Rob Larsen

It's May, which means it's time to look closely at la corsa rosa and get excited for the first grand tour of the year. Not that I need any help getting excited for the Giro, of course. If Le Tour is my #1 sporting event of the year, the Giro is probably #1b.

For those of you keeping track, I'm hoping to publish at least one post a week on the Giro this year. Anything more than that and we're in bonus territory.

Anyway, this year's race looks like it's going to be a blast. The course is EPIC and it starts in Holland. You can't go wrong with a bike race starting in Holland.

GC Contenders

My Podium

3. Cadel Evans, BMC

Has looked great so far in the spring and looks like he has a new-found spirit (thanks to the rainbow jersey?) Still, I look at a mountain like Zoncolan and think- that's just not made for Evans. I also think the lack of a long, flat individual time trial hurts Evans. He was trailing Basso until the final time trial in La Vuelta last year. He has no such advantage this year. The race starts and ends with shorter efforts (and the finale has a bump in the middle.) The major contro il tempo test will be the brutal Plan De Corones time trial. While I wouldn't bet against the ex-mountain biker doing well on such a challenging course, he won't have the same decisive advantage he would if it were a more straightforward crono route. On a long, flat time trial course Evans would eat up minutes out of people like Basso and Sastre.
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I wasn't the most profiliic photograper this year, but that doesn't mean I didn't capture a ton of cool graffiti, the occasional bike race and some cool scenes/places. What follows are some of the cooler photos I posted to Flickr this year. Interestingly, the year begins and ends with JA XTC graffiti on a truck.

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I've been there a couple of times now. This time, I drew there. The mausoleum of Augustus is in the background of this image. I've yet to actually see it as it's been in renovation for several years. One of these days.

These are some massive ruins.

The painting:

What it really looked like:

Next time I'm there I'm binging the best paper I can buy and spending 30-45 minutes drawing the Bernini sculptures. They're plainly incredible. These were super fast, in pen, in a Field Notes notebook. Not optimal. Fun, but not optimal.