Giro

Lance says on his twitter page that he got to almost 70mph on some downhills today. Thats crazy! Fastest I've ever gone is 60mph coming down 2222 and I thought my bike was going to start breaking up. Its been fun to watch online.
 
Finally, unrestricted live coverage on the Universal link! (thanks for putting up that link, Horneius)

Looks like Garzelli has this stage in the bag. Surprised that no one in the Maglia Rosa group has made a move yet. The climb to Sestriere has been part of some great cycling history in both the Giro and the Tour.
 
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Leipheimer better make some noise in the ITT tomorrow or he's going to be racing for a lesser spot on the podium. Will be interesting to see what kind of effort Armstrong makes, as well.
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Good time trial by Leipheimer today. Finished second behind an amazing effort from Menchov, and moves up to third on GC, just 40 seconds back.

Armstrong has been looking stronger in the last couple of days, but its clear his form is still coming. He finished about two and a half minutes back in 13th place. He'll still have plenty of work to do after the Giro to prepare for the Tour.
 
Agreed about Menchov, what an effort. Can't discount Levi's either. that was incredible. As for L.A., it really looks like he's improving as the race progresses. His tweets seem to indicate that they are astonished at his fitness considering he had surgery a few weeks ago that set him back. I did see a photo of that horn dude this morning wearing maroon with the name "Leipheimer" on the back with elk horns attached to the helmet and holding an american flag. I hope the jersey wasn't aggy.
 
From what I can read and gather, Lance's fitness is now better than Levi's. He stayed with the leaders on a recent climb and pulled back to try to bring Levi behind.
 
I've been watching the stages live on the Universal link provided by Horneius in the first post.

First of all, Menchov definitely appears to be the strongest man in the race, followed by Danilo DiLuca. It's a shame that "Levistrong" hasn't been as strong as Astana hoped he would, but Armstrong is demonstrably riding himself into stronger form as the race goes onward and upward. Today he attacked out of the Maglia Rosa group on the legendary Blockhaus climb trying to go after Basso's Liquigas teammate Franco Pellizotti, who was alone up the road in the lead. It was cool to see him attack on a mountain, but he is far enough back on GC that none of the overall contenders in the maglia rosa group contested his acceleration. He passed a few remnants of the breakaway that Pellizotti had dropped, but never got closer than about 12 seconds behind him.

While it was apparent that Armstrong didn't have the legs to go for the stage win, it has been obvious that he has been getting stronger everyday. On the stage before the rest day, he saved Leipheimer a LOT of time by pacing him over the final climb to the finish of what they both described as the most difficult stage either of them has raced. He made a funny comment on his twitter page that his form is coming surprisingly fast considering that he has just been drinking beer for four years.

I have thought that he would be lucky to finish on the podium at the Tour in July, but if he keeps training hard and does the necessary key stage recon like he used to do in the "old days," he might be a legit threat to win the thing. Guess we'll wait and see who is stronger between him and Contador. If Alberto IS stronger in July, I have no doubts that he will work as hard for him as he has for Levi.

Good stuff so far, but there is still another key mountain-top finish at Vesuvio on friday, and the final ITT in Rome.
 
WhiteH2O, that's assuming the Astana (Team Fade) team is still intact by then. Doesn't look good from that perspective. Here's hoping this group finds sufficient sponsorship to represent in the TdF.
 
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