Many of us are disapointed with the elmination of the Crostis from stage 14.
In such situations one can either feel sorry for oneself, or one can look to the future.
The 2011 Giro makes this decision easy.
Stage 15 now has the burden of trying to live up to the label of being the hardest stage of the hardest grand tour in decades.
One look at the profile shows it will not disappoint.
Rather than the monster finishes offered by previous mountain stages, with 15 Zomegan went for the other option.
Measuring at 229 km in length and offering no less than 5 Dolomite beasts to be tamed, stage 15 provides action from the word go.
While none of the 5 climbs make that special "giro supermountain" catergory, all of them would make cat 1 or higher at the Tour. Body blows rather than knockouts.
Think of it as a one day race on steroids.
Only one day races dont tend to come after 2 brutal mtfs. Nor do they finish 2000 metres above from where they started. Each climb represents a step on the stairway to hell, that brings the riders to this years CIma Coppi
The stage itself starts just above sea level, at 62 metres in Conegliano. 20km in the riders rise to over 100m altitude.
The 2011 Giro will never again go under this figure.
To see just why this stage is so special, we need only to look at the very first climb.
Starting 28.8km into the race, the Piancavallo would in other circumstances have pages dedicated to it. As it happens one will struggle to find a mention yet alone a profile in the guidbooks.
With 14km at 7.8%, its minor role in the stage only serves to prove just how brutal the riders challenge is.
But sometimes it is better to just let the an image tell the story.
The Piancavallo was used as an MTF in the 1998 Giro.
This was the result.
With an alltitude gain of over 1200 metres the riders will have found themselevs half way to the Cima coppi. Unfortunately for them, the descent brings them all the way back down to 400.
Sporadic climbing and descending makes up the next 50km of the stage until the riders are brought to the foot of the next big challenge.
The Forcella Cibiana maitains an impressive of 7.2 % for exactly 10km, but this is not enough to save it from being the weakest climb of the day.
For purposes of brevity, one should assume that every climb in this stage has a hair raising descent. The Forcella Cibiana is no different.
From here on in, the climbs come thick and fast.
Next is the 2011 Cimma Coppi- the Passo Giau meaning riders looking for kom points or merely the distinction of being the first over will ride as if the banner at the top represented the end of the entire Giro.
This will however be no easy feat.
Climbing to the top of Giau essentially starts from the bottom of Cibiana though slow at first, it reaches higher gradients a number of times, before hitting the final 8 and a half km which have an average of 8.4 %,
The first rider over will no doubt feel great pride at having conquered the Cimma Coppi, but there is no time to celebrate as what might prove to be another fast and furious descent follows.
With a loss of 1300 metres altitude in 16km, this descent will last some time and could provide a chance for the likes of Nibali and Arroyo to gain back time or even attack.
Having made it over the Giau, they may however simply try to catch some rest on the downhill.
Because even the Cimma Coppi proves no match for the 4th climb of the day.
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