Time for a Post-Giro Cuddle With a “Glis Glis”

No Comments | June 4th, 2007 | Trackback

I’ve now slept in the past two days - not getting up until after 7:30am - which felt like such a luxury after almost three solid weeks of getting up way too early (considering how late I usually go to bed) to watch the Giro. It was a great race this year; I really didn’t think Danilo Di Luca would be able to hold onto the lead through until the end, but that shows you how much I know. I do wish that the final day’s coverage on Versus had been more about the previous week and less about the (boring) final stage. I mean, they only showed the ten laps in Milano, going ’round and ’round in circles with Liquigas on the front until the final 2km when people started attacking. The husband and I were lamenting, “We’re cycling fans - and we’re even bored!” I can be thankful for the excellent daily coverage on Cycling.tv, at least.

Speaking of Cycling.tv, they’ll be showing the Dauphine Libere, I’m told, so that gives me one week of sleeping in before I’m back to my schedule of crawling out of bed before I want to in order to watch bike racing.

ghiro One thing I meant to post last week about the Giro, and then things got away from me, was the “identity” of that little gray stuffed animal each guy on the podium got. In the Tour de France, we’re used to the yellow jersey wearer getting a stuffed lion, because the main sponsor of that jersey is the Credit Lyonnaise bank. But what was with that funny gray creature? Well, while watching Cycling.tv one day, a member of that site’s message board posted that it was called a ghiro, which is the Italian name for the Glis Glis… Which is commonly known as the Edible Dormouse! Apparently the Romans used to raise them for food. There’s a variety which is common on Sardinia, apparently, which may be why it was the token gift this year (since the Giro started there). Who knows? At any rate, it’s good to have that mystery solved. And ooh, they’re so cute, you could just eat them up! Hey, wait a minute…