Giro diary watch: Rest day in the bus

The Gerolsteiner team seems to frequently have bad luck with their hotels, and their latest is no exception. When they arrived Tuesday night, or perhaps Wednesday morning, "it didn't look so bad in the dark," says Robert Förster. But the next morning, "you should see it here! Ronny (Scholz) made the suitcase test on his carpet - lots of grey dust. My bathroom is disgusting. And we're here for two days and two nights!" Nor was there much to eat. The team's mood sank. "This afternoon we all moved into the bus. We watched German TV, played Play Station, chatted. After massage and dinner we went back into the bus and watched football on TV." (www.radsport-news.com)

But Gerolsteiner wasn't the only team unsatisfied with their hotel, which they are sharing with Rabobank. Grischa Niermann reports that legend has it that Fausto Coppi slept in their hotel on the night of his last Giro victory "...and since then not much has changed. Together with our fellow sufferers from Team Gerolsteiner, we have to hang around for three days in rooms with wallpaper out of the 1960s, a combined toilet-and-shower - which is really handy if you want to pee and shower at the same time! - and breakfast off plastic plates in a sort of hut." (www.grischa-niermann.de)

T-Mobile's Mick Rogers had other things on his mind. He got to bed at 1:00 am, and wrote, "It's hardly ideal. Add to that the fact that my teeth are still troubling me. I will see the dentist again at 6:00 pm. There must be more pleasant ways of spending your rest day!" After the dentist visit come dinner and interviews: "Hope I can still talk properly!" (www-t-mobile-team.com)