Giro d'Italia Giro d'Italia 2025 Route: Speculation, Rumours and Announcements

[OlavEH]

I honestly think it's a decent route. Not as good as the Tour route (which I rate much higher than you guys obviously) but good enough. Nice balance, I'm happy to see 42 ITT km, it means it won't be the sole decider but doing well in them will obviously help.

The Giro route is pretty average when one knows the potential for good stage design in Italy. That is almost unlimited. But there are at least a couple of really good stages. The Finestre stage is always superior to anything you can find in the Tour. Same for the sterrato stage. And the stage to Castelnovo ne'Monti is better than most of what I can remember of medium mountain stages in the Tour. But the rest is average or bad. Especially the three much debated stages to Chapoluc, Bormio and Asiago.

 

[OlavEH]

It still hard to understand why they do the sequence of climbs they to on the Champoluc stage. Instead of doing Tzecore - Saint Panthaleon - Joux, it would be much better to change to Saint Panthaleon first and then add Arlaz before Zuccore and Joux.

It would have meant two ramps of 6-7 kms and 8,5-9 % before the last part of Joux. And no flat section between the last three climbs.

 

[Peyroteo94]

The way they are using San Pellegrino should give life sentence.

 

[CyclistAbi]

For the most part GC riders will have to stretch their legs a bit on TTs and making through sterrato and other hidden obstacles safely, making sure they don't let some "semi" favourite to gain too much time. A stomp or two in the books in the first two weeks of the race. Then it's all about week three, on where the overall winner is to be decided. As for the rest this race should attract a plethora of sprinters and classics specialists, looking forward to some proper van Aert vs van der Poel rivalry, Pidcock has a point to prove too. So lets see on who else will participate. Remco out, Pogi or Jonas might still decide to do it, though.

 

[Red Rick]

If you really think a stage with 29.5k of sterrato is just like a stage with 11.6k of sterrato, then it's definitely you...

I missed that. But I honestly think flat sterrato isn't all that.

 

[stekelegel]

I have a feeling that this rather bland and average route serves different purposes:
- provide a close and exciting race for as long as possible
- convince the top 5 GT riders to ride the Giro by presenting a rather easy route that makes it possible to do 2 GT / year. They want Pog, Vinge, Roglic and Remco. Bad luck for them the last one has allready crashed out, because compared to Vuelta, this is a Remco designed route.
- put in some extra's for Roglic, Pogacar, van Aert, to just them to start...

 

[Gigs_98]

It still hard to understand why they do the sequence of climbs they to on the Champoluc stage. Instead of doing Tzecore - Saint Panthaleon - Joux, it would be much better to change to Saint Panthaleon first and then add Arlaz before Zuccore and Joux.

It would have meant two ramps of 6-7 kms and 8,5-9 % before the last part of Joux. And no flat section between the last three climbs.

I remember last year I did something like going through the "main climb" on all of the mountain stages just looking at the average gradient and it was ridiculous. Basically Grappa at like 8% and every other one was below 7%.
Now if we say this years "mountain stages" are stages 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20 and the Main climbs are Tagliacozzo, Bismantova, Dori, San Valentino, Mortirolo, Joux and Finestre we note two things:
1.) Damn those are some weak ass mountain stages
2.) The average gradients of these climbs are:
5.4%, 5.2%, 5.5%, 6.4%, 7.6%, 6.9% and 9.2%

Now obviously this is way too simplistic to get a full picture and especially for San Valentino that number does not do the climb justice but still. It's 2025 man. How do you make a gt where the most important climb of the first two weeks is a 5% slog. Hell, I don't even know which of these climbs is the most important one. In reality some ramp on the hilly stages will probably cause bigger differences than any of those "mountain stages". Maybe I'm underrating stage 7 a bit but honestly that could be the most incredible stage design in existence and I'd still be annoyed by the rest.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I missed that. But I honestly think flat sterrato isn't all that.

'Flat sterrato'

Have you, you know, actually watched Strade Bianche before? Because then you would know that the final three sectors are a) anything but flat and b) have proven themselves to be really selective.

 

[ashhutch1997]

It still hard to understand why they do the sequence of climbs they to on the Champoluc stage. Instead of doing Tzecore - Saint Panthaleon - Joux, it would be much better to change to Saint Panthaleon first and then add Arlaz before Zuccore and Joux.

It would have meant two ramps of 6-7 kms and 8,5-9 % before the last part of Joux. And no flat section between the last three climbs.

I'm pretty that chain has been used in Valle d'Aosta?

 

[Mayomaniac]

I'm pretty that chain has been used in Valle d'Aosta?

Yes, in the last edition.

 

[Peyroteo94]

Yes, in the last edition.

Wow, marvelous

 

[ashhutch1997]

'Flat sterrato'

Have you, you know, actually watched Strade Bianche before? Because then you would know that the final three sectors are a) anything but flat and b) have proven themselves to be really selective.

They aren't using La Tolfe though, which has seen many race winning moves in Strade. This is what makes this route frustrating, a few small changes here and there would make solid route.

 

[CyclistAbi]

So will Rogla attack on Mortirolo. We'll see.

 

[OlavEH]

I'm pretty that chain has been used in Valle d'Aosta?

Yes, in the last edition.

And that makes much more sense than the sequence being used in the Giro this year. That includes that extra loop and climb to Antagnod. That is just as useless as the Motte climb to Bormio. That Antagnod loop would have made more sense if Joux had a 9-10 % average gradient, not now.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Wow, marvelous

Yeah, the Giro della Valle d'Aosta often has mountain stages that put most GTs to shame.
This stage was one day earlier:

Or that 2021 stage with an absurdly steep climb:

 

[Peyroteo94]

Yeah, the Giro della Valle d'Aosta often has mountain stages that put most GTs to shame.
This stage was one day earlier:

Or that 2021 stage with an absurdly steep climb:

Good stages. However I don't like how short they are. It is a shame we don't have 220 km mountain stages again.

 

[OlavEH]

Or that 2021 stage with an absurdly steep climb:

Where exactly is this climb?

 

[OlavEH]

Good stages. However I don't like how short they are. It is a shame we don't have 220 km mountain stages again.

Is this mostly from a U23 race? And that is why they are relatively short.

 

[ashhutch1997]

Is this mostly from a U23 race? And that is why they are relatively short.

These days you'd think the Giro stages for this year are for an U23 race

 

[Netserk]

There you have it:

GC Gee-ro, THE HYPE IS REAL!!!

 

[pastronef]

as usual I'll have an idea (no I won't) of the Giro stages the day before they are raced. I looked at the stage profiles, I have no idea if that's good or bad. I need a fuga bidone O'Connor's style with, say, Poole/DelToro/a Jayco in it

 

[Libertine Seguros]

More of Valle d'Aosta showing how it's done:

And a personal favourite from back in 2011:

 

[Mayomaniac]

Good stages. However I don't like how short they are. It is a shame we don't have 220 km mountain stages again.

They were for an u23 stage race with pretty much nothing but mountain stages, so there is a reason why they were so short.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Where exactly is this climb?

It's a smaller paralell road for the first 2/3s of Pila les Fleurs from the eastern side.

the start of it on Google maps

 

[Mayomaniac]

IMO the main problem are the 2 big turds on the weekend before the final rest day.
The Grappa stage needs hard side of the climb (Bocca di Forca ftw!) and less flat/the side of the final climb that they used in 2017.
With the Gorizia/Novi Gorica stage you could actually do something nice, like what the did in the Tour of Slovenia a few years ago:

Stage 16 could actually work out well because stage 17 is so lame that people won't be scared to attack on the harder penultimate climb.

Stage 19 could indeed have a much better sequence of climbs before the final one, but with Champoluc paying for a stage finish the day before the Finestre stage it's not like we could expect a ton of action anyway... Now of course something like a Pila MTF or even Alpe di Mera once again would work much better 1 day before Finestre.

The first half of the race isn't bad, the 2nd TT could be around 10-15km longer. Maybe another uphill finish, but Matera will be an uphill sprint, the sterrato stage is closer to the 2021 one than what we got last time + the uphill finish in Siena. The hilly stage 1 day earlier is also not bad, you'll never see crazy long range attacks one day before the Strade Bianche stage. The San Pellegrino in Alpe stage as a potential ambush stage if someone has a bad day right after the ITT also works well.

It's really stage 14 and 15 that shat the bed, you can work with the rest.