Strade Bianchi

An interesting afternoon... Eurosport had promised us coverage of the race, starting at 2.30 our time, so LLB and I had a leisurely lunch, then got out our laptops to check in on Twitter to see how the early stages of the race were progressing.

At about quarter past two, our time, we spotted a Twitter comment that it was already in progress. What!! We leapt to the tv and sure enough, there it was, already going. Drat! Mad panic to turn on the recorder and change the programme to start immediately.

So, after a bit of a mad flurry of activity, we settled down to watch Fabian being watched like a hawk by Peter "more fun than a jammy dodger" Sagan.  No sign of Andy, alas, or any other RadioShack rider, in fact the tv coverage was not particularly brilliant, being mainly high helicopter shots. But who cares, it was racing!

As everyone knows, the Cannondale (formerly Lee-Qwee-Gas) rider Mosel won it, closely followed by Mr Jammy Dodger, with Fabian coming in fourth.

And where was Our Andy?

Technically, he was a DNF like many others, but he and the team are not downhearted by this. Kim Andersen said, on the RadioShack site, that the race was going perfectly until Roulston and Bushe went down in a crash, then Popo punctured, and Nizzolo crashed. So that was four of them out of contention.

Andy wasn't involved in any crashes, thank heavens, but he also punctured, then - in his words -

"...then with the crashes it became a mess with the cars.  I felt ok today, though, so I am looking forward to Tirreno.  I hope to keep these good sensations in my legs.  I didn’t finish today but this is like a classic race where we go all in for one rider and the rest are left behind so it’s not a worry for me.”

Soooo glad to hear that he is not unhappy with the result!  I'm sure that the forums are just full of Schleck-bashers all making nasty remarks about him not finishing again, but as long as he and Kim are happy, that's all that matters.

Shack, typically, haven't filled out their roster on their calendar for Tirreno Adriatico, but as Andy has already said that he's looking forward to it, there's a good chance that he will be racing there.

Shame, in a way, as it does seem that most of the teams are sending their big names to Tirreno, with lesser riders going to Paris-Nice. So Paris-Nice would be an easier race to win... maybe.... still, who cares, as long as he is riding and making progress.

One other thing did occur to me the other day - what with the ongoing Lance thing, and the close connections with RadioShack, I wonder if any of the riders get the urge to take the scissors to that yellow livestrong band on the sleeve?  I know I would... wouldn't you?