Cipo Gone, Who’s Next…?
OK, So the greatest show on wheels is out of the Giro, which begs the question; What’s worse, not inviting the best riders in the world or inviting them and then funneling them into a meat grinder?
While I love the Giro, because instead of a rolling TV commercial that happens to feature some bike racing, it’s a bike race that happens to have some TV commercials (none in Spanish though eh…?), I wish the Giro bosses and the Vuelta Bosses would at least drive the course before they allow some city planner to give em an approach route based on the qualification that they wrote a big check to get a stage finish.
It seems like every year we see the Peloton forced around some of the most bizarre road furniture known to man, and at times squeezed on to finishing straights (after a quick 180 turn at 40 mph) too thin to fit a Cinquecento, because some city big wig wanted the race to pass by his front door, or a bunch of cafй owners got together to bribe the right guy so that the race would finish in front of their shops.
It’s bad enough (but great fun to watch) in a wide run up, with guys like Mad Mc [Ewen] swinging everything but a lead pipe, but that is racing. Taking them all out (except a VERY clever Mc) on the approach is a farce.
Given the situation, had they not crashed, Cipo was in perfect place for win number 3 (adding more pressure to Jean Marie to take his head out of his @$$ and include the Thundering Heard). Now, because there are no regulations on minimum road width, maximum turn angle or that the road should be free from islands etc in the last kilometer, we get no more Cipo. Had that wreck been a second later, it could have meant no Simoni or Garzelli!
No offense to last year’s winners, but we don’t need another Podium like that. We have enough of a dope stigma to get rid of, without even more dopes setting up courses…
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