Giro d'Italia 2023 Giro d'Italia, Stage 9: Savignano sul Rubicone – Cesena 35 km ITT (Sunday, May 14th)

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If Küng is ever going to win a GT TT surely this has to be one of his better chances, with Ganna out and that starting order.

at the moment the weather looks likely to improve later in the afternoon. Küng could suffer from that.

edit: picture embedding not working, for whatever reason:

https://imgur.com/jDUcPOh

View: https://i.imgur.com/jDUcPOh.png

Hourly weather forecast for Cesena

Today's weather forecast for Cesena by the hour.

www.yr.no

 

[Potomac]

Despite my color deficiency, I sense these are some significant winds.

 

[hfer07]

Remco will take 1 minute on Roglic while Almeida kicks back with a monster ITT ride

 

[HelloDolly]

Another bloody TT

Bet Ganna is gutted he is not on this one

Hope Kung wins

 

[Cookster15]

This is an interesting and hard to predict TT. After stage 1 nobody would bet against Remco demoralizing everyone Indurain-like. But after today I think likely he will take 40-60 seconds on Roglic. Thomas to be a little ahead of TGH. Hopefully Almeida finds his TT form, but if Küng can beat Remco that would be good to see.

 

[houtdffan]

Despite my color deficiency, I sense these are some significant winds.

Looks like a headwind

Major advantage for Remco if that forecast holds

 

[houtdffan]

This is an interesting and hard to predict TT. After stage 1 nobody would bet against Remco demoralizing everyone Indurain-like. But after today I think likely he will take 40-60 seconds on Roglic. Thomas to be a little ahead of TGH. Hopefully Almeida finds his TT form, but if Küng can beat Remco that would be good to see.

Tomorrow's TT is like half distance of an Indurain era TT. We haven't had a TT of that length since the 2015 giro TT

 

[Red Rick]

Tomorrow's TT is like half distance of an Indurain era TT. We haven't had a TT of that length since the 2015 giro TT

Wouldn't mind more variety in TTs tbh. Now it's all 30-35km. But I also think a Giro with a 20km starting ITT and 10km of flat on a stage 20 MTT doesn't need a 55km ITT in the middle. I like the super long ITTs only if they're the only one.

 

[houtdffan]

Wouldn't mind more variety in TTs tbh. Now it's all 30-35km. But I also think a Giro with a 20km starting ITT and 10km of flat on a stage 20 MTT doesn't need a 55km ITT in the middle. I like the super long ITTs only if they're the only one.

There used to be 2 long ITTs in a GT

I think it would have been better had they removed the flat km from the MTT and tacked them on to the end of tomorrow's ITT

 

[Skijumper Roglic fan]

Roglic winning a flat TT against Remco or Kung doesn't sound very realistic, even with a super day

Correct… But I always hope for many different winners:

Remco won stage 1 TT, wore Pink. Now I hope Primoz will win tomorrow‘s TT, and wear Pink until the finish of the whole race.

Küng for the stage win tomorrow? I still don‘t believe it. Ganna isn‘t there any more, but Küng and Groupama-FdJ IMHO never feel like favourites, because they are not these typical winners. They care more about MPCC stuff, which the successful teams don‘t…

Sadly Nairo isn‘t there tomorrow, he always looks good on his TT bike, with his beautiful tan, and his slim ankles…

I think Remco‘s victory tomorrow is far from certain.

Actually a good thing to create such a flat and 35km-long ITT in the Giro. The problem this year is rather that the further course is not mountainous enough IMHO. Why not create a Giro with more than 4000 vertical meters at every stage, except time trials? That‘s what people want to see. And Italy offers the needed possibilities, the needed geography.

 

[DenisMenchov]

View: https://youtu.be/tEmBkWkt7hU

 

[Red Rick]

After today if Roglic has a bad ITT again I definitely think something is up with his TT specifically.

If we consider form alone, he should drop under 1 minute.

 

[Cookster15]

Tomorrow's TT is like half distance of an Indurain era TT. We haven't had a TT of that length since the 2015 giro TT

Indurain-like is not referring to the length of the course but the dominance. For Remco this would mean he would take maybe 90 seconds in a flat 35km TT. After stage 1 that looked possible. Maybe not now. Here is an example of Indurain-like that I was thinking of when I posted. Indurain won a 65km ITT by 3 minutes. That equates to about 90 seconds for 35km.

Tour de France 1992 Stage 9 (ITT) results

Tour de France 1992 Stage 9 (ITT) from Luxembourg to Luxembourg was won by Miguel Induráin before Armand de Las Cuevas and Gianni Bugno. Pascal Lino was leading the general classification.

www.procyclingstats.com

 

[Jan the Man]

Indurain-like is not referring to the length of the course but the dominance. For Remco this would mean he would take maybe 90 seconds in a flat 35km TT. After stage 1 that looked possible. Maybe not now. Here is an example of Indurain-like that I was thinking of when I posted. Indurain won a 65km ITT by 3 minutes. That equates to about 90 seconds for 35km.

Tour de France 1992 Stage 9 (ITT) results

Tour de France 1992 Stage 9 (ITT) from Luxembourg to Luxembourg was won by Miguel Induráin before Armand de Las Cuevas and Gianni Bugno. Pascal Lino was leading the general classification.

www.procyclingstats.com

Of course i may be wrong but I think the odds of Remco taking 90s against Roglic/Thomas is pretty slim.

 

[Cookster15]

Of course i may be wrong but I think the odds of Remco taking 90s against Roglic/Thomas is pretty slim.

After today yes I agree. But after stage 1 it looked very plausible.

 

[peterfin]

After today yes I agree. But after stage 1 it looked very plausible.

If there is indeed a 20 km/h head wind for a big part of the parcours, the odds may not be that small.

 

[Didinho]

Couldn't watch a lot of the final today but I saw Küng in the last 25-30 riders on the longer climb, if I'm not mistaken? Why wouldn't he take it easy for the TT tomorrow? Maybe his best chance to win one now without Ganna.

 

[bNator]

Looks like a headwind

Major advantage for Remco if that forecast holds

Why would it be a major advantage? You mean because of better drag coefficient? I don’t think it’s that simple. More headwind means they will go proportionally slower that they we have gone in zero wind conditions. Of course, the guy with better drag coefficient will still go faster but their speed difference will actually be lower...

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Why would it be a major advantage? You mean because of better drag coefficient? I don’t think it’s that simple. More headwind means they will go proportionally slower that they we have gone in zero wind conditions. Of course, the guy with better drag coefficient will still go faster but their speed difference will actually be lower...

But effort time will be longer and relative gains of more aerodynamic guys bigger as well (due to aero drag being a larger fraction of total resistive force when airspeed is increased).

 

[houtdffan]

Why would it be a major advantage? You mean because of better drag coefficient? I don’t think it’s that simple. More headwind means they will go proportionally slower that they we have gone in zero wind conditions. Of course, the guy with better drag coefficient will still go faster but their speed difference will actually be lower...

the aero efficiency comes more into play. Remco goes less slower than the others, giving him a larger time gain

 

[bNator]

But effort time will be longer and relative gains of more aerodynamic guys bigger as well (due to aero drag being a larger fraction of total resistive force).

Ok so longer effort evens out the smaller speed difference and smaller rolling resistance at low speeds means drag resistance will be a bit higher at the same power output. This effect, however should be minimal because drag resistance already presents the majority of resistive forces on flat sections at high speeds?

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Ok so longer effort evens out the smaller speed difference and smaller rolling resistance at low speeds means drag resistance will be a bit higher at the same power output. This effect, however should be minimal because drag resistance already presents the majority of resistive forces on flat sections at high speeds?

Not just evens out but overwhelms them actually. Absolute speed difference (in kph) is not a factor but relative speed difference is. So difference between 40 and 44 kph is relatively the same as between 50 and 55 kph for example (meaning that the slower guy will ride 10% longer so in longer efforts he will actually lose more time). And when the head wind is strong this relative speed difference grows even more (CdA means more when rolling resistance is lower). Not saying that this effect is big (one would need a very strong wind for that) but coupled with a longer effort duration it should be noticeable.

 

[bNator]

Not just evens out but overwhelms them actually. Absolute speed difference (in kph) is not a factor but relative speed difference is. So difference between 40 and 44 kph is relatively the same as between 50 and 55 kph for example (meaning that the slower guy will ride 10% longer so in longer efforts he will actually lose more time). And when the head wind is strong this relative speed difference grows even more (CdA means more when rolling resistance is lower). Not saying that this effect is big (one would need a very strong wind for that) but coupled with a longer effort duration it should be noticeable.

I’m really not so sure about that. I’ve done my fair share of power computations and since drag resistive force depends on pow3 of speed I really don’t think it’s simple to predict how that translates into relative difference in speed. You can say that relative difference in resistive force is the same, though…

 

[peterfin]

I’m really not so sure about that. I’ve done my fair share of power computations and since drag resistive force depends on pow3 of speed I really don’t think it’s simple to predict how that translates into relative difference in speed. You can say that relative difference in resistive force is the same, though…

Krzysztof is correct. I was making a (too long) reply but he made the perfect summary. I have a background in aerodynamics. Actually, if you want to see the impact of a headwind check out a video of Remco's 2019 EC ITT win. If I remember it correctly he made his biggest gap during the final part in a headwind.

 

[bNator]

Krzysztof is correct. I was making a (too long) reply but he made the perfect summary. I have a background in aerodynamics. Actually, if you want to see the impact of a headwind check out a video of Remco's 2019 EC ITT win. If I remember it correctly he made his biggest gap during the final part in a headwind.

I know Remco has better CdA than others. The question is - does that necessarily mean that with headwind where they go slower and they use more force to fight wind instead of static air resistance, the time difference is bigger. If you know that for a fact, you can spare me doing bunch of calculations tomorrow😁

Edit: This is as far as I've come:
P * efficiency / (cyclingspeed + windspeed) - 0.5 * Cda * rho * pow((cyclingspeed + windspeed), 2) - m * g * cos(atan(incline)) * crr = 0

So here we've got a pretty complex equation just to get speed ("cyclingspeed") which I don't know how to solve anymore. But it indicates this problem is far from trivial.