The Favorites of the Impressionists

Dear Cycling Impressionists, you answered the survey and here it is!
Roglic is the undisputed favorite but there is a strong battle for the podium.
Yates and Dumoulin have a little advantage on Lopez but he is close.
Nibali, Landa and the young Sivakov have the same chances (very few) to arrive in Pink in Verona.
In the in between there is Majka, better than the three just mentioned but far from the big dogs.
None of you think Zakarin or Jungels can win the Giro. Would they be better off going on vacation?
I can't see a better place than Italy to spend your holidays.

Who will be right at the end of the third week?

Who's Gonna Win 2019 Giro d'Italia?

Who's gonna win 2019 Giro d'Italia?

S. Yates

Roglic

Dumoulin

M.A. Lopez

Nibali

Landa

Zakarin

Jungels

Mollema

Majka

Sivakov

 

pollcode.com free polls

Innsbruck Preview

The circuit of the 2018 Cycling World Championships is one of the most interesting among the recent editions.
It seems to be a circuit for climbers and we could have a GC contender wearing the rainbow jersey since Cadel Evans.
Nevertheless,  with the approach of the race, the reaction of the riders is hard to believe.
Italy, with its captain Nibali, was in the short list of the possible winners but after the Tour the France crash of its captain and the horrible year of its lieutenant Aru, It has been relegated to a secondary role.
Great Britain, presenting the winner of the two grand tours so far, was in the short list as well. Nevertheless, Team Sky announced that their two champions are too tired to race the World Championships. Are you kidding me?!
The team still have two great contenders with the Yates brothers but I found hard to believe that the two strongest riders won't compete for the rainbow Jersey.
Colombia seems to be the favorite, with so many great climbers they are definitely the strongest team in Austria.
The problem will be to ride as a team; the rivalry among the Colombian champions is really hard and La Vuelta 2018 is enhancing it.
France and Holland are just below Colombia, in my opinion, they are two solid teams with a lot of tradition and can count on strong climbers.
They have less strong climbers than Columbia but their teams seem to be more organized.
Talking about Belgium, I don't think this will be the year of Belgium or of the Classics kids because the circuit looks really strong but the fact that Italy will race without a captain will not make the race as hard as planned.
In conclusion, I really wonder if this will finally be the deserved World Championships of Valverde. Spain has always had the problem of never being a team but, without Rodriguez, this time, Don Aleandro could have the chance of his life.
The team of Cycling Impressions will be in Austria providing you a lot of great contents, stay tuned!!

Great Climbs Around The World: Furcia

Passo Furcia or Furkelpass (in German) is a pretty hard climb in the heart of the Dolomites.
It leads to the famous climb of Plan de Corones, the theater of  the recent ITTs of the Giro d'Italia,  won in 2008 by Pellizzoti and in 2010 by Garzelli.
Due to bad weather conditions, that didn't allow to climb Plan de Corones, even the top of Passo Furcia itself has been the arrival of a Giro stage, won by Leonardo Piepoli in 2006.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, the Furcia climb must be remembered above all for what Cunego did in 2004.
He attacked in the hardest part of the climb, taking the pink jersey while writing one of the best pages of modern cycling.
Climbing the Furcia, you can still feel the emotions of that day and it is impossible not to try to accelerate a bit during the climb, even just to pay a tribute to Cunego's feat.
Click here for a technical analysis of the climb.

Welcome Back!

Welcome back folks!
Hope you enjoyed your holidays riding a bike or watching cycling.
The Olympics races have been really emotional.
Nibali's crash was tremendous and remembered me a similar one he did in the final kilometers of the cycling World Championships in Florence, Italy.
Sagan has tried to write a new page of history but unfortunately luck wasn't on his side.
Cancellara has won a gold medal in the year of the retirement following the example of Vinokourov in London.
Nevertheless the most emotional medal has been the one of Viviani, I think that the entire cycling community cried with him on that track.
Now it is time to vote the rider of the month...

Dolomites Don't Lie

In a drowsy Giro finally Dolomites arrived.
It is fantstic to see how, facing these climbs, there is no space for tactics or tricks.
Dolomites are the mountains of the truth, there is no space for lies. In the last two days, I've heard people talking about the unpredictability of this sport, this is true but we have to clarify a point: Nibali or Valverde didn't have an inexplicable slump. What happened to this Champions it is easy to explain: they have just found riders in a better shape or stronger than them.
This didn't come out until now due to the kind of stages that Giro d'Italia 2016 presented so far.
Giro d'Italia is the toughest Grand Tour for this reason: you can't prepare it in a scientific way, when Dolomites arrives it is just you, your bike, your energies and your soul.
This is not a Grand Tour for robots, it is a race for romantic heroes.
You can't prepare and pretend to control the Giro using data provided by a computer, you have to understand and feel the Dolomites.
In conclusion I want to thank these incredible mountains for keeping the Giro the best Grand Tour in the world despite the economics interests that recently are making Giro a Grand Tour with a slow start.
If the organizers will draw in this way the route of the  future Giros, Giro d'Italia could last just 3 days, the three Dolomite stages.
Giro was the hardest race because it was full of tricky stages for clever riders, I ask the organizers not to let us, in the future, just hope and wait for the Dolomites to come. This will happen anyway, but with a different amount of emotions accumulated during the first two weeks.