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It is Giro d'Italia time, so Blazin' Saddles is breaking out the Prosciutto di Parma, Ciabatta and a nice Chianti in anticipation of an Italy v Rest of the World battle.

What does May mean to you?

The start of the cricket season perhaps; a couple of nice bank holidays to waste in a beer garden; maybe the inevitably-disappointing Cup final, or the onset of hay fever.

For Señor Saddles it is the only month of the year where he can get to use the word 'Ciclamino' - yes, it's time for the Giro d'Italia.

It is David Duffield's favourite race and unlike the Tour de France - where the first week is mainly spent admiring helicopter shots of châteaux, or Lidl outlets when it traversed through Kent the other year, whilst waiting for the sprint finish - the action hots up straight away.

The Centennial Giro is a brute with an idiosyncratic route seemingly conjured up by a race committee well-oiled on a few bottles of Rosso di Montepulciano.

The riders hit the Dolomites as early as day four, there are eight mountain finishes including one at a volcano that erupted as recently as Fausto Coppi's halcyon days, plus four stages over 235km as the Giro flick two fingers at Christian Prudhomme and his short TdF stages before the finale, an enticing extended prologue which finishes in the shadow of the Colosseum.

And it is no longer an Aye-talian benefit (the precise Sean Kelly pronunciation) - it is Italy v Rest of the World.

Ivan Basso, Gilberto Simoni, Danilo Di Luca, Damiano Cunego and Marzio Bruseghin for the tifosi versus Levi Leipheimer, Lance Armstrong, Carlos Sastre, Denis Menchov and Michael Rogers for countries whose male population doesn't live with their mothers until their mid-thirties.

Only recently fans in the UK had to support Dario Cioni in the Giro because he attended a kindergarten in Reading - but this year there are no less than eight Brits in action.

Mark Cavendish will be after that Ciclamino points jersey and there is also David Millar, Bradley Wiggins, Charly Wegelius, Jeremy Hunt, Ben Swift, Ian Stannard and Chris Froome to cheer on.

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If BS was going to pop down the bookies and spend 20 thousand of his unused Lira on a winner, it would be going the way of Leipheimer.

Victories at the Tour of California, Vuelta a Castilla y León and Tour of the Gila plus podium finishes in the other two Grand Tours are the sort of credentials that prompted BS to tell everyone who would listen that Abraham Olano would follow in the footsteps of Miguel Indurain.

Leipheimer's warm-up was at the Gila in New Mexico, a national race where he gave the locals a good pasting after Astana and USA Cycling reached a late compromise.

Leipheimer and Astana team-mates Armstrong and Chris Horner were only told of their inclusion at 6am on Tuesday under the guise of the Mellow Johnny's team.

No, not a sponsor whose main interests rest in selling prophylactics to stoned students - but the name of Armstrong's bicycle shop in Austin.

In an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, Lance has suggested he wants to become a rider-team owner-directeur sportif in 2010 and we hope he keeps the Mellow Johnny's name.

BS always had a soft spot for Mr Bookmaker which conjured up images of a soigneur with one of those small pens behind his ear, while we also had admiration for the Linda McCartney team and sympathy for the riders and their Quorn-filled mussettes.

And of course there is the plain stupid team name.

'Djamolidine Abdoujaparov of Uzbekistan' fits exactly on the first line of a teletext page but there will be little room left to write anything if 'José Rodolfo Serpa Pérez of Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni-Androni Giocattoli' takes a stage in this year's race.

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The one cloud over the Giro was the announcement last week by the Italian Olympic Committee that Davide Rebellin has failed a drugs test from the Beijing Games.

Doping is doping - and our lawyers have asked us to remind you at this point that the back-up B samples will be tested later this month in France - but it seems all the sadder when the rider involved is one with a palmares as thick as Rebellin.

What is astonishing is that this positive A test has taken eight months to come to light - and you thought Granny Ethel had to wait a long time for her new hip on the NHS.

During that period Rebellin has won a classic and the announcement just before the first of the Grand Tours and with Alejandro Valverde also set to appear at an anti-doping tribunal will yet again take a fair dose of column inches away from the racing.

Of course Rebellin's wife and agent Selina Martinello has followed a well-trodden path of denial: "Davide has not done anything. Now we must stay calm in the light of this incredible development," she told Gazzetta.

Only time will tell.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "If you drive over the limit and you're caught they don't ban you eight months later, do they? It's done immediately. You shouldn't need nine months to do it. I don't know why it takes so long, you have to ask the IOC that. It's very bad." Quick Step boss Patrick Lefevere rules himself out of the torch relay for 2016.

TALKING POINTS: So who will win the Giro? Will Lance work for Levi or pull off something incredible? And any chance of an outsider upsetting the applecart: Arroyo, Karpets, Lovkvist, Pellizotti?

Eurosport