Giro route announced and Tinkov challenge!!

[zimzum42]

Sweet Giro route announced today, including 6 mountain finishes with three in the final week, plus a 59km ITT.
Pretty sweet!

http://www.steephill.tv/giro-d-italia/

Also in the news at the presentation, that mad rich Russian, Mr. Tinkoff, offers a million Euro challenge to the top riders to ride all three grand tours!

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tinkov-offers-a-eur1-million-to-contador-and-his-grand-tour-rivals

 

[Hont]

Everyone is saying it's an easy route, but it still has 6 mountain finishes, which is about what the Tour averages.

I'm not sure about Tinkov's offer. It might leave the way open for a fresh Valverde or (god forbid) Horner to win another GT.

 

[The Couch]

It would be great if the top GT-riders would all have a go in more than 1 GT (and it not being the most logical Giro-Vuelta combo).

However, I can't imagine that they would all (try to) peak and/or give it their all for each GT.
So, it would just be a waste of his money, since you wouldn't get the 4 battling each other each full blast time anyway.

Plus, the Giro and Vuelta are often also a nice stepping stone for young riders, so it's not that bad that other riders have a chance at a very close (podium) finish

I am however very interested to see how good Contador will be able to do the Giro-Tour combo... in 2011 it didn't go as well as he had hoped (at least not the 2nd GT)

 

[400bhp]

I see it's got the motirolo pass in it. I rode up that a couple of weeks ago. Out of the saddle for an hour and a quarter.

Can't wait to see them go up that. I can see a holiday coming on.

 

[Apollonius]

Back in Tuscany for 2015. Bikes and wine. I'll be there!

 

[montage]

1. The sooner Tinkoff is out of cycling the better
2. He is a despicable person on most levels.

That said, this isn't a half bad idea in theory, if everyone plays ball. If this move is successful, that could lead a revision to point 1 above - but point 2 will be hard to change

 

[User169]

Also in the news at the presentation, that mad rich Russian, Mr. Tinkoff, offers a million Euro challenge to the top riders to ride all three grand tours!

No guarantee he'd pay up of course. The last time he made an offer like this (an Aston Martin to Majka) he welched. Tosser.

 

[Crackle]

More about the Tinkov challenge today. Seems it's generating interest.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/movistar-and-sky-respond-to-tinkov-challenge

 

[Beebo]

No guarantee he'd pay up of course. The last time he made an offer like this (an Aston Martin to Majka) he welched. Tosser.

Apparently that was only a joke! Not a serious offer. But you would think a man of his means could play along with it. A second hand one is only £30,000.
This £1million deal is quite clearly a serious offer with a fair bit of fanfair too; so he cant welch without looking like a very big nobber.

 

[HF2300]

... without looking like a very big nobber.

Not sure that's concerned him in the past.

 

[oldroadman]

Any self respecting top end GT rder would not even consider trying to do all three now. Far too much pressure, miss all the other races that would be a nicer build up to one or maybe two GT, no proper mid season break, rarely home, just training camps in the mountains and three week races. It used to happen but times and certain practices have changed, thank goodness. Riders think more about what their bodies are asked to do and what happens when they finally retire, there's a lot of life to live still.