Tweets of the Week: The Giro edition, Part I

It’s the start of the Grand Tour season so there’s only one thing to do: have ourselves a pink edition of Tweets. You will find: badly dressed cyclists, pink animals of all descriptions, ArgoGod love, California dreaming, and much much more.

Belfast never looked so rosy

Is it just me or is this one motley crew with an ArgoGod in their midst? Cyclists really have no sartorial skills except for Marcel Kittel, who looks like a cast member from Grease. Loving the turned-up jeans!

There are many things in this world that I do not understand: the Kardashians; lust for Benedict Cumberbatch. And this … mascot. What, *what* is coming out of his head? Does he have multiple horns? Colour me bewildered.

See, you’d never get Mick Jagger with hair like that. He got a special Giro haircut (possibly at the airport).

Yeah, he knows he looks good.

But onto the actual team presentation! The Trek boys were in the party mood.

The presentation was littered with bad shoes and sock combos and some really dodgy sweat pants.

See what I mean about the sweat pants? Looks like it’s laundry day in the Martin household and Dan is on his way to the laundrette.

Sweat pants or not – poor Dan. 17 minutes on the bike was the extent of his 2014 Giro.

Astana. Bright, bright Astana.

The Mayor of Belfast dyed his hair pink. I suspect there wasn’t much pink dye left in the land after this weekend.

Sky were showing off their steam-powered bikes.

There was lots of hand slapping with fans as the riders walked down the pink carpet. Who would have thought that the ArgoGod would have soft hands? You can almost feel the swoon from these tweets, can’t you?

And it’s Cadel, looking relaxed and happy as he takes to the stage.

One manhole cover too far

Dan is down and out …

But the show must go on.

Tuft guys wear pink

Svein Tuft of Ulrika GreenEdge wore the first maglia rosa of this year’s Giro, on his birthday no less. He was so excited, he turned the champagne spray into a lightning bolt!

Kit-and-kaboodle

But if one rider dominated the weekend, it was Marcel Kittel, ArgoGod. So here is a whole raft of pictures of him. Why? Why the hell not?

Not only did Marcel win stage 2 emphatically, he won stage 3 with a superhero’s effort (and on his birthday). Hugs and heaving chests and little kittens marked the day.

So the hair. It really does have cartoon connotations sometimes doesn’t it?

You know that saying, ‘if you can imagine it, it can come true’? Well, someone in the 1940s imagined Marcel Kittel and we are the beneficiaries of that vision. I am imagining that I am Princess Pantha … “Bring the sprinter to me!”

After stage 2, the maglia rosa changed shoulders. This time, it was Ulrika’s Michael ‘Bling’ Matthews who wore the pink jersey.

He looks so much like a Nascar driver in this picture. Not sure if it’s the collar (does he have a flak-jacket under that jersey?) or the hat or what, but he wouldn’t be out of place at a press conference for a stock car race. (Beautiful teeth, by the way. Almost as astonishing as That Boy Phinney’s.)

Animal farm

I suspect it’ll be quite some time before these poor animals get their natural colouring back. Here are sheep and horses and cows and alpacas, all dyed the colour of the Mayor of Belfast’s hair.

Goin’ Cali

But the Giro wasn’t the only World Tour race this weekend. The Tour of California started on Sunday and there were some big names racing, not least a certain Velvet Samurai who is a biiiiiig hit in the US.

Cannondale love him so much, they designed a new jersey for him for California. Which is kind of cool.

Cannondale also love Ted King, the Maple Syrup King (as do we!) and have made *him* a special jersey too. Everyone together now, ‘Oh, I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay …’

SuperSagan is very popular in the States, but not as popular as a certain Jens Voigt. Here are just two of the many many many pictures tweeted of him with fans in the run-up to the start of the race.

Jens stretching his dynamite before the first stage.

The madding crowds

Irish fans were dying anything that moved pink for the Giro. The great UK public was out in force to cheer on the women’s Tour of Britain. I think we got the Americans beat for crowd participation.

The Gruppetto

British cycling fans sure do love Marianne Vos. And why not? She’s friendly and gracious to all her fans, big or small. I love this tweet.

The ONLY Eurovision reference and it’s ONLY because it’s the Ladies Favourite.

I had to show this because, well, does that not look just a little bit dodgy from this angle? Really? Just me?

Remember this guy? Linus Gerdemann? He’s had his wilderness years but it looks like he’s found a supportive team at MTN-Qhubeka. He won the mountains classification at Tour d’Azerbaïdjan.

Wacky Races.

Who knows why Dave told us this but I thought it needed as wide an audience as possible.

I think Oscar looks like one of the Marx Brothers with this hair. Harpo maybe.

I thought this was really rather pretty.

Adam Hansen has started his eighth consecutive Grand Tour. Fingers crossed he’d do the triple again this summer. Harder than a hard thing from Hard Town, that man.