After bringing us through some of the famous rider care measures within Team Sky yesterday, farting and garlic are both on our man Deignan's mind today.
Friday May 16, Stage 7: Frosinone to Foligno (214km)
By: Philip Deignan
Although today’s stage looked likely to end in a bunch sprint, after such a long day yesterday, all of the crashes and the fact that we have a big mountain stage tomorrow, there was always the chance that the early breakaway could stay clear to the line.
For the first time on this Giro though, there was a lot of attacking before the breakaway eventually went clear this morning and it made for an extremely really fast start.
As today’s stage finished into my teammate Salvatore Puccio’s home town, he was understandably keen to try and get in the break and was jumping around a lot.
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I tried to follow a few moves too, but just didn’t have the legs. It didn’t help that the first 30km were mostly uphill.
When the break went clear going over the top of the first climb, there was time for a bit of a breather.
As the pace calmed down in the peloton I couldn’t help but notice the amount of riders sporting bandages of some description on their arms or legs. I realised that over half of the peloton must have crashed at some stage this week.
Once again today we had a northerly wind blowing in our faces and while it didn’t rain, thankfully, it was a bit on the chilly side this morning.
As we went through the feed zone in Posticciola after 100km, I grabbed my musette off one of the team careers and swung it around my neck.
At Team Sky, everybody gets a standard feed bag with some bars, gels and some fresh food like rice cakes with a couple of bottles too.
We have different colour lids on our bottles to indicate what’s inside; a Blue cap means water, while a white cap indicates an energy drink mix.
If somebody misses a bag, which is pretty usual if we’re flying through the feed zone, then the carer hands the leftover bags in to the team car as it goes past and we drop back a few kilometres later and pick them up.
Class Act: Eddy Boassen Hagen is rooming with Deignan on this Giro at the moment. Not much of a farter, things are going well between the pair so far.
As I began to tuck into my meals on wheels today, Chris Jensen of Tinkoff-Saxo rode alongside me. Chris was born in Ireland and raced for the Sorrento club in Dublin before moving back to Denmark with his parents when he was 16.
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He was a bit intrigued by my home made rice cakes today so I gave him one to try. They’re just rice with a bit of Philadelphia cheese or honey on them.
I don’t know what Chris was hoping for but by the expression on his face, I don’t think they lived up to his expectations.
As our sprinter Ben Swift wasn’t feeling great after his crash yesterday, we didn’t really join in the chase today and for a while it looked as if the break was going to stay away.
We eventually caught them with 5km to go, ahead of what was a really typical Giro sprint finish.
They love to throw in a few corners here to make things technical and the roads were pretty narrow in the last few kilometres too. But thankfully it stayed dry, as it would have been really dangerous in the wet.
With Eddy (Boassen Hagen) and a few of the other lead out guys still feeling the effects of yesterday’s crashes and not firing on all cylinders, Ben was sort of left to his own devices in the sprint and managed 15th behind stage winner Nacer Bouhanni of FDJ.
Still a bit sore after yesterday, Ben and Sebastian Henao paid a visit to the mobile x-ray unit at the finish line today.
Although the x-rays were clear and the guys didn’t have anything broken, they will probably be stiff for a few days yet before they start to come around.
I’m still rooming with Eddy and we’re in a really nice hotel tonight. Apart from his insisting that we watch the Eurovision Song Contest earlier in the week, we’re getting on pretty well.
Eddy’s an easy guy to room with. We’re on the same sort of biological clock and both go to bed and get up at the same time. He doesn’t snore or fart too much either, which always helps.
Because of the rain the last few days I’ve been asking the team chef to roast a couple of garlic cloves for me at dinner and I’ve been eating them for their supposed natural antibiotic properties in an effort to keep away the sniffles.
Having been a bit pissed off with the smell at first, Eddy soon realised that if he ate it himself he wouldn’t notice the waft of garlic in the room afterwards.
Although we’re pretty sociable guys, for some reason we haven’t had many visitors to our room for a cup of tea and a chat the last couple of evenings.
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