The Giro on TV

The 94th Giro d'italia started yesterday with a Prolog TTT. It's a month-long suffer fest for pro cyclists that covers some pretty spectacular scenery and offers some epic racing. Eddy Merckx won five times (as did Binda and Coppi) and American rider Andy Hampsten won it in 1988, the only time an American has ever won. 1988 was my second season racing bikes so I watched Andy's achievement in awe

Obviously I'm pretty excited about the race, but since we are cable cord-cutters and don't pay for TV the chances of seeing these events are pretty slim without some sort of on-line access. You can imagine my surprise to learn that NBC/U is showing most of the race on their Universal Sports channel which is free over-the-air here in the Bay-Area as Channel 12.3.

The commentary isn't up to the standards of Paul, Phil and Bobke on Versus, but at least they pronounce the names right most of the time. Petacci just nipped Cav for the Stage-2 sprint. The Italian looked a little wobbly there and Cav is pissed but I think the results will stand. Petacci looks good, he's lost some weight from last year, but I'll bet Cav crushes him in the next sprint.