Giro d'Italia Giro d'Italia 2025 stage 20: Verrès – Sestrière, 205 km

[Cycling111]

Considering Carapaz couldn't drop Del Toro yesterday, it's unlikely he'll find another gear today. So if Del Toro drops it will be because he doesn't have the legs more than another's strength. The sterrato of Colle della Finestra is bruttal, so if anyone is off form he could lose big time.

Not only that, Carapaz wasn't that superior on Tuesday either. Del Toro failed.
Carapaz gained only 15 seconds on Gee and a few more on Simon. Pellizzarri finished before Carapaz.

Del Toro finished behind Caruso or Bernal, who aren't in the physical shape to win the Giro.

It was more a poor performance from Del Toro than a superiority from Carapaz.
So today it seems that Carapaz's pink victory depends on Del Toro having another bad climb.
An explosion doesn't happen at Prudhomme's pace; yesterday Majka was at a slower pace than the Prudhomme. That happens by attacking far from the summit of Finestre.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Have to highlight that they did Stelvio from Prato in 2005 and very little happened.

The terrain after Stelvio was more difficult than after Finestre. BTW Basso lost 40 minutes and it was huge as he was the race #1 favourite..

 

[Red Rick]

The terrain after Stelvio was more difficult than after Finestre. BTW Basso lost 40 minutes and it was huge as he was the race #1 favourite.

I know. But you don't drop 40 minutes just because a climb is hard. If you drop 40 minutes on Stelvio you'd have a WTF blow up on remotely difficult stage.

Like Simon Yates dropped 45 minutes on Finestre, but he also dropped half an hour the next day. And Thibaut Pinot seemd to have secured his Giro podium on Finestre and then he DNF'd the next day.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

I know. But you don't drop 40 minutes just because a climb is hard. If you drop 40 minutes on Stelvio you'd have a WTF blow up on remotely difficult stage.

Like Simon Yates dropped 45 minutes on Finestre, but he also dropped half an hour the next day. And Thibaut Pinot seemd to have secured his Giro podium on Finestre and then he DNF'd the next day.

Sure, he had an illness. But the stage was quite difficult after Stelvio, nobody had guts to attack so early.

 

[Froome]

Froome should be the inspiration for those who want to win the Giro today.

 

[Red Rick]

Froome should be the inspiration

Explains why I won't win the Giro today then

 

[houtdffan]

Coeficiente APM is an objective, albeit flawed, metric, that has Zoncolan at 556, Finestre at 487 and Mortirolo at 486.

However, it must be stressed that length and gradient are the primary drivers of those ratings and they use a logarithmic scale that means that steeper climbs are greatly favoured by the calculation. Also the Coeficiente has no means to factor in altitude or road surface.

Here is how the rating is calculated (in Spanish)

Climbfinder's difficulty points - I'm not sure how they are calculated but the scores seem to fit rather neatly in comparison at least for these three climbs so probably have more factors involved than APM's - award 1764 to Zoncolan, Mortirolo gets 1577 from Mazzo or 1632 from Mazzo via a slightly different route, and 2053 to Finestre.

I would think it is the gravel that makes the hardest GT climb. You basically do an HC climb then have to immediately do a cat 1 on gravel

 

[QueenStagiaire]

The tough thing about Finestre is how you can never rest or really draft someone and that the climb still gets tougher in the end with the altitude. It‘s definitely not the hardest to climb, but it‘s the hardest and most selective to race because of that.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

WvA to win by 5 mins - Kiryienka-style.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Simon Yates redemption day.

 

[Red Rick]

The tough thing about Finestre is how you can never rest or really draft someone and that the climb still gets tougher in the end with the altitude. It‘s definitely not the hardest to climb, but it‘s the hardest and most selective to race because of that.

In an MTT it would 100% have the biggest difference of any big climb.

The one only thing that limits Finestre is that there's no very steep sections earlier in the climb that cause people to go too hard too early and blow up, or get dropped earlier on the climb. With perfect pacing, even by domestiques, it tends to look like an attrition fest where riders are gradually dropped off the back rather than a race that explodes from the front with 10km to go.

Mortirolo has it perfect with the steepest section being around 1/3rd of the way in.

Zoncolan is so steep and kind of on the short side so it tends to be more of a 40 minute MTT pretending to be a road stage, and people tend to judge their effort on a 40 minute climb pretty well

Angliru has it the worst because it's a 27 minute steep climb with a 15 minute run in where everyone waits, and Cuenas Les Cabres is annoyingly close to the top.

 

[Peyroteo94]

Is there a more regular climb than the finestre?

A MTT in Finestre would be a perfect FTP test.

 

[movingtarget]

Match race. Del Toro v Carapaz. Be surprised if Del Toro collapsed now and his team was very good yesterday. Yates seems to be out of it. He looked better a few days ago. Hope Storer can hang on for a top 10 overall. Caruso still doing surprisingly well in 5th spot, only 3.5 minutes behind the leader.

 

[Poursuivant]

Let's hope we'll all be as happy as Fondriest when telling the tale of tomorrow's stage

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3av2frEN00g&t=68s

His English is flawless

 

[Lequack]

The fight is now officially on. No one knows who the man behind the mask is, tonight he might reveal himself.

 

[yaco]

Davitamon Lotto riders Mauricio Ardila and Wim Van Huffel, if i recall correctly, paced him up Finestre and saved his Giro.

Van Huffel ended up making the Top10 himself (or almost did it) and his son is currently racing in Picnic Post-NL feeder team.

And did money change hands?

 

[yaco]

I was watching this stage the other day, honestly I don't think Savodelli did a single turn up Sestriere.

Why do you think the two climbers from Davitamon Lotto paced Savoldelli up the Sestriere.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

We know that Carapaz isn't unlikely to blow up, and I guess it shouldn't really come as a huge surprise either if Del Toro drops a Torres watts bomb on Finestre, although unlike Torres he only has to follow wheels to secure victory.

 

[pastronef]

peloton in Pont St Martin. I did a race there 30 years ago, I was 15

 

[yaco]

This is an uninspiring break. I suspect the peelton will keep them on a tight rein until the first climb of the day.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Pedersen is not giving De Bondt the Traguardo Volante without a fight.

 

[Cycling111]

It doesn't look like EF will be part of the break.
That means they're going to pull Finestre as hard as they can from the start and hope that Carapaz will be the strongest and doesn't need his teammates if he collapses.

Carapaz has to be brave, even if it means losing second place. But I think Carapaz is a rider who has to risk everything to win.

 

[Lequack]

Pedersen is such a cool guy

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkX3Lu28uDo

 

[topcat]

Isaac del Toro is just a young fella who wandered into Team UAE. Now admittedly, he did use the team a lot yesterday but that was because he's too polite to object to team orders. This is his day and everybody loves him.
Can Carapaz break the cartels?

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Mosca continues the Lidl-De Bondt feud