On and on and on and on...

Giro vibes after a third of the race.

A very, very short update from the Giro. Bloody hell.

Stomping around the beech trees to try and stay awake before today’s commentary

The last three days have left me with almost no time to do anything on this site, for which I apologise. I am lying on a bed in Marche, knackered, and feeling guilty for not being more communicative with you all.

Today, on the third categorised climb, I think Jacopo Guarnieri, my excellent co-commentator, and one of the nicest (plus most Italian and handsome) men I have ever known finally cracked a bit. You wouldn’t have noticed in the commentary, because he’s amazing like that. But he just admitted to me over a very late dinner of arrositicini and verdure that today was his first day “in the gruppetto”.

I totally get that, and am only surprised that it has taken him this long to wilt. Yes, we visit astonishing places, and yes, we are paid to watch bike racing. But I promise you, there are very few moments which you have to yourself, especially now that the race is hurtling north in giant leaps. We just completed yet another three hour drive to add to many since we hit the Italian peninsular and started to run north. And, for anyone who’d listened to my latest dispatch from the Giro on Never Strays Far, you will understand that yesterday we had a seven hour commute after commentating for six hours and more on the longest stage of the race.

On which subject, I feel I should return to a few bullet points, using the numbering system which Substack applies and from which I can’t escape. I am making this post free at the point of use, like the NHS, only less life-saving and iconic. If you can, please support me for the price of borderline sod all (a few pennies a day), and I will be able to continue my work not just here at the Giro, but across the calendar. Anyway, here goes:

10 GIRO THINGS.

1. Abruzzo is wild. I know this, but it’s worth repeating. There are endless forest, vast mountains, bears, golden eagles and wolves.

2. I still can’t put my finger on why it is that Mads Pedersen still just about falls short of being in the class of WVA, MVDP, POG, Jonas and Remco. Maybe the monument thing is it. But my word, he’s very close, isn’t he?

3. Paolo Doppio is a rider you cannot help but admire. Jacopo came up with this name, not me.

4. UAE Team Emirates have been a bit all over the place, despite today. I wonder whether, young as they are, they may have burnt a match or two too many today.

5. Lorenzo Fortunato gives great interviews. His levels of English are roughly approximate to my Italian. I watch him speak with the same encouraging smile that I am often greeted with in cafés and restaurants in Italy. We are both trying. Today he said, in answer to some or other fatuous question; ‘Maybe yes, but also maybe I don’t know’, which is Beckettian in its brilliance.

6. Tom Pidcock, who I greatly like, is caught in a career no man’s land. This is a thing that only really happens in cycling. I can’t see what happens next, but I hope it’s good.

7. I will continue to believe that Wout comes good in the third week, in the same way that I continue to believe that one day I will change all my internet passwords.

8. I understand that many people in Canada are listening to my commentary and want me to talk about Derek Gee. But I can’t do that unless I see him on the telly. I mean, I might as well talk about Nick Drake.

9. Primož is sitting in the corner of the Colosseum, watching people hit each other over the head with sharp objects, peeling an orange.

10. I still can’t figure out how to turn the auto-numbering off.