Cadel Evans wins Stage 7 of the 2010 Giro d’Italia in Montalcino. Photo: Luk Beines/AFP/Getty Images.
What with being deprived of, for various reasons*, Contador, Menchov, Valverde, Pellizotti, di Luca, the Schleck brothers, Armstrong and Cancellara you could have been forgiven for thinking that this year’s Giro d’Italia might be a disappointment.
Not a bit of it. In fact, I wonder if these days the Giro doesn’t often provide better racing than the Tour de France. It certainly did today. On paper the stage from Carrara to Montalcino was interesting but not obviously threatening even though it included some 20km over the Tuscan strade bianche – that is, gravel and shale roads that offer a small reminder of the conditions the giants of yesteryear battled every day.
But it turned into an epic and a stage during which the comforts and accoutrements of modern cycling proved almost worthless.
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