More plagiarism from @Devil's Elbow:
The hardest mountain stage in the first half of the race. While the GC battle should be all about the final climb, there are still nearly 4000 metres of elevation gain packed into a shortish stage and the effect of that shouldn’t be underestimated.
The route
The race has moved to the head of the valley of the previous day’s TT, a strategic spot where the town of Spoleto developed early. In Roman times, this was where the two branches of the Via Flaminia, the main route from Rome up north, reunited. In the early Middle Ages, it was the seat of an eponymous duchy, which briefly held the Italian crown, but its power was broken when Otto I invaded Italy; control subsequently switched repeatedly between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papal States. It did remain a regional capital until Italian reunification, but the loss of that status has reduced its importance today to probably the lowest point in its history.
The start is immediately uphill, with the final 2 kilometres of neutralisation being the first 2 kilometres of Forca di Cerro. While it’s not a hard climb, it could easily have been a cat. 3 or 4, but this is RCS, so it isn’t. The breakaway shouldn’t go here yet, but the door at the back of the peloton will be wide open from the get go.
The descent is a bit steeper near the bottom and moderately technical overall. It backs immediately into Forca Capistrello, the hardest climb of the race so far even if it’s a category 2 to Oropa’s category 1. The overall stats of 16.3k and 5.6% sell the climb short, especially due to the false flat downhill near the end: the section before that is 12.8k at a still-irregular 6.7%, with sections of 1.5k at 9.9% and 1k at 9.6% in there. This is the likeliest place for the breakaway to go, so it should be full of good climbers.
This is very much a lopsided climb, and so it’s a rather short descent before the riders embark on almost 60 kilometres of irregular terrain, with a lot of false flats and short climbs and descents but little actual flat. By the end of it, we’ve joined the route the Giro d’Abruzzo took in April en route to the same finish, transitioned from Umbria via Lazio into the Abruzzo, had the intermediate and Intergiro sprints, and, immediately after the latter, reached the next climb, Croce Arbio. Surprisingly, there’s an official profile.
The descent is shallow, wide, fast and untechnical. At the bottom of it, it’s immediately on to the final climb, Prati di Tivo. Though not quite at HC level, it’s probably the hardest MTF of the race. While it’s only been seen in the Giro once (1975, already on stage 3: Giovanni Battaglin, who would pull off the Vuelta-Giro double six years later, took the stage and the pink), it should still be familiar to everyone thanks to the Tirreno MTFs in 2012, 2013 and 2021, as well as the aforementioned Abruzzo stage a month prior to this one. It’s a remarkably consistent climb, slightly steeper in the middle but slightly easier near the end, with the bonus second sprint past halfway up in Pietracamela for some reason.
What to expect?
Big battle in the first quarter of the stage to get into the breakaway, a lull after that in which we find out whether the peloton wants the stage, and then showdown time on the MTF.
Stage 8: Spoleto – Prati di Tivo, 152.0k
The hardest mountain stage in the first half of the race. While the GC battle should be all about the final climb, there are still nearly 4000 metres of elevation gain packed into a shortish stage and the effect of that shouldn’t be underestimated.
The route
The race has moved to the head of the valley of the previous day’s TT, a strategic spot where the town of Spoleto developed early. In Roman times, this was where the two branches of the Via Flaminia, the main route from Rome up north, reunited. In the early Middle Ages, it was the seat of an eponymous duchy, which briefly held the Italian crown, but its power was broken when Otto I invaded Italy; control subsequently switched repeatedly between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papal States. It did remain a regional capital until Italian reunification, but the loss of that status has reduced its importance today to probably the lowest point in its history.
The start is immediately uphill, with the final 2 kilometres of neutralisation being the first 2 kilometres of Forca di Cerro. While it’s not a hard climb, it could easily have been a cat. 3 or 4, but this is RCS, so it isn’t. The breakaway shouldn’t go here yet, but the door at the back of the peloton will be wide open from the get go.
The descent is a bit steeper near the bottom and moderately technical overall. It backs immediately into Forca Capistrello, the hardest climb of the race so far even if it’s a category 2 to Oropa’s category 1. The overall stats of 16.3k and 5.6% sell the climb short, especially due to the false flat downhill near the end: the section before that is 12.8k at a still-irregular 6.7%, with sections of 1.5k at 9.9% and 1k at 9.6% in there. This is the likeliest place for the breakaway to go, so it should be full of good climbers.
This is very much a lopsided climb, and so it’s a rather short descent before the riders embark on almost 60 kilometres of irregular terrain, with a lot of false flats and short climbs and descents but little actual flat. By the end of it, we’ve joined the route the Giro d’Abruzzo took in April en route to the same finish, transitioned from Umbria via Lazio into the Abruzzo, had the intermediate and Intergiro sprints, and, immediately after the latter, reached the next climb, Croce Arbio. Surprisingly, there’s an official profile.
The descent is shallow, wide, fast and untechnical. At the bottom of it, it’s immediately on to the final climb, Prati di Tivo. Though not quite at HC level, it’s probably the hardest MTF of the race. While it’s only been seen in the Giro once (1975, already on stage 3: Giovanni Battaglin, who would pull off the Vuelta-Giro double six years later, took the stage and the pink), it should still be familiar to everyone thanks to the Tirreno MTFs in 2012, 2013 and 2021, as well as the aforementioned Abruzzo stage a month prior to this one. It’s a remarkably consistent climb, slightly steeper in the middle but slightly easier near the end, with the bonus second sprint past halfway up in Pietracamela for some reason.
What to expect?
Big battle in the first quarter of the stage to get into the breakaway, a lull after that in which we find out whether the peloton wants the stage, and then showdown time on the MTF.
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