- Mar 29, 2016
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- Mar 24, 2011
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Re: Giro d'Italia 2019 rumors
Today Viberti published his usual route prediction on La Stampa. It is basically what we already knew. Only main points are that Como is confirmed, and that he claims stage 14 will start in St.Vincent and stage 15 in Ivrea (so, swapped wrt what I wrote). I find it odd, but it could be.
In any case, start and finish of all stages seem pretty much a given. Now we gotta understand the single routes.
1. Bologna - S.Luca (8.2 km ITT)
2. Bologna - Fucecchio
3. Vinci - Orbetello
4. Orbetello - Frascati
5. Frascati - Sabaudia
6. Cassino - S.Giovanni Rotondo
7. Vasto - L'Aquila
8. Tortoreto Lido - Pesaro
9. Riccione - S.Marino (34.7 km ITT)
rest
10 Ravenna - Modena
11 Carpi - Novi Ligure
12 Cuneo - Pinerolo
13 Pinerolo - Colle del Nivolet (Lago Serrù)
14 Ivrea (or St.Vincent) - Courmayeur
15 St. Vincent (or Ivrea) - Como
rest
16 Lovere - Ponte di Legno
17 Val di Sole - Anterselva
18 Dobbiaco - S. Maria di Sala
19 Treviso - S. Martino di Castrozza
20 Feltre - Passo Croce d'Aune (or Monte Avena)
21 Verona - Verona (15 km ITT)
Today Viberti published his usual route prediction on La Stampa. It is basically what we already knew. Only main points are that Como is confirmed, and that he claims stage 14 will start in St.Vincent and stage 15 in Ivrea (so, swapped wrt what I wrote). I find it odd, but it could be.
In any case, start and finish of all stages seem pretty much a given. Now we gotta understand the single routes.
1. Bologna - S.Luca (8.2 km ITT)
2. Bologna - Fucecchio
3. Vinci - Orbetello
4. Orbetello - Frascati
5. Frascati - Sabaudia
6. Cassino - S.Giovanni Rotondo
7. Vasto - L'Aquila
8. Tortoreto Lido - Pesaro
9. Riccione - S.Marino (34.7 km ITT)
rest
10 Ravenna - Modena
11 Carpi - Novi Ligure
12 Cuneo - Pinerolo
13 Pinerolo - Colle del Nivolet (Lago Serrù)
14 Ivrea (or St.Vincent) - Courmayeur
15 St. Vincent (or Ivrea) - Como
rest
16 Lovere - Ponte di Legno
17 Val di Sole - Anterselva
18 Dobbiaco - S. Maria di Sala
19 Treviso - S. Martino di Castrozza
20 Feltre - Passo Croce d'Aune (or Monte Avena)
21 Verona - Verona (15 km ITT)
- Mar 24, 2011
- 10,527
- 1,927
- 25,680
New local article seems to confirm the stage to Courmayeur will start in St. Vincent. The article claims the stage will be very short (a little over 100 km) and feature "multiple climbs" with the S.Carlo at the end. Also, the stage is gonna finish at the Skyway (so, at the end of the false flat), and not in Planpincieux (which is 4 km above).
It seems clear that if this stage is that short, it is not gonna be anywhere near the 5500m mark. Perhaps they are really going for it in Cuneo - Pinerolo...?
1. Bologna - S.Luca (8.2 km ITT)
2. Bologna - Fucecchio
3. Vinci - Orbetello
4. Orbetello - Frascati
5. Frascati - Sabaudia
6. Cassino - S.Giovanni Rotondo
7. Vasto - L'Aquila
8. Tortoreto Lido - Pesaro
9. Riccione - S.Marino (34.7 km ITT)
rest
10 Ravenna - Modena
11 Carpi - Novi Ligure
12 Cuneo - Pinerolo
13 Pinerolo - Colle del Nivolet (Lago Serrù)
14 St.Vincent (or Ivrea) - Courmayeur (Skyway)
15 Ivrea (or St.Vincent) - Como
rest
16 Lovere - Ponte di Legno
17 Val di Sole - Anterselva
18 Dobbiaco - S. Maria di Sala
19 Treviso - S. Martino di Castrozza
20 Feltre - Passo Croce d'Aune (or Monte Avena)
21 Verona - Verona (15 km ITT)
Here is a possible version of stage 14:
It seems clear that if this stage is that short, it is not gonna be anywhere near the 5500m mark. Perhaps they are really going for it in Cuneo - Pinerolo...?
1. Bologna - S.Luca (8.2 km ITT)
2. Bologna - Fucecchio
3. Vinci - Orbetello
4. Orbetello - Frascati
5. Frascati - Sabaudia
6. Cassino - S.Giovanni Rotondo
7. Vasto - L'Aquila
8. Tortoreto Lido - Pesaro
9. Riccione - S.Marino (34.7 km ITT)
rest
10 Ravenna - Modena
11 Carpi - Novi Ligure
12 Cuneo - Pinerolo
13 Pinerolo - Colle del Nivolet (Lago Serrù)
14 St.Vincent (or Ivrea) - Courmayeur (Skyway)
15 Ivrea (or St.Vincent) - Como
rest
16 Lovere - Ponte di Legno
17 Val di Sole - Anterselva
18 Dobbiaco - S. Maria di Sala
19 Treviso - S. Martino di Castrozza
20 Feltre - Passo Croce d'Aune (or Monte Avena)
21 Verona - Verona (15 km ITT)
Here is a possible version of stage 14:
- Jun 7, 2010
- 19,196
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Wow, the whole route actually looks pretty underwhelming. And will there really be a same concept of a stage finale within 3 days?
- Feb 20, 2010
- 33,093
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Re: Re:
That said, if stage 14 here is the short stage, it is using the short stage in the right way. When you have multiple back-to-back mountain stages, it often results in conservative racing in the first ones because riders are too scared of paying for big efforts the following day. Ways to get around this are to make the earlier stages finish on super tough climbs that would be enough to open a time gap regardless - examples include 2011 Giro with Zoncolán before Rifugio Gardeccia, 2008 Vuelta with Angliru before San Isidro/Fuentes de Invierno, and so on. Examples of getting this wrong include the 2009 Vuelta with the Velefique and Sierra Nevada stages hampered by fear of La Pandera, and the 2015 Vuelta where three progressively tougher mountaintop finishes led to super-conservative racing on both Fuente del Chivo (long, gradual) and Jito d'Escarandí (tough at start and end, easier in the middle, Unipuerto) thanks to the toughest stage being last but the previous climbs not being tough enough to guarantee action in and of themselves. These super steep climbs may be marquee names, but when they're placed at the end of the race, they tend to make things somewhat tame earlier on in the race. Just look at the 2012 Giro with everybody afraid of the big finale with Mortirolo and Stelvio to the point where they neglected to start racing until then. The other option is to entice action on the earlier stage by making the last stage of the mountain bloc a short stage, so that riders are less afraid of the fatigue. This is clearly what the Giro's organisers are aiming at, and it has been, with only one major exception - the 2016 Giro to Andalo, which was sandwiched between a rest day and a flat stage - the only method by which these short mountain stages have reaped the positive reputation they've now got. Val Martello was a freak due to the weather, the sub-140km length made no difference to that stage, just as we shouldn't hold 200km+ Unipuertos like Montecampione 2014 against the long stages, as they're no different to stages like Oropa above - when the stage is completely Unipuerto like that, realistically the length is of little relevance since the stage until that climb will be soft-pedalled anyway.
Now, making the Valdôtain stage the short one in the midst of this three-stage mountain bloc is, however, absolutely the right use of Short Stage Theory. I am against the proliferation of Short Stage Theory as an alternative to good course design, which seems to be how certain organisers (a certain French family-run organisation springs immediately to mind...) use it, and I also dislike how many fans have seen a few well-orchestrated uses of the short stage as evidence that it is automatically a Good Thing and that longer stages should be consigned to the past for yielding boredom for long periods of hyper-controlled racing (after all, what would that 2010 Giro have been without the 260km transitional stage to L'Aquila?), when stages like the ones mentioned above, along with Bormio 2017, Monte Petrano 2009, Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne 2010 and Peyragudes 2013 all show us that the long mountain stage still has plenty to offer. However, its the overuse of this trope that bothers me most and if Saint-Vincent - Courmayeur is the only use of Short Stage Theory in the 2019 Giro, it isn't a problem, because they've used it the right way.
Now, three back to back mountain stages on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday with a transitional stage on Sunday may not be the best pacing in the world, and it may result in some tame Cuneo-Pinerolo racing depending of course on the route they go for between the two (part of me is really expecting to see a 2009-esque stage and probably battling only on the Pra Martino because other rumours mean that Sestrières won't be the Cima Coppi which was the only real reason for any action earlier on in the 2009 stage), but seeing as the stage to Nivolet is almost inevitably going to be Unipuerto - there aren't really any comparable obstacles that can be placed before it close enough to be of any importance, so while it may not literally be a Unipuerto stage like Montecampione or Oropa as mentioned above, it will be a stage where nothing of any relevance to the GC happens before the final climb - it makes sense to try to prevent riders from being too frightened to attack until the last 2-3km because of the risk of fatigue in the following day's stage, and making the following stage short is a good way to do that. I also approve of moving the finish down into Courmayeur itself (or rather Entrèves I think, if it's at the Skyway) rather than putting a steep finale on, but this is also going to have to be contingent on the stage being good - they need to include a couple of climbs before San Carlo, otherwise it's a waste of the opportunity provided. Champremier, Pila-Les Fleurs, Saint-Barthélemy, Verrogne and, less likely and smaller, Les Combes, offer a few opportunities to produce a stage that will be short enough to not kill action on Nivolet but tough enough that it's not just 160 fresh riders hitting the base of San Carlo.
The problem is the outright assumption that a short mountain stage will automatically be good. We use a few stages like Alpe d'Huez 2011 as examples of why this trend is a positive thing, but at the same time we didn't use stages like the Galibier 2011, Rifugio Gardeccia 2011 and so on similarly as examples of why longer mountain stages are a good thing. Short mountain stages when placed poorly or designed poorly can be crappy, just like longer ones can. The criteria are no different for shorter stages than they are for long ones; examples like Oropa 2016 can show us that a short mountain stage can be pretty useless too. Back in the early 2000s the Vuelta was full of short mountain stages and most of them produced pretty poor racing. I despise the automatic assumption that the short mountain stage will produce good racing that seems to proliferate at the moment, because it ignores a few of the other factors that play into why those stages have succeeded. After all, we just saw a Tour de l'Avenir where they had THREE mountain stages where the TOTAL distance was under 200km. It's supposed to be an endurance sport.tobydawq said:
That said, if stage 14 here is the short stage, it is using the short stage in the right way. When you have multiple back-to-back mountain stages, it often results in conservative racing in the first ones because riders are too scared of paying for big efforts the following day. Ways to get around this are to make the earlier stages finish on super tough climbs that would be enough to open a time gap regardless - examples include 2011 Giro with Zoncolán before Rifugio Gardeccia, 2008 Vuelta with Angliru before San Isidro/Fuentes de Invierno, and so on. Examples of getting this wrong include the 2009 Vuelta with the Velefique and Sierra Nevada stages hampered by fear of La Pandera, and the 2015 Vuelta where three progressively tougher mountaintop finishes led to super-conservative racing on both Fuente del Chivo (long, gradual) and Jito d'Escarandí (tough at start and end, easier in the middle, Unipuerto) thanks to the toughest stage being last but the previous climbs not being tough enough to guarantee action in and of themselves. These super steep climbs may be marquee names, but when they're placed at the end of the race, they tend to make things somewhat tame earlier on in the race. Just look at the 2012 Giro with everybody afraid of the big finale with Mortirolo and Stelvio to the point where they neglected to start racing until then. The other option is to entice action on the earlier stage by making the last stage of the mountain bloc a short stage, so that riders are less afraid of the fatigue. This is clearly what the Giro's organisers are aiming at, and it has been, with only one major exception - the 2016 Giro to Andalo, which was sandwiched between a rest day and a flat stage - the only method by which these short mountain stages have reaped the positive reputation they've now got. Val Martello was a freak due to the weather, the sub-140km length made no difference to that stage, just as we shouldn't hold 200km+ Unipuertos like Montecampione 2014 against the long stages, as they're no different to stages like Oropa above - when the stage is completely Unipuerto like that, realistically the length is of little relevance since the stage until that climb will be soft-pedalled anyway.
Now, making the Valdôtain stage the short one in the midst of this three-stage mountain bloc is, however, absolutely the right use of Short Stage Theory. I am against the proliferation of Short Stage Theory as an alternative to good course design, which seems to be how certain organisers (a certain French family-run organisation springs immediately to mind...) use it, and I also dislike how many fans have seen a few well-orchestrated uses of the short stage as evidence that it is automatically a Good Thing and that longer stages should be consigned to the past for yielding boredom for long periods of hyper-controlled racing (after all, what would that 2010 Giro have been without the 260km transitional stage to L'Aquila?), when stages like the ones mentioned above, along with Bormio 2017, Monte Petrano 2009, Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne 2010 and Peyragudes 2013 all show us that the long mountain stage still has plenty to offer. However, its the overuse of this trope that bothers me most and if Saint-Vincent - Courmayeur is the only use of Short Stage Theory in the 2019 Giro, it isn't a problem, because they've used it the right way.
Now, three back to back mountain stages on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday with a transitional stage on Sunday may not be the best pacing in the world, and it may result in some tame Cuneo-Pinerolo racing depending of course on the route they go for between the two (part of me is really expecting to see a 2009-esque stage and probably battling only on the Pra Martino because other rumours mean that Sestrières won't be the Cima Coppi which was the only real reason for any action earlier on in the 2009 stage), but seeing as the stage to Nivolet is almost inevitably going to be Unipuerto - there aren't really any comparable obstacles that can be placed before it close enough to be of any importance, so while it may not literally be a Unipuerto stage like Montecampione or Oropa as mentioned above, it will be a stage where nothing of any relevance to the GC happens before the final climb - it makes sense to try to prevent riders from being too frightened to attack until the last 2-3km because of the risk of fatigue in the following day's stage, and making the following stage short is a good way to do that. I also approve of moving the finish down into Courmayeur itself (or rather Entrèves I think, if it's at the Skyway) rather than putting a steep finale on, but this is also going to have to be contingent on the stage being good - they need to include a couple of climbs before San Carlo, otherwise it's a waste of the opportunity provided. Champremier, Pila-Les Fleurs, Saint-Barthélemy, Verrogne and, less likely and smaller, Les Combes, offer a few opportunities to produce a stage that will be short enough to not kill action on Nivolet but tough enough that it's not just 160 fresh riders hitting the base of San Carlo.
- Jun 7, 2010
- 19,196
- 3,092
- 28,180
The stage to Courmayeur can safely be longer and tougher, but nope (it seems).
They can cram in a gazillion climbs on the Cuneo-Pinerolo stage, but if Finestre is not the last climb the stage will decided on Pra Martino/whatever other little climb they can find close to the finish.
As things stand, one can probably youtube the end of Nivolet and safely go on holiday for the almost the 2 first weeks.
They can cram in a gazillion climbs on the Cuneo-Pinerolo stage, but if Finestre is not the last climb the stage will decided on Pra Martino/whatever other little climb they can find close to the finish.
As things stand, one can probably youtube the end of Nivolet and safely go on holiday for the almost the 2 first weeks.
- Jun 7, 2010
- 19,196
- 3,092
- 28,180
- Feb 18, 2015
- 13,828
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Re:
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/Braida
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/Lys
-Colle della Dieta
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/SantIgnazio
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/Forcola
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/Alpette
And then as the last climb, the Nivolet
These climbs would fit together in one around 200 km long stage and you could still skip or add a few climbs. Not a single climb that really stands out as very hard but together a whole lot of climbing.
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/Cumianaroundabout said:
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/Braida
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/Lys
-Colle della Dieta
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/SantIgnazio
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/Forcola
-https://www.cyclingcols.com/col/Alpette
And then as the last climb, the Nivolet
These climbs would fit together in one around 200 km long stage and you could still skip or add a few climbs. Not a single climb that really stands out as very hard but together a whole lot of climbing.
- Jun 7, 2010
- 19,196
- 3,092
- 28,180
well, yes, theoretically you can eek out a 5K vertical meters stage with these climbs
which will still be most likely decided in the last 5km
which will still be most likely decided in the last 5km
Are there any rumours on the profile for the Anterselva stage? Could we see for example Erbe and Furcia?
Based on the rumours so far, this would (IMO) be something close to optimal:
- Cuneo - Pinerolo via Agnello, Izoard, Montgenevre, Sestriere, Pra Martino
- No Nivolet but a flat stage instead
- Ivrea - Courmayeur via at least 2 climbs + Verrogne + Saint Nicolas before San Carlo
- Something similar to the 220 km Lovere - Ponte di Legno stage posted a few pages earlier. Via Gavia and Mortirolo
- Anterselva via Erbe and Furcia (and a couple of climbs before Erbe)
- Croce di Aune/Monte Avena like the profile Eshnar posted earlier
Not much to do with the S. Martino di Castrozza stage. I miss one or two really good Apennine stages, but this would be a really good last half of the race.
- Cuneo - Pinerolo via Agnello, Izoard, Montgenevre, Sestriere, Pra Martino
- No Nivolet but a flat stage instead
- Ivrea - Courmayeur via at least 2 climbs + Verrogne + Saint Nicolas before San Carlo
- Something similar to the 220 km Lovere - Ponte di Legno stage posted a few pages earlier. Via Gavia and Mortirolo
- Anterselva via Erbe and Furcia (and a couple of climbs before Erbe)
- Croce di Aune/Monte Avena like the profile Eshnar posted earlier
Not much to do with the S. Martino di Castrozza stage. I miss one or two really good Apennine stages, but this would be a really good last half of the race.
- Jun 30, 2014
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- Mar 24, 2011
- 10,527
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new local article today claims the Ponte di Legno stage is gonna be Lovere - Edolo - Ponte di Legno - Gavia - Bormio - Mazzo - Mortirolo - Ponte di Legno.
Basically back to the original rumour. No Presolana mentioned though, which would rule out this stage gets to 5500m. So I don't know.
Basically back to the original rumour. No Presolana mentioned though, which would rule out this stage gets to 5500m. So I don't know.
- Feb 20, 2012
- 54,057
- 44,411
- 28,180
Re:
I guess it doesn't matter too much, but I'd like a mid sized climb to make the fight for the breakaway a little a little more of an uphill battle.
But it's still some 2450m of altitude gain, similar to the long drag we often see before the Colle d'Agnello
So that's the same 60km as the Bormio stage of 2017, except for starting in Lovere?Eshnar said:
I guess it doesn't matter too much, but I'd like a mid sized climb to make the fight for the breakaway a little a little more of an uphill battle.
But it's still some 2450m of altitude gain, similar to the long drag we often see before the Colle d'Agnello
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