Giro d'Italia Giro d‘Italia 2024 Stage 15, Manerba del Garda-Livigno (Mottolino), 222 km

[Tim Cahill]

Had a certain degree of sympathy for breakaway riders in the last few years but these lads and the ones on Tivo deserve everything they get.

 

[Brullnux]

Had a certain degree of sympathy for breakaway riders in the last few years but these lads and the ones on Tivo deserve everything they get.

Front six are exempt, surely

 

[Tim Cahill]

Front six are exempt, surely

Yeah probably the right thing for them to do, especially since Scaroni seems to be going for KOM points too, the middle guys however...

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Honestly, this could turn out to be the easiest 5000+ altitude metres stage ever.
I'm camping just below Passo del Foscagno, after a *** week, the weather now is literally perfect. Over 10°C at 2100m, not much wind, bit of sun, bit of clouds. They also have tailwind for the majority of the stage.

After cycling around a bit yesterday, the Foscagno really really isn't hard, despite the altitude. The 7 or 7,5% sections didn't feel like that and the upper parts has some super shallow sections that almost felt flat. I still believe Pogacar can get a gap here but only because he's so far above the others, otherwise this would be a sure thing that nothing happens before the final 3km.

 

[Netserk]

Scaroni (now at 24 points) and Pellizzari (at 14 points) can overtake/get near Geschke (at 67 points) on Mortirolo (50, 24 and 16 40, 18 and 12 points for the first 3 riders).

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Scaroni (now at 24 points) and Pellizzari (at 14 points) can overtake/get near Geschke (at 67 points) on Mortirolo (50, 24 and 16 points for the first 3 riders).

Isn‘t it 40, 18 and 12 points for the first three riders? It was 50, 24 and 16 on the MTFs, but it should be 40 on Mortirolo.

 

[Netserk]

Ah, I hadn't noticed that they differed between the two.

 

[ashhutch1997]

Surley we are due a classic Mortirolo+Aprica stage at some point. IMO the best combination in cycling.

 

[ashhutch1997]

Honestly, this could turn out to be the easiest 5000+ altitude metres stage ever.
I'm camping just below Passo del Foscagno, after a *** week, the weather now is literally perfect. Over 10°C at 2100m, not much wind, bit of sun, bit of clouds. They also have tailwind for the majority of the stage.

After cycling around a bit yesterday, the Foscagno really really isn't hard, despite the altitude. The 7 or 7,5% sections didn't feel like that and the upper parts has some super shallow sections that almost felt flat. I still believe Pogacar can get a gap here but only because he's so far above the others, otherwise this would be a sure thing that nothing happens before the final 3km.

Whats more frustrating is I saw a webcam of the top of the Gavia and it's clear... Just imagine if the Gavia was in this stage.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Looks like Polti is closing down the gap to the front group who are dying on this long false flat a bit.

 

[Scarponi]

Those Astana riders in the front group are going hard in the valley up towards the Mortirolo, let‘s hope Contador can keep them close.

He wouldn’t attack them would he?

 

[Tim Cahill]

Fiorelli dusting Groves in the sprint is the kind of pettiness I'm here for

 

[Elos Anjos]

Nairo Quintana should not be allowed in any future breakaways.

Why is that? I'm not seeing the stage yet...I would say likely because he's hard to work with?

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Wow that was really worth it, one point for 100 k of effort.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Here's what you could've won

 

[Tim Cahill]

Why is that? I'm not seeing the stage yet...I would say likely because he's hard to work with?

Yes, giving it the 'you gonna pull or what' lookaround when it's his turn, hilarious but the break must be fed up

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The points on Giro mountains are now insane.

They used to be the stingiest mountains categories in the world, I mean Matty Lloyd and Fabian Wegmann both won the GPM with 56 points back in the day.

Admittedly neither were elite climbers or anything and won from BOTD exploits, but still, the scale has gone from almost no points available to crazy high values.

Used to be:

cat.3: 3 2 1
cat.2: 5 3 1
cat.1: 10 6 4 2 (later 10 6 4 2 1)
an MTF: 15 10 6 4 2
Cima Coppi: 20 15 10 6 4 2

This did tend to mean a bunch of uncategorised uphill finishes, or overvalued puncheur finishes, but it's still so wild to now see 40 or 50 points for a single summit after the re-scaling of the classification and seeing people like Koen Bouwman win the classification with 294 points, when back on the old system it was super hard to even break 100 - this only happened 3 times between the system being introduced in 1983 and the recalculation (Fredy González with 100 exactly in 2003, José Rujano with 143 in 2005 and Emanuele Sella with 136 in 2008).

The new system has been in place a decade now and it still seems weird to me

 

[Red Rick]

Interview with Arensman

"How will you play your cards"

"That's the neat part. We wont"

 

[Peyroteo94]

Now it seems UAE is cooked.

 

[Red Rick]

Its actually good for the break Foscagno is such a mid climb cause it means UAE wont be able to close 4 minutes easily on there

 

[QueenStagiaire]

I love the interviewer randomly bringing up the Mortirolo and saying that Arensman was second on the last stage with the Mortirolo, but „of course from a different side“, when it‘s literally the exact same f*cking boring side.

 

[Elos Anjos]

Why is everyone writing with meme templates now?

 

[search]

Now it seems UAE is cooked.

Novak on high altitude is a different beast. They can still make up a lot later on, I think

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Luckily the organisers have not categorised the lower part of the Mortirolo, so UAE keeps riding with Molano because they‘ve been fooled.

 

[Brullnux]

Blythe with a very good awkward moment with Rowe bringing up Aresman's dad. One of his best moments