Giro d'Italia Giro d'Italia 2025: Stage-by-stage analysis

Page 3 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Mayomaniac

Mayomaniac

BANNED
Apr 10, 2019
11,983
15,853
23,180
Netserk said:
Best I can do about the penultimate weekend, somewhat taking the (self-imposed) constraints of RCS into account:

Stage 14: Treviso > Asiago
Stage 15: Fiume Veneto > Nova Gorica

The highest-impact minimalist changes I'd make though are double Sestriere and a longer second ITT (10-15 km extra would help a lot).
Click to expand...
Bocca di Forca-Grappa before Asiago on stage 15 and on stage 14 you could do something that already worked well in the Tour of Slovenia in 2021 (at least the final part of the stage):
tour-of-slovenia-2021-stage-4-profile-0e0eb342fb.jpg
 
EddyMazzoleni

EddyMazzoleni

Apr 26, 2023
467
719
4,480
Netserk said:
I think a finish in Nova Gorica and a circuit with Goriza are mandatory. So I think just adding Ravnica to the current circuit is the best you can do if you keep the stage order.
Click to expand...
Something along the line of the 2022 Torino stage would have been great on stage 15. I think RCS wants to take the Giro closer to the public and thus favours city circuit, which is reasonable but should not come at the cost of good racing
 
Extinction

Extinction

Jan 8, 2020
5,258
6,038
18,180
EddyMazzoleni said:
Something along the line of the 2022 Torino stage would have been great on stage 15. I think RCS wants to take the Giro closer to the public and thus favours city circuit, which is reasonable but should not come at the cost of good racing
Click to expand...
But RCS could have chosen better nation for the Grande Partenza, as in one that actually likes cycling. Witness the team presentation.
 
Gigs_98

Gigs_98

Feb 18, 2015
13,813
9,792
28,180
Red Rick said:
It really does the "don't do too many MTF in the 3rd week" without doing the thing you're supposed to do instead of the MTFs.

I think Tagliacozzo is also just disappointing for what it needs to do, the 400m flat at the very end piss me off disproportionately, etc.

But with the first 2 weeks you cannot change that much to make it better or put MTFs in if you wanna finish in the samep laces. Realistically you can do a 10 minute murito finish in Nova Gorica and put a Cat 1 at 15km to go on stage 8, but that requires approaching from the north.

The Giro just needs to put in more decent MTFs in the south and then leave them out in the Alps, but they never do it outside of Blockhaus.
Click to expand...
Yeah it feels like they got genuinely self aware that having a bunch of monster stages in the third week but nothing beforehand is bad, but they didn't understand how to fix it.

Another thing I was thinking is that maybe they wanted to Pogacar-proof the route. If someone wants to win the race by ten minutes on this route at least they will have to create a show to do so. Of course when no Pogacar or Vingegaard are actually entering the race you just end up with a bad route.
 
Red Rick

Red Rick

Feb 20, 2012
52,974
43,039
28,180
Gigs_98 said:
Yeah it feels like they got genuinely self aware that having a bunch of monster stages in the third week but nothing beforehand is bad, but they didn't understand how to fix it.

Another thing I was thinking is that maybe they wanted to Pogacar-proof the route. If someone wants to win the race by ten minutes on this route at least they will have to create a show to do so. Of course when no Pogacar or Vingegaard are actually entering the race you just end up with a bad route.
Click to expand...
The Giro has been very backloaded for a long time. I don't believe Pogacar or Vingegaard had anything to do with it.

If you want me to go full tinfoil hat it's more likely to me they wanted Roglic vs Evenepoel while making the route extremely favorable for the latter.
 
Gigs_98

Gigs_98

Feb 18, 2015
13,813
9,792
28,180
Red Rick said:
The Giro has been very backloaded for a long time. I don't believe Pogacar or Vingegaard had anything to do with it.

If you want me to go full tinfoil hat it's more likely to me they wanted Roglic vs Evenepoel while making the route extremely favorable for the latter.
Click to expand...
It's been backloaded for a long time but with a much higher quantity of clear gc stages. I mean last year had more cat.1 mtf's in the first ten stages than this year in all 21 stages.
 
Devil's Elbow

Devil's Elbow

Sep 20, 2017
12,124
22,989
28,180
Red Rick said:
Yes and no.

I also blame people for not realizing the threshold for a likely sprint stage changes when the most likely top sprinter at a race is a decent climber himself. And for using "not a lot of flat stages" as a hugely important metric for overall route assessment.
Click to expand...
We only knew part of the sprint field at the time of the route announcement.

Also, a lack of boring sprint stages (grande partenza aside) was one of the things that made the much-beloved 2018 Giro so good, partially because it meant most stages were at least decent and partially because it meant everyone was on their knees in the final week.

Finally, I don't think it's fair to penalise RCS in the route assessment for getting an unfavourable sprint field.
 
Red Rick

Red Rick

Feb 20, 2012
52,974
43,039
28,180
Devil's Elbow said:
We only knew part of the sprint field at the time of the route announcement.

Also, a lack of boring sprint stages (grande partenza aside) was one of the things that made the much-beloved 2018 Giro so good, partially because it meant most stages were at least decent and partially because it meant everyone was on their knees in the final week.

Finally, I don't think it's fair to penalise RCS in the route assessment for getting an unfavourable sprint field.
Click to expand...
The Giro that had 3 MTFs, 2 puncheur finishes and a TT in the first 9 stages? That one?

That race had like 1 big breakaway stage in the first 10 stages, and it was stage 10 with an uphill start and rolling climbs all day for 240km. And much of the difficulty that Giro was made by the consistently bad weather.


If anything should be clear by now it's that the first 3 days of racing tend to be lean much more to sprints than the middle of the second week.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom