelli was doing so well in the race, finishing third in the time trial and moving to third place in the General Classification.

However, I later read Dan Osipow's report on Stage 8 that appears on The Paceline. In it, he quotes DCPCT Assistant Director Sportif Sean Yates who said that Salvodelli had not been able to participate in wind tunnel testing:

Our team went to the wind tunnel in San Diego (during its January winter training camp) but Paolo crashed and broke his collar bone just before and didn't go. There is still some work that can be done to his position. Over the last 16 km today, it probably made a difference. Those that pulled back time against him were time trial specialists and the fact that Basso has changed his position, he can classify himself as a time trial specialist now.

The detailed article on the wind tunnel testing on AMDprocycling.com lists the participants in the testing as follows:

• José Azevedo,
• Lance Armstrong,
• George Hincapie,
• Viatcheslav Ekimov and
• Yaroslav Popovych

I'm sure that the Discovery Channel team has worked with Salvodelli to tweak his position as much as possible without visiting the wind tunnel. How much of his improvement is attributable to training techniques and positioning, and how much can be traced back to the bike racing technology that the DCPCT gets from its F-1 sponsors?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Congratulations to American Team CSC rider Dave Zabriskie for winning the Stage 8 Individual Time Trial in the Giro d'Italia. He was one of the earliest starters on Sunday, so the television producers from RAI didn't cover his ride. What a mistake.

I guess no one from the production team thought to read the start order in advance, otherwise they might have realized that Zabriskie had the ability to record a competitive time. They probably didn't know that Dave is the current U.S. time trial champion, which would have been another reason to send out a motorcycle camera and run a tape in the production truck. Just in case.

Oh well. It might have made future U.S. television rights contract negotiations a little more lucrative if RAI could have said, "You know, we sent a camera with your National Time Trial Champion because we knew you might want to show some of that footage on the air in the USA. We were thinking of you and the future value of this relationship when we did this." Instead we were treated to a couple of seconds of slow motion video of Zabriskie riding by a camera.

Why didn't they show an interview with Zabriskie conducted in English after the stage was over? English-language interviews get aired on European TV all the time, with local language over-dubbing. This is not OLN's fault folks. The Italian TV producers really dropped the ball on this one.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After I got home from a 26-mile ride on Saturday, I sat down to watch Stage 7 of the Giro d'Italia on the Outdoor Life Network. Since it's the weekend, U.S. cycling fans get same-day coverage on television-- which is much appreciated after a work week of webcasts without commentary.

I wanted to mention that I was happy to see Liberty Seguros cyclist Koldo Gil win the stage on Saturday after the mishap he had during Stage 3. He collided with a TV crew motorcycle on the mountain just before the race arrived in Giffoni Valle Piana. As a result, he needed to stop for a wheel change and didn't have the opportunity to contend for the Stage 3 victory.

Gil has been the most aggressive rider during the hilly road stages, so it's good to see him get a stage victory.

Stage 7 was the first time I'd seen the new 3-kilometer crash rule invoked in a professional cycling race. Liquigas-Bianchi rider Stefano Garzelli crashed in a turn with about 2 kilometers to go. The new rule has been adopted by the UCI in order to try to prevent the severe crashes that often occur when a large group of riders is trying to stay together in the last few minutes of a race.

In previous years, Garzelli would have had to go down within 1000 meters of the finish in order to be given the same finish time (for the purpose of General Classification standings) as the group of riders riding with him at the time that did not crash. In 2005, the UCI extended the zone where this rule takes effect to within 3 kilometers of the finish line.

Garzelli took his time coming across the finish line. I'm sure some people who saw the race on television would be critical of that. It was clear, however, that he and his team knew the rule and expected it to be invoked. I hope that Garzelli was not injured in a way that makes 100-percent effort in the high mountains difficult for him.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the first six stages of the Giro d'Italia, a variety of errors and problems have caused the Fassa Bortolo team to fail to launch Alessandro Petacchi, the greatest pro cycling sprinter, to victory. As I watch the Giro stages, I'm struck by how perfectly things have to go in order for Petacchi and his team to win each stage.

No better example of this was the situation in Stage 6 when the leadout rider for Fassa crashed in a tight turn in the finishing circuit in Marina di Grosseto. This crash involved all of the Fassa riders, meaning that Petacchi didn't even get the opportunity to sprint for the finish.

While the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team does not generally contend for sprint victories in stage races, I feel that there is some similarity in the difficulty of executing a plan that results in Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France again and again, and with Petacchi trying to win each sprint.

In both cases, these riders enter the races that they specialize in as the prohibitive favorites. All of the other contenders plan their races in terms of how to stop them.

I look at the orchestration necessary for Fassa Bortolo to achive a sprint stage victory as a microcosm of a grand tour. With all of the stage victories that Fassa has achieved in the Giro and the Tour de France over the last couple of seasons, it surprises me when they don't win. I think that they are planning their races just as carefully as they did in the past, but due to bad luck or lack of concentration, they have not been able to finish with the expected flourish.

Doesn't this make the victories that the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team (formerly the United States Postal Service) has achieved in the Tour de France over the last six years even more amazing?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I caught the finale of Stage 4 of the Giro d'Italia on the webcast. The apparent winner of the stage Paolo Bettini of Quickstep was relegated to fourth place because the race commisars concluded that he was careless in his bike handling during a sprint with Francaise des Jeux rider Baden Cooke. Cooke tried to come around to Bettini's left and crashed against the barriers rather spectacularly.

As a result of the referees' decision, Luca Mazzanti of Ceramica Panaria was declared the stage winner, with Bettini retaining the General Classification lead.

VeloNews has a more detailed summary of the stage, including a good photo sequence of the crash taken by Franck Fife.

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I didn't watch much of the webcast of Stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia yesterday. As you probably know, it was won by Danilo DiLuca of Liquigas-Bianchi, with defending champion Damiano Cunego and former champion Stefano Garzelli finishing second and third.

I skimmed through a bit of it on replay, and here are a couple of things I saw that I found interesting:

• RAI Sport Giro d'Italia Song and Graphics Package: About five minutes into the webcast, RAI Sport plays a little animated sequence with their Giro d'Italia song. This must be the beginning of the RAI broadcast for the day. It's just a couple of animated bike riders riding across the screen with a guy singing in Italian about "il grande giro", but this kind of stuff always interests me.
• Koldo Gil Perez collides with motorcycle: At the 2 hour 15 minute mark of the webcast, Liberty Seguros rider Koldo Gil Perez touches wheels with a television motorcycle and has to get an immediate bike change. The motorcycle driver apparently realized that Perez was drifting over, but didn't sound his horn or get over far enough to avoid the cyclist. I think Perez was lucky that he managed to stay upright in this incident.
• Sprint into Giffoni Valle Piana: I wouldn't have thought that a Category 2 climb about 10 kilometers from the finish would have split the peloton to the extent that it did, but it resulted in a sprint finish among the riders who could climb and descend well. The race into Giffoni was really intense.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I tuned into the OLN-sponsored webcast of Stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia at about 9:30am EDT because I was curious as to how good the viewing experience would be. About half an hour after I started watching Euskaltel-Euskadi rider Alberto Lopez de Munain crashed heavily on the road side and apparently struck his head on the guardrail.

From what I saw, he lost control of his bike while he was riding on the right shoulder of the road, possibly because his front wheel rolled off the pavement. He and his bike flopped sideways and his head and/or neck struck the guardrail.

I was able to see the paramedic unit arrive, work quickly to prepare him to be transported on a back board, load him into an ambulance, and take him away to a hospital. This was the main focus of the television feed for the entire time that the incident was taking place.

I'm also watching the VeloNews' live coverage transcript and they report that Lopez de Munian has broken ribs and a collapsed lung, but there is no word on head or neck injuries at this time.

Updates:

• Robby McEwen of Davitamon-Lotto won the stage with a sprint victory over Isaac Galvez Lopez, Robert Forster, Alessandro Petacchi, and Baden Cooke. McEwen takes over the General Classification lead.
• Further details on Alberto Lopez de Munain's condition and the reaction of Euskaltel-Euskadi Director Sportif Miguel Madariaga can be found in Smiles one day, terror the next, part of CyclingNews' May 10th latest edition package. I want to point out that Madariaga said there was no doubt that "the helmet and the {Guedel Airway} the doctor inserted {when they first treated Lopez de Munain on the roadside} saved his life."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

During the coverage of Stage 1 of the Giro d'Italia on the Outdoor Life Network earlier today, the video feed from Italian broadcaster RAI showed Liquigas-Bianchi rider Marco Milesi nearing the top of a Category 3 climb which counted toward the King of the Mountains prize. While the camera was on Milesi, RAI put up a graphic that said the following:

190 92% 175 157 Marco Milesi

Sorry I don't have a video capture card so I can show the video frame that I'm talking about.

The Outdoor Life Network commentators had the following dialog:

Paul Sherwin: ... {Here is} Marco Milesi. Bob, just explain that graphic to me.

Bob Roll: {laughs}

Phil Liggett: I can't wait Bob. What does it mean?

Bob Roll: We have been trying to work out exactly what that means and... uh... we think that 92 percent of the field of the group where he's in {sic} is behind his rear wheel based on the GPS marker which has a transponder on the chainstay of the bicycle down by the rear wheel. And, we think it's a marker in his relation to the riders in front of him and the riders behind.

Phil Liggett: Well, that's the most useless piece of information that I think we'd ever require on a stage of the Tour of Italy.

When a similar graphic was displayed later in the broadcast, the OLN team requested that viewers write in if they knew what the graphic meant. The graphic shown on the screen was providing the following information, from left to right:

• Rider's maximum heart rate
• Percentage of rider's maximum heart rate
• Rider's current heart rate
• Rider's race number
• Rider's name

I guess I spend too much time looking at data from my Polar S625x Heart Rate Monitor to miss the relationship between 190, 92 percent, and 175. A ballpark estimate of a person's maximum heart rate is 220 minus age in years. Marco Milesi is actually 34 or 35 (born in 1970), so he has a slightly higher than typical maximum heart rate. My maximum heart rate is higher than typical for my age also. At the Chicago Showcase Hockey Tournament, my highest recorded heart rate was 187 beats per minute, while my maximum heart rate ought to be 182 by the formula.

I don't know how the heart rate monitor telemetry is being transmitted from the rider to the broadcaster. A heart rate transmitter like the Polar WearLink Coded Transmitter is only capable of transmitting to a receiver about three feet (one meter) from itself. Are they using a special transmitter, or some sort of repeater on the bicycle?

This style of graphic was used occasionally during the Prologue as well. I meant to mention that I saw it in my Prologue summary article, but I forgot.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I watched the Prologue of the Giro d'Italia on Outdoor Life Network earlier today. I thought that the staging of the Prologue was quite imaginative. The setting was a seaside promenade in Reggio Calabria at the southern tip of Italy. According to the stage description, Gabriele d'Annunzio called this road the most beautiful kilometer in Italy. From what I could tell, the promenade could have been similar to Ocean Drive in the South Beach section of Miami Beach.

The Prologue was staged at night, ending at about 10:30pm local time. The entire 1150 meter course was flood lit. It was the closest thing you could get to a human-powered drag race and probably got huge TV ratings in Italy.

Brett Lancaster won the Prologue by covering the 1150 meter course in 1 minute 20.958 seconds. The gaps between riders after this stage are unimportant due to the shortness of the course.

The Prologue ended with an unofficial ride by cycling legend Mario Cipollini. The 1.15-kilometer course was a perfect way to honor the greatest showman in professional cycling as he retires. He rode the course in a full-length pink skinsuit on a pink Bianchi time trial bike. This was a tribute to the Giro d'Italia itself, which uses the color pink as its signature in the same way that the Tour de France uses the color yellow.

During his 16-year career as a professional cyclist, Cipollini won a record 42 Giro d'Italia stages. He had the name of each of the finishing cities for those stages printed on his skinsuit. He also had the words "Sweet Years" printed on the shoulders and had the rainbow-colored bands of a world champion on the cuffs and neck of the skinsuit.

For those readers who do not normally follow the Giro, Mario Cipollini is famous for donning a different custom-made skinsuit for the prologue each year. Although he also did this in the Tour de France on a few occasions, this is really a Giro tradition.

As I watched Cipollini cruise down the promenade to the cheers of thousands of cycling fans, I knew that I was watching the end of an era which is probably about as significant for world cycling as Lance Armstrong's retirement will be when it occurs a few months from now.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)