Stage 1, Universal Sports May 8th, 7am.

I was a little surprised that Radio Shack isn't on the start list. Did they choose not to go or did they not get the invite? If the latter, was the invite contingent on the organizers wanting Armstrong to show up?

Not sure who I like for the win. Evans? Sastre? Wiggins?

Menchov is not there to defend. Surely not Basso? Vino?

I hope Farrar takes a stage or two.

Woohoo! Farrar takes the first real stage!

Wow. Great stage today. Impressive final kick from Evans for the stage win.

Of course it had to rain on the day when they had some long dirt road sections. There were several points where you couldn't tell which team any of the riders was on because they were all covered with mud.

Tyler takes another stage, led out by teammate Julian Dean in a bunch sprint for the line.

It's kind of amazing to me that Astana, BMC and Liquigas collectively screwed up that badly. They should have realized that a breakaway that huge (~50 or so riders I think) was dangerous and not let it get away like that. It will be interesting to see what happens when they hit the big mountains this weekend. There were some strong climbers in the breakaway that are now several minutes ahead of Vino, Evans and Basso.

This has been the most unpredictable grand tour I've ever seen. It seems like something weird or unexpected has happened on almost every stage.

ray333:Yeah, it was really more of a field split than a breakaway.

True.

Can you imagine Johan Bruyneel letting that happen?

Not likely. He would have his riders all over that.

ITT ability is not going to help Evans, Vino or Wiggins as much as it might normally. The ITT stage has an average gradient of around 8%, with sections as high as 24%. The GC is all about the climbing from here on. Sastre's got a real chance if he can find his climbing legs again.

The Mortirolo climb is just insanely STEEP and it really shakes the GC standing.
I couldn't understand why the other GC contenders (Evans, Vino, Arroyo, Sastre) lost
a lot of time on the final climb. They brought down the deficit to 35 seconds but lost more
Than 3 minutes from Basso. They either let him go or they didn't have enough for the last climb.
This is probably why I like the Giro more than TDF because the Leader's Jersey gets passed around until the very end.
Definitely, I'll be looking out to get a DVD set of the 2010 Giro.

I get my updates from grahamwatson.com

No surprises in the final ITT. The top riders did tighten it up a little due to people like Evans being better at ITT's, but since it was so short, there wasn't enough room to make up any significant time so no significant changes. Evans will have to settle for the points title, which I'm sure some sprinters would have loved to win, but since they all quit, they're out of luck.

Nibali was actually only a second slower than Evans in the ITT, which surprised me. Very impressive performance from him.