All very Italy.Stage honors for todays 14-kilometer time trial through Rome went to Cervélo Test Team rider Ignatus Konovalovas, who was one of the last riders to start today before a light rain made the mostly cobble-stone course almost unridable. Even team cars were sliding on the slick, oily stones. I had the chance today to ride in one of a Replica Tag Heuer caf2015.ba0815 Aquaracer Automatic Watch Cervélo team car behind Vladomir Gustov, who was unlucky to start just seconds after the rain began. Already the victim of one nasty crash at this Giro, Gustov went down twice today and finished the stage dead last.
Thats him on the ground below, with a closeup of the wet cobbles. Ugly stuff.Gustovs ride, of course, was nicely bookended by Konovalovas, the current Lithuanian national time-trial champion who was riding his first grand tour. It was the Replica Tag Heuer caf1111.ba0803 Aquaracer Quartz Watch teams fourth stage win of the Giro. Two of those came from defending Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre, who finished fourth overall. American Levi Leipheimer finished sixth in the final standings, and his Astana Teammate Lance Armstrong was 12th in his first grand tour since winning the 2005 Tour de France.—John Bradley
is how I learned that British rider Paul Howard was passed by the mystery racer I blogged about a couple days ago. Anchorage elite distance mountain biker Pete Basinger is, at 3:30 Mountain Time, just about to cross into Colorado. He started several days replica Louis Vuitton watches behind the TD field, but he represents this seasons biggest threat to Matthew Lees ITT record. Pete is a heralded name in the enduro cult and his colossal thighs may be visible from Google Earth. NOTE: Matthew Lee holds the ITT Great Divide Mountain Bike Route record from 2007 (17:22:30) when he rode a prologue to the 2007 border-to-border Great Divide Race, so hes not only the Tour Divide record holder, but the fastest rider ever to roll from Banff to AW.
