I agree the route is a lot better than feared but I don't quite comply with the sudden appearance of what seems to be...hype? Ok, I admit, it's actually a decent route.
So firstly, let's get the good things out of the way (and I must admit there are quite a few).
The four main mountain stages, with which I mean Crans Montana, Monte Bondone, Val di Zoldo and Tre Cime all look really good and are honestly genuine surprises. Like Croix de Coeur? That run up to Zoldo Alto? Where on earth was that coming from? Genuinely can't remember when I was last this pleasently surprised by the inclusion of climbs in a grand tour. Monte Bondone and Tre Cime are more straight forwardly designed but both are seriously hard stages. This emphasis on few but really hard and well designed mountain stages is what I'm usually hoping for in the Giro so no complaints there.
I also like the overall amount of ITT mileage and I don't even have complaints about a TT like the Monte Lussari one (although I don't like its placement). I feel like the forum more or less agrees that the Plan de Corones TT's used to be pretty epic and think a Monte Lussari TT is just as crazy and exciting. I do love the possibility of an insanely hard TT that can lead to huge and unexpected time gaps. Even the most recent precedent for a late mountain TT, the one in the 2020 Tour, made for an instant classic, so again I'm fine with that.
Some more positives are that even though there are lots of rather flat stages at least many of them have a lot of climbing early on that will hopefully mean exciting breaks. There are only like 3 stages that look like uncontested bunch sprints while all other stages either have a tough start or some hills throughout to hopefully give attackers or the teams of more mountain fit sprinters the chance to drop their rivals. Then there are some more nice stages I wanted to give a shout out, in particular stage 4 and stage 8.
So enough with all this positivity, I'm starting to get bored.
My main problem with the route is the placement of the stages. First of all, the route is once again super backloaded, with 4 of the 6 most important stages all in the last week and the gc battle probably only really kicking off with the stage 9 TT in the first place.
Then I don't really like the order of the mountain stages. Despite the first two climbs of the stage, which are super tough, the Crans Montana stage will likely still be all about the final climb as it's the first proper mountain test. That's just a real shame. Meanwhile Monte Bondone and Tre Cime are such hard climbs that I just don't see anyone going earlier and although the Val di Zoldo stage looks great for attackers, it comes right before the two most important stages of the race which will certainly scare the riders.
The medium mountain stages are also a little meh, with the only really exciting looking one again coming right before a TT. That kind of stuff happens every single Giro and it just annoys the hell out of me. At least stage 15 comes before a rest day but even then I fear nobody will attack from so far out. Also, while there are only 3 100% clear cut sprint stages, which ich great, I see up to 9 stages that might very well end in (reduced) bunch sprints, which is anything but great. Then there are some other complaints like Gran Sasso still being a horrible mtf but nothing too big.
So yeah, I love some of the stage designs, I once again hate the order of the stages and there is some decent stuff in between. It's a real boom or bust design. If the first week is raced hard and time gaps are big early, I can see the Crans Montana stage exploding on the Croix de Coer and the racing never calming down after that. If the first week is raced conservatively and the time gaps stay small in the TT everyone will keep waiting for the final climbs and hope to have a great day on stage 20.
In any case, at least it's infinitely many times better than this years route. It's something like a 6 or a 7 out of 10.
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