'Every Grand Tour you ride costs a year of your life'. I remember hearing that nugget of information and pondering if it could possibly be true, and then, a few years later, I did a couple of Grand Tours that felt like they had done precisely that.
I suspect this edition of the Giro d'Italia is doing the very same to so many riders - physically, through illness and crashes, but also mentally, because the continual stresses of surviving each soaking-wet kilometre are enormous.
