Giro d’Italia Stage 13 – Flat, Fast & Perfect for Team Columbia-Highroad

Mark Cavendish pulls another trick out of the hat and wins todays stage. He did it today differently than his other two wins in the Giro d’Italia so far. Mark was back in the pack something like 6-7 riders deep. Usually he’s right up front and right behind his teammates. Today however, he was not. At least not until the end when Edvald Boasson Hagen and Mark Renshaw drove the killer to the front. This happened in the last 50 seconds of the stage. Talk about playing the game on the edge!

I have located the finish of the stage over at YouTube and loaded it up here. Unless you understand Italian, go ahead and turn down you speakers. Or, leave them up and listen to the language, you just might learn something:

Todays general classification did not change so you won’t be seeing the stats for that below. I will however show todays stage results. I was informed yesterday that I spelled Denis with two N’s. Sorry about the typo, I must have been excited about something and fat fingered the keyboard. Speaking of Denis Menchov, he still thinks he can hold on to the jersey all the way into Rome. Fat chance Denis!

Levi and Danilo will have something to say about that. In my opinion, Levi’s team Astana is much stronger than Danilo Di Luca’s team LPR. If you look at the stats for each of the teams, you clearly see that Astana is well suited for the remainder of the tour. Three tough mountain stages will prove Levi is up to the task. Now the real Giro d’Italia will begin. Wouldn’t you want to have Lance Armstrong as your super domestique? I know I sure would…

That’s it for tonight! Here’s todays results:

Giro d'Italia Stage 13 Results

By the way, Lance finished the stage in 94th place in the pack. Of course, like I said Earlier, the General Classification did not change, so no stats on that today. See you tomorrow – Go Team Astana (Or whatever your name will be)!

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Giro d’Italia/Tour of Italy 2009 Stage 12 – Go Levi & Lance!

Today was the test of all test in the Giro d’Italia! A 60 km time-trial that would surely kick just about anyones ass! Todays stage was everything you could ever want in a professional bike race. I managed to get a hold of a video on Levi Leipheimer, Lance Armstrong, Dennis Menchov and even a little bit of footage on Danilo Di Luca:

Lance Armstrong really is coming into form from this race. I could only imagine how well he’d be doing right now if he hadn’t crashed and broke his collar bone a while back. Of course, I wasn’t to surprised at Dennis Menchov and his performance today. The three mountain stages coming up will tell us a little more about how well to form he really is. Danilo Di Luca Fell back a little and lost the pink jersey today which also didn’t surprise me. Over confident people like that will inevitably fall.

What did surprise me today is that Levi didn’t win the stage! I am hoping that he will kick ass on the mountain stages coming up and take the pink jersey from Dennis Menchov. It sure would be nice to see an American take both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour De France. Let’s check out the carnage after todays stage. I sure do like where Levi is now sitting in the General classification. 3rd ain’t to shabby and only 40 seconds down from the leader. Lance Armstrong moved up to 12th overall and is only 6:34 behind the race leader. Not bad for a guy who is coming out of a 3 year retirement and is 37 years old.

OVERALL STAGE RESULTS AND GENERAL CLASSIFICATION

Stage 12 Results

Lance Armstrong at 2:26 behind the stage winner is phenomenal. Good job today Lance and keep climbing that ladder to the top!

General Classification After Stage 12

One last thing to note about the video above. Lance really looked like he is riding into great form. You can start to see he’s beginning to dance on the peddles in a form that only Lance can do best. Count his revolutions and you’ll see what I mean. Up hill at approximately 95 revolutions per minute. Its hard to count when the video cuts out the way that it normally does in the trees, but I managed to catch a section that allowed me to count it out.

What did you think about todays stage? CrankyBike.Com wants to know. Leave me a comment! Until tomorrow – Keep Crankin’…

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