Giro 2018 stage 18: Abbiategrasso – Prato Nevoso 196 km

[Red Rick]

STAGE 18: Abbiategrasso – Prato Nevoso 196 km

May 24th

Technical Overview:
The final mountain block opens with quite a disappointing stage, although probably it's justifiable due to what's coming next. The first 160 km of this stage have very little to offer: only the climb of Novello (GPM4, 5.4 km at 4.6%) stands out. After this long stroll in the Po Valley, however, the road will begin to head uphill into the Alps. The mountain top finish of Prato Nevoso (GPM1, 13.9 km at 6.9%) it's quite a good climb, consistently tough and regular, without particularly steep ramps.

Final km

The Climbs:
Novello (GPM4, 5.4 km at 4.6%)
No profile. Just your typical GPM4.

Prato Nevoso (GPM1, 13.9 km at 6.9%)
Very consistent, tough but without going crazy. Last time a GT finished here, it was actually the Tour, in 2008. For some reason the profile is not on the website. I had to take it from the Garibaldi, which has an abysmal resolution.

What to Expect:
Well, this is a one-climb MTF, so just expect the favourites to attack within 5 km to go. If we are lucky, that is.

Prato Nevoso

 

[Alexandre B.]

UAE magic on display.

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Either Froome or Yates will win this bike race.

 

[Matteo.]

this is for sky train

 

[More Strides than Rides]

I feel safe predicting that this will be another unpredictable stage.

 

[hfer07]

Re: Giro 2018 stage18: Abbiategrasso – Prato Nevoso 196 km

I can only foresee 3 possible winners:

The Magic Kenyan
Marvel SimonY
CancellARU

I'd add Superman Lopez, but the 3 above seem to be flying, so is hard to place him among them in an equal fashion so....

 

[DNP-Old]

If aids were a stage, this would be it.

 

[Forever The Best]

Meh, another MTF, and Unipuerto...

 

[staubsauger]

Does Aru plan to only do a Sella or is he gonna go full Ugrumov?

 

[Red Rick]

If there's any mountain stage going to a breakaway, it's this one.

 

[Valv.Piti]

A fine stage to introduce the peloton the Alps again, altho I obviously would have preferred a bit harder climb.. with the next two very hard days, I wouldn't expect much to happen here anyways.

Yates ftw.

 

[luckyboy]

Snore. Would rather have an actual hilly stage instead of another ______/
We only had three and they were all muro finishes

 

[jaylew]

Whichever of Carapaz or Lopez is the stronger ftw, my guess would be Lopez. They aren't much of a podium threat so will be allowed some leeway but will be trying to gain time on each other.

 

[Laplaz]

This will be for the breakaway. Otherwise Froome to grab up some time bonus.

 

[carton]

Breakaway. Froome has his Zoncolan win, Yates is in pink, everyone else seems to be to afraid of Yates to bring back the break.

The steep pitches come too early in the climb for a proper skirmish, and it would take gigantic stones for a GC guy to blow things up tommorow with friday and saturday as they are.

 

[DanielSong39]

Simon Yates stares at his power meter all day long then jumps with 2km to go to gain a few seconds on the main GC contenders.

 

[Escarabajo]

An unipuerto stage!
It would have been nice to place a couple of cat 2 climbs just to make it interesting.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

An unipuerto stage!
It would have been nice to place a couple of cat 2 climbs just to make it interesting.

That wouldn't really help, would it? Its coming down to the last 5-6 km of this climb anyways. The Zoncolan stage had lots of small, steep climbs beforehand and was actually quite a hard stage. Unless its at the start of the stage obviously, then its changing the dynamics of the race.

 

[Pantani Attacks]

Break FTW.

Hopefully MAL flies. Hopefully Yates remembers to breathe.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Giro 2018 stage18: Abbiategrasso – Prato Nevoso 196 km

Well, these kind of stages have been quite interesting in the past and often more exciting than mtf's after tough mountain stages. However in this case I fear simply nobody will be willing to make the climb hard. Maybe Dumoulin will try to create an Oropa like scenario, maybe Froome has his Zoncolan legs back or maybe someone else will surprise me. But I think the most likely scenario is no serious attacks before the last two or three kilometers

 

[Red Rick]

Secondary contenders have more reason to fire early, so I will expect them to, unless one team is gonna fully commit to making the climb really fast.

 

[MartinGT]

Froome riding away at 2,000,000 RPM and taking the win.

 

[Pantani_lives]

This is just the prelude to what will come the next two days. Not much will happen in the GC. My guess is a breakaway with Masnana and Gesink.

 

[jsem94]

Terrible stage design.

 

[dacooley]

Re:

Terrible stage design.

Suchlike stages are needed too. 21 perfectly designed stages would've been boring.