Giro d'Italia 2017 STAGE 21: Monza – Milano 29.3 km ITT

[luckyboy]

Re: Re:

Too many time trial kilometres in this race considering there are so few all-round GC riders that exist any more. Every guy can make a race in the mountains but then the most boring aspect of cycling makes the decisive difference.

Dumoulin will easily win.

Luckily you didnt watch cycling in the 70s-80s-90s if you think 70 km is too much.

You can't compare rider types of the 70s and now. And yes the Indurain Tours are my worst nightmare[/quote]Like someone else already said, 70 km total is not very much.

You sound a little butthurt. Dumoulin is not ''the best'' climber and should improve a lot to ever come close to the podium in the Tour. Though, he was one of the best climbers in this Giro and is a good TT specialist which has been a part of GT's since day one.

Please stop and enjoy.[/quote]

'butthurt' lol.. I just want to see something more exciting than what we have seen

 

[mavmav]

70 km of ITT is less than what would be considered enough ITT. I wouldn't say, as many state, that 100 km is the magic number, but seriously, 70 km, if nothing else, is not enough. My $0.02.

Even considering what kind of rider most GC riders are nowadays? There are so few GC riders who are all-rounders now that making a 100km TT Grand Tour is handing the race to a Froome, Dumoulin, Porte.. The rest are climbers who can do a 'quite good' time trial.

GTs should be designed to give maximum excitement, and if that means designing for the majority of GC riders to fight on, then so be it.

Froome is the favourite on any parcours. Porte can be great or can lose half an hour on any parcours. Dumoulin certainly didn't walk away with an easy win here.

I broadly approve of the ASO trying to favour challengers to the currently dominant rider by slanting the Tour parcours in their direction. In recent times that has meant almost abolishing the TT so as to give pure climbers a shot against Froome. Maybe soon they will be adding 120 kms to allow Dumoulin rather than Quintana to have a crack at the champ.

This is what I'm saying. TTs make such big time gaps, and there are so few really good GC contender time trialists, so design something that will bring the most contenders together - it's only in the interest of the organisers to do that.

We have 6 guys within 90 seconds...

 

[lenric]

4 or 5 posts later, you're still missing the point.

What was your point? You just listed TT lengths with no context.

The last two years show me where there was a Froome or Dumoulin competing. Nobody was an incredibly time trialist so you can have 100km or 5km and it would still be an exciting fight.

I didn't believe it needed contextualization.
Despite having a former TT specialist (now converted into an all rounder), this year's Giro will likely have the smallest time gap between the first three riders. That tells me it was a fairly competitive Giro.

In 2013 between Nibali and Evans there was a time gap of almost 6 minutes.
In 2014 between Quintana and Aru there was a time gap of 4 minutes (being Uran, the second placed rider, a guy who was way better time trialist than the others).

Both years had relatively the same amount of ITT kms has this year's.

So the problem isn't related with ITT kms.

 

[Red Rick]

Mortirolo couldn't have been the hard side unless you want to do the thingy they did in 2012, which didn't even make sense. Gavia hard side instead would've been better, but it doesn't seem like it had a major effect on the race. Only difference would probably Dumoulin taking dump earlier due to race being longer.

Stelvio from Prato is about time, and the 100th Giro would've been a great occasion for it. For some reason the Giro rarely spends time in the valley of Prato and so often all to do in the Bormio and Edolo valleys.

Grappa hard side would've been different no doubt. Katusha really tried hard today and in the end any action on the Grappa was neutralized. I'd be interested to know the reasons for it, but Grappa hard side + Foza to Asiago today could be a gem for the future. Today I'm not complaining with the Dumoulin result

Blockhaus was completely fine to go as high as they did this early. I don't think you want to risk locking your GC too early. Had they gone all the way up, anyone but Dumoulin, Pinot and Quintana might have been out of contention. Would've prefered a harder stage before the Blockhaus though, a few too many uniclimb stages for me.

Biggest letdown in design of major stages were the Dolomites for me. 5 climbs in 137 km are always gonna be hard, but they used climbs where making a selection is just too big a risk. Many stages are gonna have a chokepoint where everyone's waiting for and that's fine, but if you just put that reasonably early in your dolomite stage and don't have lightyears of descent before a backloaded final climb I'm sure you create more action. Last years Corvara stage was better in that regard. Action on the last climb still meant 30km of action, and the Giau was still relevant.

Another huge issue for me this year was a complete lack of good medium mountain stages. There were only 2 that were raced the tiniest bit. The stage Fraille won just had climbs that weren't steep enough, so creating a selection is always gonna be hard, and the Bergamo stage only saw main group action because the break never got away. That needs to be better. Especially in Italy. Some opportunistic stages.

 

[Tonton]

Two great posts back to back .

 

[luckyboy]

Honestly having barely any hilly/puncheur stages, like Red Rick noted, has been a bigger disappointment than the GC race.

 

[Valv.Piti]

My point being there were so many climbs not tackled from the most challenging side and thats disappointing in itself. Even calling that climb Mortirolo is not doing justice to the traditional side, its like climbing Fedaia from Canazei instead of Caprile and say 'but, but.. we climbed Fedaia', there is a world of difference. Granted, it wouldn't have changed that stage much, but at least use the side from 2012 or even better, use Gavia which would also be from its proper side.

Yes, Blockhaus was very good. I'd even go as far as say it will be a better climb finishing where they did contrary to going all the way to the top, maybe. It depends I guess, but it was obviously still an extremely demanding climb - I hope they go here more often as many of the MTFs south of Po have been underwhelming. But for the rest, RCS doesn't get many plusses in the book. Hope they will do a better job of maximising the opportunities to get a great bike racing going which is all you can do as an organiser.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re: Re:

Its really disappointing.

Mortirolo!
.. Damn, from the easy side.

.

I'm wondering, isn't there a piece of road that more directly (with much steeper gradients) connects Monno to Mortirolo, than the route they took this year? Or is it more like a pathway, that is unsuitable for a cycling race? (Sorry for going off-topic).

 

[Tonton]

Re:

My point being there were so many climbs not tackled from the most challenging side and thats disappointing in itself. Even calling that climb Mortirolo is not doing justice to the traditional side, its like climbing Fedaia from Canazei instead of Caprile and say 'but, but.. we climbed Fedaia', there is a world of difference. Granted, it wouldn't have changed that stage much, but at least use the side from 2012 or even better, use Gavia which would also be from its proper side.

Yes, Blockhaus was very good. I'd even go as far as say it will be a better climb finishing where they did contrary to going all the way to the top, maybe. It depends I guess, but it was obviously still an extremely demanding climb - I hope they go here more often as many of the MTFs south of Po have been underwhelming. But for the rest, RCS doesn't get many plusses in the book. Hope they will do a better job of maximising the opportunities to get a great bike racing going which is all you can do as an organiser.

These are great points, particularly the one about Il Mortirolo. For the 100th edition of Il Giro, one would have reasonably expected a true Mortirolo.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Considering the fact that Mortirolo from Mazzo no doubt (in my mind at least...) is the absolute best climb in all of cycling, especially coupled with an Aprica-finish, its disappointing...

But enough ranting, the climbers had plenty of opportunities. Dumo was too good.

 

[Red Rick]

I've just looked at google maps, and the one thing that baffles me is how close everything is. They barely use the very eastern edge of the Italian Alps, and the whole area between Aosta and the Sondrio valley seems seems incredibly underused. They rarely do any stages near the great lakes, though there should be plenty of climbs to be found. That's not even to mention everything to the south west of Cuneo, where's there's plenty of mountain's but never stages.

 

[Tonton]

Re: Re:

After a rest day, the whole team under-performed: Ludvigsson 94th, yikes.

According to his brother on twitter he was not allowed to go full gas. Probably the same with Rechienbach. That TT was a very good fit for Tobias and I think he could have done something really good there if he would have been allowed to have a go.

BS. But what is he going to say: oooops, we (and me the performance scientist) screwed up?

What did he say after stage 16, when FDJ finished 11th and Reichenbach lost 6 minutes and the next FDJ is half an hour behind?

I take what Julien said with a huge grain of salt.

 

[Red Rick]

I think the Mortirolo+Aprica is a bit overrated because there's plenty of other combinations that could be used in that way but they rarely are. Plenty of harder climbs too.

 

[Kafviar]

Re: Re:

After a rest day, the whole team under-performed: Ludvigsson 94th, yikes.

According to his brother on twitter he was not allowed to go full gas. Probably the same with Rechienbach. That TT was a very good fit for Tobias and I think he could have done something really good there if he would have been allowed to have a go.

BS. But what is he going to say: oooops, we (and me the performance scientist) screwed up?

The tweet from Fredrik came before the start of the stage.

 

[Tonton]

Re:

I've just looked at google maps, and the one thing that baffles me is how close everything is. They barely use the very eastern edge of the Italian Alps, and the whole area between Aosta and the Sondrio valley seems seems incredibly underused. They rarely do any stages near the great lakes, though there should be plenty of climbs to be found. That's not even to mention everything to the south west of Cuneo, where's there's plenty of mountain's but never stages.

The design could have been so much better indeed, even by duplicating mythic stages, like the one to Aosta '49 won by Coppi or, if we talk about Mortirolo, the stage won big by Pantani in '94. Thankfully, the riders make the race, and here we are tonight.

Tomorrow is going to be a great day.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Imagine a Giro with 5-6 proper mountain stages, starting down south with Blockhaus, going north-west with a classic Finestre-Sestriere combo, next day Sampeyre and Fauniera, then east and throw Mortirolo-Aprica in their head (pick one of the 06, 10 or 15 stages, they are all brilliant), stroll down to the dolomites and punish the peloton with Fedaia-Sella combo, Giau-Tre Croci-Tre Cime, Duran-Staulanza-Giau or whatever and if you are mean, completely unrealistic and your name is Angelo Zomegnan, give them the killing blow with Crostis-Zoncolan. Or just Crostis, I wanna see that climb.

 

[Red Rick]

What I do like is when they keep varying routes decently enough. Otherwise everyone knows what tactic is best at each point in the race. Many situations are 'solved' tactically, and you want to reduce that as much as possible.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

I think the Mortirolo+Aprica is a bit overrated because there's plenty of other combinations that could be used in that way but they rarely are. Plenty of harder climbs too.

Plenty of harder climbs than 12,1 km @ 10,8%?

This climb just always delivers. Always..

 

[Tonton]

Brilliant!

I'm getting carried away here: Scanuppia ITT...

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

Its really disappointing.

Mortirolo!
.. Damn, from the easy side.

.

I'm wondering, isn't there a piece of road that more directly (with much steeper gradients) connects Monno to Mortirolo, than the route they took this year? Or is it more like a pathway, that is unsuitable for a cycling race? (Sorry for going off-topic).

Yes, there is a road that cuts off some of the switchbacks, it was paved back in 2014 and named Recta Contador
https://www.strava.com/routes/1001573?hl=es-419
http://www.marca.com/2014/09/21/ciclismo/1411334253.html

 

[Tonton]

Yikes!!!

 

[Valv.Piti]

Brilliant!

I'm getting carried away here: Scanuppia ITT...

Unrealistic, lets do Punta Veleno instead.

Seriously tho they could also do an amazing mountain stage with Passo San Marco, thats also a climb I always hope they use.

 

[DanielSong39]

The reason Dumoulin won isn't because of too many ITT km; it's because Quintana performed well below his best in the mountains and in the ITTs.

Quintana was still better than he was in the 2015 Vuelta but not any better than he was in the 2016 Tour.

Even with the 2016 Vuelta form he enters the final TT with a 3+ minute lead and Dumoulin would be further back.

 

[Robert5091]

Called Tom D winner after Oropa, stage 14. Should have had some money on it!

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

I think the Mortirolo+Aprica is a bit overrated because there's plenty of other combinations that could be used in that way but they rarely are. Plenty of harder climbs too.

Plenty of harder climbs than 12,1 km @ 10,8%?

This climb just always delivers. Always..

Few passes that are used on a somewhat frequent basis yes. But I've spent too much time getting lost on the web to know there's nastier climbs. Of climbs that are actually raced, the Finestre is at least as hard, and the only difference in the last 2 occasions of both combo's has been the situation going in and the stage before. Both climbs have more options than just Aprica and Sestriere too. For Mortirolo I think a finish in Ponte di Legno or on top of the Tonale is too much of a stretch.