Lloyd Lands It

Australian Matt Lloyd has been plugging away at the pro-cycling lark for several years now and today he finally chalked-up a big win. He spent most of the day up the road with Italian Bertogliati - not to be confused with Italian Bertagnolli from Harrison's team. Lloyd dropped his companion on the final climb and kept the bunch at bay, to win by over a minute at the line.


Bertogliati just held on for second place, while Danilo Hondo won the sprint for third. Hondo was a bit confused though, as he didn't realise the escapees were still away and so gave it his best "victory hands" over the line.


As well as thrills, there were also some spills. Bradley "Lucky" Wiggins went down again obviously. But it was Vino's team-mate Paolo Tiralongo and AG2R's Guillaume Bonnafond who both left the race by ambulance, nothing too serious, but they bring the number of abandonments up to four. There were a few other crashes too, the classiest one I present to you below for your amusement. Bad news for fans of torn shorts though, as it seems that the lycra remained intact today.


So what's up with those scores? Well, it seems George has yet to update them, but let's assume it's still Harrison's Pharma on top and it's still Dr Chan at the bottom. I expected better from Dr Chan, he's had some classy picks in the past, but maybe he's saving himself for the FTDF?

More hills tomorrow then. Still not proper mountains, but it's lumpy and there's some "white roads" near the finish. These roads have a surface of loose gravel and make for tricky riding. You know what? There might be some crashes. I'm hoping Pozzato will finally deliver the Bile Beans a stage win here, he says he's targeting the stage, so he'll probably shit out. He did get fifth today though, so at least he's earned me a few points now.