Tappone time:
The final mountain stage is also nice, not super great, but still good:
The final mountain stage is also nice, not super great, but still good:
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I guess the reduced the amount of kms of ITT to lure in some of the climbers who won't have a realistic shot at finishing top 3 at the Tour, but yeah.38km of ITT in total...
Then why even bother, just remove them completely. I hope Ganna doesn't show up, lol.I guess the reduced the amount of kms of ITT to lure in some of the climbers who won't have a realistic shot at finishing top 3 at the Tour, but yeah.
Then why even bother, just remove them completely. I hope Ganna doesn't show up, lol.
cries in QuintanaI guess the reduced the amount of kms of ITT to lure in some of the climbers who won't have a realistic shot at finishing top 3 at the Tour, but yeah.
Yeah, Nairo has to be pissed right now. Bardet on the other hand is probably popping a bottle of Champagne.cries in Quintana
The reason is the following: i'm cranky because there are so few ITT km.I don't understand the reasoning behind what you just said. There are two time trials, 38 km, but it's not the end of the world, because for today's standard (even if I would prefer more TT km) that's in the average of a GT. It doesn't make sense to remove time trials completely only because you think that 38 km of TT is nothing
You set the bar at winning the Giro after having been out with an injury for nearly a year and having had less than 3 months to prepare and not being able to ride any other race? If he manages to win the Giro under those circumstances, surely he'll have showed what he's got.Well Remco, if you want to win the Giro, show us what you got!
Overall I agree with you, not a perfect route, but overall it's an interesting one. I think you mean stage 16 and not stage 17, because Sega di Ala is a big monster climb. I would have prefered to see the Zoncolan from Priola for the first time instead of this side (nothing's gonna really happen until 3km to go, a Col de la Loze style waiting game...), but what can you do?To be honest, I have my issues with the route, but overall I'm very intrigued.
Mostly I really like that this route looks a lot less backloaded than usually. 4 mtf's in the first week is honestly almost bizarre, but I like it a lot. I absolutely love the sterrato stage and while I also would have preferred an even harder medium mountain stage the day after, that stage could still lead to absolute chaos depending on how hard the previous day was.
The Alps are honestly not all that spectacular but they are fine. I'm not a fan of the Zoncolan side they are using but alright, Libertine can stop killing Kittens for once, and the 3 mtf's in the last week are all fine. I guess I would have preferred one mtf less, but at least none of those stages look so frightening that they are likely gonna scare the gc riders. Stage 17 and especially stage 20 also offer some nice possibilities to go from far out while still avoiding absolute monster climbs. Not that I dislike absolute monster climbs, but I'm just happy that for once the gc riders won't bookmark one stage in the third week and play the waiting game in the two weeks prior to that.
Hm, not sure if I would classify Sega di Ala as a "big monster". I guess I underestimated it a bit. Looking at it more closely it has some extremely steep ramps. But what I meant is, it's not a Stelvio or a Finestre where you know from the start of the race that time gaps on that stage are gonna be measured in minutes. This stage could very well decide the race, but only if it was a close race to begin with (or if someone pulls shenanigans on the penultimate climb). You know, if Froome has the shape he had on the Finestre in 2018 he probably still only gains between 30 seconds and a minute on Dumoulin if the stage is all about Sega di Ala.Overall I agree with you, not a perfect route, but overall it's an interesting one. I think you mean stage 16 and not stage 17, because Sega di Ala is a big monster climb. I would have prefered to see the Zoncolan from Priola for the first time instead of this side (nothing's gonna really happen until 3km to go, a Col de la Loze style waiting game...), but what can you do?