The Broom Wagon

Cleaning up after the week's events.

Oh Canada!

The Giro is complete and the second transfer period is open.  Let’s look back at how the points played out.

The big winner at the Giro is obvious, Team Wiskota Dynamic landed the top two GC spots, won a couple stages, the points jersey and oh yeah they also placed 6^th and 11^th.  Crazy points.  The big story is the win by Canadian rider Ryder Hesjedal.  A huge pick up by team Wiskota Dynamic at the first transfer period.  Will he go for a Giro, Tour double?  Does Wiskota keep him on the team?  The other big story here was the incredible race put in by the second overall pick, Joaqium Rodriguez.  The little man looked tough and even put in a pretty decent TT on the last day.  But, in the end he would lose the pink jersey by 16 seconds.  The new UCI points leader has already justified his high draft pick place.  Will he score even more points?  Cunego had a funny ride, no big stage wins but he ended up with a pretty high overall placement.  Is that his plan for Le Tour?  Gadret was right there in all the big climbs, but ultimately the TTs were too much to make up.  Team Wiskota Dynamic did have one bad ride at the Giro.  Farrar disappointed his team director for the last time as his early withdrawal from the Giro sealed his early withdrawal from Team Wiskota Dynamic.  Will this be another transfer blunder for Dynamic, like dropping Levi and Greipel or will it be a huge boost like the Hesjedal pick up?  Either way, with an almost 500 point buffer, the question must be asked; can Wiskota Dynamic be caught?

It was a bittersweet result for Gregario Forza.  Fourth and fifth place are pretty good results.  But we all know Forza was hoping for more.  Scarps just never got the chance to make up time and Basso, who looked tough coming in, was just one step behind on the last few days.  Gilbert squeaked out a few points at the Tour of Belgium, but really that only reminded us of what could have been.  Gregario’s team was built to be strong in the first part of the season.  Gilbert and a whole lotta Italians.  The spring classics have come and gone as has the Giro and Greg is in third.  A strong third, but shouldn’t he be in first right now?  Can he make up points when so many other teams are built for late season heroics?  In reality Gregario had a very good Giro and scored a lot of points gaining a lot on Team Volpe, so don’t look so sad Greg, you’ve got Levi now.

Team Volpe managed to fend off an attack from Forza to stay in second place.  Riguberto Uran had great final week and ended up taking the young rider’s jersey.  Look for this Colombian to be a factor at the Vuelta.  With Cadel Evans on the team, Volpe has been looking forward to this part of the season.  The Dauphine, Tour de Swiss, Olympics and of course Le Tour de France.  Best part, they are all on T.V.

Miguelito Indurain is the only team director who has managed to take significant points with a sprinter.  Cavendish has done well and Goss even threw in a few points.  Cav just missed out on a points jersey but it looks like he can be counted on to score throughout the rest of the season.  Also, it must be noted that Millar came in 12^th at the Bayern Rundfahrt scoring Miguelito a fat 6 points.  Are you gonna drop this guy yet or what?

When Bill the Neo-Pro wasn’t slappin’ the skins at the Driftwood Char bar he was scoring big points in Belgium.  Not so much at the Giro, but Bill knows where he can win.  Big Tony Martin has rebounded nicely from injury and secured an overall win with a dominant TT performance.  Winning one of these euro stage races is worth a lot and it just might be Bill’s ticket out of the cellar. 

Don’t forget to make transfers if you want them.  This is really the best part of the season.  More on that to come.