Giro diary watch: Three rest days in a row?

The Gerolsteiner riders were nervous going into the team time trial. Not only did they have the leader's jersey, "We had never before ridden a team time trial with this group of riders," noted Ronny Scholz. And it didn't quite go according to plan for him. "After 2 km I rode into a pothole and my saddle slid down. It was a lot harder to ride in this position than in my usual position." (ronnyscholz.de)

His teammate Robert Förster says that his teammates infected him with their nervousness before the start but that he soon discovered that he was in good form. "It was a really good time trial - and I don't say that very often...but it really was fun." (radsport-news.com)

"A team time trial - that the is the discipline that everybody, except maybe Jens Voigt - wants to have behind them as quickly as possible," says Rabobank's Grischa Niermann, who was satisfied with his team's 14th position. He also shared some more of Voigt's philosophy: "According to the theories of my aforementioned colleague Jens Voigt, we actually have three rest days in a row. Yesterday the real rest day, today the team time trial - with 9 riders on a team and 35 km, that makes 4 km in the wind per rider, so that's a rest day - and tomorrow a flat-as-a-pancake sprinter stage, which is also a rest day even though it is 225 km long. That's all according to Jens Voigt, who, by the way, I greatly admire for his morale and attitude!" (grischa-niermann.de)