Giros present and past

It seems quite clear that Alberto Contador will win the Giro d'Italia this year, doesn't it? We're cool with that. Despite the fact that Alberto Contador hunts in his spare time and we're pro-animal rights (animals have a right to live too) we like Alberto Contador. However, we would be cool with Mikel Landa or Fabio Aru winning it too, they seem like alright guys. This far FDJ, which is our favourite team in the Giro this year, hasn't made much noice. Well, this Sunday we will see how it all ends.

Today though, we wanted to focus on another race: The now defunct Postgirot Open. Postgirot Open was a six to eight days long race held in Sweden, in the summer, between 1982 and 2002. To be honest it didn't attract the top riders, there were no Laurent Fignons or Miguel Indurains there... but Bernard Hinault participated once! And come on... this is Sweden! For Sweden it was an important race. Both Tommy Prim and Michael Andersson participated in it... and won. (Tommy Prim won it twice and Michael Andersson thrice.)

We're not quite sure exactly why, but lately we've become increasingly interested in this race. Is it just nostalgia? Maybe! But we really like the Tommy Prim sticker we wrote about here, and we like these postcards that we also found. Come to think of it, that's probably what started it: Finding that cool Tommy Prim sticker a while ago. Well, these postcards are a bit old but we found them quite recently and wanted to share them with you. So here:

This postcard is perhaps not that... special. Or should we say "aesthetic"? But it's still cool, since it shows the route of the first race.

This postcard however... How good looking is that? This one we just love!

As well as this one. It would look even better, cleaner, without the names and logotypes of the sponsors. But it's still really nice!

Were there no postcards in 1984? We have no idea! We have been thinking about seeing if it's possible to make bigger versions of the cards, perhaps in A4 or A3 size. (Of course it's all possible, but without the pictures looking all crap, pixelated and blurry.) We figure that they would make nice posters. If you think the same, or for some other reason want higher resolution versions of these pictures, just send us a message and we'll mail them to you.

Ride safe!