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Giro d'Italia 2023 Giro d’Italia, Stage 20: Tarvisio- Monte Lussari, 18.6km MTT

From @Eshnar’s excellent Giro stage by stage analysis thread:
https://forum.cyclingnews.com/threads/2023-giro-ditalia-stage-by-stage-analysis.38851/post-2828631
Stage 20: Tarvisio – Monte Lussari 18.6 km ITT

Saturday, May 27th, 11:30 – 18:30 CEST



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Technical Overview:

And here you have it, the last GC stage of this race and easily the most controversial. An ITT ending on a silly steep goat track, surfaced for this very occasion. From Tarvisio, the riders will have to go through 11.3 km of flat in the valley, before starting to climb right after the first checkpoint of the day. Monte Lussari (GPM1, 7.3 km at 12.1%) is a ludicrous climb, that features 5 km at 15% average before getting a bit easier for the final 2 km. Needless to say, this might very well be the stage that decides the Giro, and it being a very atypical TT on a very atypical climb, at the end of a very demanding Giro, I can see many riders having problems finding the right pace and potentially losing huge chunks of time.

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The Climbs:

Monte Lussari
: GPM1, 7.3 km at 12.1%

Short, narrow, and ridiculously steep. It does have some respite near the top, although the profile of the final km (both in the climb and in the final km graph) does not quite match with the profile of the stage, so there might be small errors there. Also, it will feature two checkpoints, the last of which at only 800 m to go. No idea why.

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What to Expect:

Well, the last battle for pink. Surely it will be entertaining. If anything, just the sheer novelty of a time trial this dumb will be interesting to watch. I am a lot more concerned about how the GC guys might be worried about this stage and try to save energy for it in the previous days. In the end however, I don’t think we will see huge gaps here, unless someone bonks completely.

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Monte Lussari
 
This is the kind of climb where it's very beneficial to use gearing like Roglic used today and very surprising if not doing same tomorrow. Bike change maybe?

If Thomas goes with traditional gearing he prolly loses game there, because he's low grinder mostly and this climb is so steep for his weight, brobably cooks it over that way I'm afraid. Did Froome some special short gearing in his tt-rig back in the day when Jagger came second? Year?

Can't wait!
 
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This is the kind of climb where it's very beneficial to use gearing like Roglic used today and very surprising if not doing same tomorrow. Bike change maybe?

If Thomas goes with traditional gearing he prolly loses game there, because he's low grinder mostly and this climb is so steep for his weight, brobably cooks it over that way I'm afraid. Did Froome some special short gearing in his tt-rig back in the day when Jagger came second? Year?

Can't wait!
Bike change seems like a no brainer to me. Probably also slightly higher saddle height, but nose of the saddle pointing downwards and maybe moving the whole saddle a bit towards the front to prevent those who prefer climbing seated from sliding too far back on the saddle/having an inefficient pedaling angle.
 

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