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Rate the 2019 Giro d'Italia Route!

Page 4 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

Rate the 2019 Giro Route

  • 10

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 9

    Votes: 8 13.3%
  • 8

    Votes: 17 28.3%
  • 7

    Votes: 23 38.3%
  • 6

    Votes: 6 10.0%
  • 5

    Votes: 4 6.7%
  • 4

    Votes: 2 3.3%
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  • Total voters
    60
All in all an interesting but far from perfect route

Downsides:
- no sterrato
- no proper mountain stage in the appenines (would have been perfectly placed on stage 8 - Cima Carpegna or something)
- stage 12 is a disaster (tribute to Coppi?).
- not that much for Punchur-types.
- all in all a disaster that not a single Road stage before (13) is GC-relevant


Plus
+ 4 beautiful and proper mountain stages (13, 14, 16, 20)
+ beautiful and well placed copy of Il Lombardia (15)
+ several potential break away stages in the first week (instead of boring sprints - stage 6 and 7)
+ Stage 17 and 19 is at least well placed in the race. Within the first two weeks they would have been useless
+ San Marino, Verona, Bologna ITT (although they could be more different)
 
Ok, i'll try to be a bit more detailed now. Of course those are my own subjective opinions and i know that ultimately it's the peloton that brings the action.

Kicking off with an uphill prologue the race heads down to Tuscany for... a tiny burst? The roads of Monte Albano can be quite narrow and technical so look out for crashes. Especially the quite tricky and not so wide descent of Montalbano (section in Vitolini-Barano). Sadly, it's a rather inconspicuous town of Fucecchio that's willing to host the finish so the hills are quite far away from the finish line. I guess it'll end up in a moderately sized sprint with some quicker GC guys in or near top 10 (i'm expecting Simon Yates/Bernal/Pinot finishing around there). I guess it's a fine 2nd stage to check, who will crash out but i would prefer to have something more medium mountain (2015?) to have a natural selection rather than potentially crashing out of the race. The next stage starts in VInci... why is Vinci a start and Fucecchio a finish? I guess they were forced to do like this but switch both places and it would be better.

Next 3 stages are basically nothing. Yes, they're long and maybe very slightly hilly but they will end up in a bunch sprint (Frascati in a Gerrans/Valverde sprint). I'm of the opinion that the length of the stage has no influence on the riders if it's totally flat and those stages are mostly that. You can hope that they'll lull themselves towards crashing one another. At least they could include Tuscolo in the Frascati stage.

The next three stages are barely better. However, there might be one plus and that's up to stage 8 i'm expecting no GC gaps. That means one of those hillier stages (i'm thinking of San Giovanni Rotondo and/or L'Aquila) may end up in a breakaway getting a lot of time so there might be some local Pirazzi that'll get a lot of time and end up pretty well in the GC (Arroyo/Voeckler/Kiviliev scenario). Another potential plus might be the stunning visuals of that Coppa Casarinelle climb. If it only had a larger gradient then it could result in a pretty good final 30k with plenty of action but i think it may be once again a reduced sprint with maybe one of Yates' trying something on that little bump to San Marco in Lamis.

I guess the first proper GC shake up should happen on the San Marino ITT which is mostly something to wank off for the likes of Dumoulin or Roglic. The first non-TT stage with some potential is the Pinerolo one... it's stage 13... that's even rare for the Tour, which is known for it's often non-existent 1st week. That's awful, especially for the Giro standards. Montoso is fine though (a potential future MTF?) but i would maybe also like to see Pramartino though. However with next two stages it will be most probably softpedalled.

The real race starts only from stage 14. So counting the San Marino ITT this Giro is basically a Dauphine... great. Lago Serru/Nivolet is better than i though. As an MTF it's not great but for a first proper climbing test it should be good enough. In this stage i'm mostly interested in Pian del Lupo, which at least 5 years ago was just a random dirt goat path with stunning views. if it's surfaced then i guess it'll be very narrow and the descent is very technical. There may be a really slim chance of it ending like Madonna di Campiglio in 2015 after the Daone descent.

Next stage is the Aosta climbing test which LS should almost wank to it if not lack of Tzecore (i don't understand his fanboyism of that climb). With San Carlo i will say the distance doesn't matter and i like this finish so much that i was designing a similar finish like 2 years ago (a TdF one with Madeleine and Petit-Saint-Bernard). The descent on the PSB road is very easy with plenty of straight galleries. Other climbs are however quite narrow in some places and technical. On paper it might be my favourite stage of this Giro. This stage is followed by a Lombardia copy and a rest day... it's lazy but i think it's a proper placement for such kind of a stage. Sadly, there's absolutely nothing inside the first 160k (it should give the breakaway around 30-40min). I do understand it though as otherwise the stage would be much longer and it's already near the UCI limit.

The last week is... awful. Ponte di Legno is basically Aprica but slightly closer. I dream of a Mortirolo-Gavia combo finishing in either Bormio or Valfurva. It still is probably the best scenario you can get if you're forced for Ponte di Legno unless you want Trivigno but the stage is already very long and it would most probably exceed the limit. I'm prefectly fine with this stage. However, i'm not fine with the rest of this week. Anterselva is just pain. At least have Furcia before that if you deem Erbe unsafe. It's only about the last 5km at ~7,5%. It's followed by a typical to Giro mountain break sprint stage for the breakaways which would be perfectly fine if not that the previous stage was basically the same.

The last two stages are like the rest of this week. San Martino di Castrozza stage is worse than it's 2009 counterpart (at least that one had Croce d'Aune). It's an uphill bunch sprint. The last non-TT stage i think tries to be a Jafferau 2018 clone? Look at this: Cima Campo as Lys, Manghen as Finestre, Rolle as Sestriere and Croce d'Aune as Jafferau. Manghen is a great climb but it's followed by Val di Fiemme, long, two-stepped drag up and down of Rolle and then another flat of Val Cismon. If there's a Froome alike (Domoulin?), who will need to do a Froome then he may have the proper terrain to work with but i guess more probably than not it will result in last 10k action and Croce d'Aune is not that amazing. At least if they want to finish with a full on MTF then do it from Feltre. What's also interesting for me is that they will most probably end up in or near a dirt parking spot.

The last stage is a hilly Verona TT with Torricelle... There are three hilly TTs (even the 2008 edition had the last TT flat). I'm not sure what to think about this. However, i would prefer it to be a proper stage with Grappa, Pian delle Fugazze and the Monte Cornetto side of Fittanze della Sega to go out with an absolute bang and to give Anterselva/San Martino di Castrozza stages an actual point because for now the route is heavilly loaded towards the 2nd week.

Now for more miscellaneous observations. The stages are a quite extreme mix of long and short which is aesthetically rather painful for my eyes but might be good or non-disturbing for you. Some of the transfers combined with the length of each stages can deem the race to be logistically problematic. I'm thinking mainly of San Giovanni Rotondo - Vasto transfer after a 230km stage and L'Aquila - Tortoreto Lido before a 240km stage. Other huge transfers are Novi Ligure - Cuneo and Courmayeur - Ivrea (before another 240km stage). I would personally switch Saint-Vincent with Ivrea. Then the Courmayeur stage would be longer (with possiblity of Joux or Tzecore) and change the Como finale to use some of the hills of the Varese/Mendrisio area before Civiglio. I also think the 3rd week could be worked out better... maybe have Croce d'Aune MTF (with Grappa?) day before and then do a Dolomiti loop with Cima Campo - Manghen - San Pellegrino/Pordoi? - Valles - Rolle and finish in San Martino di Castrozza.

Overally... i don't like it. I'm really happy to see San Carlo with Courmayeur and fine with a couple of stages like Como, Ponte di Legno with maybe Pinerolo (lack of Pramartino) and Croce d'Aune (i don't like the placement of it) while the rest is forgettable. For Giro standards that's bad. I would even say that's bad for the Tour/Vuelta. Nice to see some TT mileage though even if they're basically all the same. If it was Tour/Vuelta then maybe 6-7/10 but because it's Giro (and i consider the Giro to be the tip of the design game) i'm going one point below with 5/10. Maybe too harsh but i really don't like the first 10/12(!) (but both TTs?) stages making it basically a one week race and the 3rd week has 3/4 (Verona TT?) non-meaningful stages that are culminated with a moderate to slightly awful MTF or like Red Rick said: the pacing is terrible.
 
Some really good stages. 14 and 16 are honestly perfect, or close to perfect. The Lombardia tribute is great too, Antholz has got some hate (and I think a hard climb in the middle of it would be perfect) but it isn't too bad: it's after a super hard day, there's a fairly tough climb, a bit too short maybe, which could catch someone out and the last climb is going to kill for anyone still tired from the day before. The last 5k are no joke. if stage 19 had a better final climb it would have been good enough, but it's a bit weak. I quite like Stage 20, it could bomb or it could be great. Manghen is a very hard climb, Rolle is a bit easy (but is harder than say, Sestriere, but not too much harder), and the final climb is excellent for such a stage, shor but steep. Stage 13 is well-placed, too.

The first couple of weeks aren't particularly good, and they conspicuously lack a properly hard stage. There are a couple of classic-giro/vegni stages (stage 6 which is so similar to Fiuggi in 2015, stage 4 which has a sort of hard uphill finish, stage 7) but the medium mountain stages are mostly half hearted, which is OK if there's then a hard mountain stage as well, but there isn't. The final ITT should be longer/flat, or stage 9 should be longer. Not much for sprinters. Stage 12 is actually not that bad, it's before three key stages so ofc you can't have another hard day, but disappointing bc it's cuneo-pinerolo.
 
Red Rick said:
damian13ster said:
The crucial mountain stages look sexy. Should be a good action if the riders feel adventurous. Backloaded probably to lure riders into trying the double again. Would be fun if Froome, Nibali and Thomas all participated. looks like Dumoulin and Bardet will be set on TdF
I think Yates and Mas already said they'd ride, which is good stuff. Especially Yates riding is good, which means we have one top climber in who's gonna want to be all out aggressive.
If you recall how Yates applied what he learnt in the Giro to his ride in the Vuelta, we have one top climber who's gonna be nudging and waving other contenders to work and be all out aggresive in the last two mountain stages. :p
 
Jun 30, 2014
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Red Rick has a point, the first week would need a MTF or a proper medium mountain stage.
The lack of a tappone in the Dolomites is a bit of a blessing in disguise, half of the climbs have been damaged because of the catastrophic floods.
I won't post pictures of the Serrai di Sottoguda road that was destroyed, I don't want to make Libertine Seguros cry.
 
This Giro could have been a lot better with some changes. Too lazy to look at every stage but stages 19 and 20 should be like this and it would have been a good final:
Stage 19 Treviso-Croce d' Aune (Monte Avena) 163 Km
Passo San Boldo 6 km %7,1 around km 53
Passo di Praderadego 9 km at %6,7 around km 79
Monte Cesen 14,3 km at %7,3 around km 112
Croce d' Aune Monte Avena (via Feltre-Pedavena) 16 km at %6,2 Finish

Stage 20 Feltre-San Martino di Castrozza 201 km via Grappa-Cima Campo-Manghen-Rolle

The Grappa climb used is this (till Rifugio Scarpon):
https://www.cyclingcols.com/profiles/GrappaNE.gif
 
Jun 30, 2014
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2
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Lol, I knew that it was going to be this side of Monte Grappa, the middle sections of the climb is a proper legbreaker.
 
I like the route of TDF more for a number of reasons:
1.) All three ITTs contains climbs which could be 2nd or 3rd category. At least one of these ITTs should have been flat. Don't like an idea that final ceremonial stage is replaced with hilly ITT.
2.) Just one hard MTF and it barely makes H.C. The only other decent MTF is on Stage 20 which is classic 1st cat. MTF. Just two MTFs is a way too few for GT. Final climbs of stages 17 and 19 look soft.
3.) Almost all other major mountain stages have big climbs 30km before finish followed 2nd or 3rd cat. uphill finishes. Possibly they were inspired by this year's Finestre stage. However, it is not very likely similar action will happen next year.
4.) Hating Pinerolo stage. Looks like Pau style TDF "classic".
5.) Very little reason to turn on TV during the first week.

4/10. I would have been 8 if they had harder MTFs.
 
guncha said:
I like the route of TDF more for a number of reasons:
For all the faults I can find with this Giro, the Tour is in an entirely different world of bad




I finally found how the Tour decides how high they set the bar for their routes

xvLAUhx.gif
 
Le Tour....d'Italie.

I give it my usual 8. Not bad, some stages that could reward GC contenders with b@lls.

The Mortirolo stage, for the likes of De Gendt, is a big feather on the hat.

Obviously, trying to get Dumoulin vs. Froome. Fine by me.
 
Re: Re:

An Italian Love Story


Mauro Vegni was at his lowest ebb. And that’s saying something when you remember the 2012 Giro.

That’s because the 2019 Giro d’Italia was an even worse affair.

It looked pretty, pretty, pretty good on paper. It was long, it had time trialling, and not just time trialling, but individual time trialling; plus it was mountainous, though in regards to the latter, not so much in the beginning.

And what little mountains there were in week one, were cancelled out to such an extent by the time trialling, that Rohan Dennis wore pink going into unlucky stage thirteen.

Australian Rohan Bloody Dennis.

Perhaps it was all Richie Porte’s fault. The more talented – though obviously forever far less successful – rider from down under had once again put all of his eggs in the Tour De France basket. The Giro had come and gone without incident, or accident. That would never happen with Richie around.

Mauro thought fondly of Simon Clarke as he often did, and smiled.

I mean after twelve stages even Victor Campenaerts was still in the top ten. Mauro sure wasn’t about to go out and buy a lottery ticket. However, he did thank God that Tony Martin could no longer time trial.

He knew that the 2012 Giro d’Italia was bad. But it was still better than 2011 Paris-Nice.

The same couldn’t be said for the 2019 edition.

Stage thirteen onwards was meant to provide guaranteed excitement, but the only excitement was the false hope that cyclists who had never finished in the top one-hundred of a grand tour before, now had the chance to finish in the top ten. Even riders who in most cases would chase the mountains jersey became ninja’s. Thomas De Gendt refused to enter into a single breakaway. For he was within seconds of a podium in Verona, and he remembered the past also.

Yes, we can always find new things to blame the 2012 Giro for.

Stage sixteen bought about some serious splits in the peloton obviously, but it was too little too late. With 95% of the peloton dropped on the Gavia, there were still dreams of a top ten – or at least a top twenty – overall finish, so there would be no Formigal of an autobus here. Hence those riders were too tired to bother with a breakaway on the ‘short’ stage seventeen, and stage eighteen; well, that was reserved for the sprinters.

None of whom had left the race for the aforementioned reasons.

And what of Thomas De Gendt’s general classification podium aspirations?

Well he attacked on the Manghen, in fact he was the only rider to attack on the Manghen. As many experts had warned, it was too far from the finish. We all also remembered just how much we love dawgs.

De Gendt’s sole solo attack wasn’t very exciting. For this edition of the Giro actually had some general classification strength. So the attack amounted to nothing.

And so by the time that we got to Verona Vegni had seen three weeks of very little really, and now witnessed some Sky rider in Pink, in a tribute to mean pacing. “At least it wasn’t Rohan Dennis,” he thought.

But the story of the 2019 Giro d’Italia didn’t end there. For the winner of the mountains jersey was none other than Louis Meintjes. With little breakaway action the mountains points had mostly gone to the general classification riders, and Louis – whilst never attacking himself, and being a poor time trialler wasn’t challenging for pink - was the most consistent climber of those. Or perhaps he was just the one with the best sense of humour. For nearing the top of the Manghen he finally poked his head out from the pack, just edging out Luke Rowe – who had set a fierce tempo that made one remember the 2009 Tourmalet – for the points for second place.

At least Thomas De Gendt had been good for something.

But that wasn’t enough to deny Louis of his crowning moment in Verona. And now the crowd chanted “Zomegnan! Zomegnan!” louder than they ever had before. Even the South Africans.

Mauro then hit the bottle, and he hit it hard. It must have been one of those really sticky ones, for he didn’t come out of this bender until the day of stage six of the Tour De France.

It was the day of the finish at Planche des Belles Filles. The climb that was first seen in that year to end all years, 2012.

And in 2019 Richie Porte won it. Richie Porte not only won, but he put over a minute into Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas. It wouldn’t matter later obviously, as he crashed out on stage nine, but now the fans were calling the Tour De France the race that is decided by minutes, whereas it was by seconds they said for the Giro.

The criticism continued to come thick and fast. When Vincenzo Nibali came out and said, that; “If Mauro Vegni is Ivan Basso in terms of exciting parcours style, then Christophe Prudhomme must be Marco Pantani”, that was the final straw.

Mauro Vegni now did what any other normal human being would do. He developed an infatuation with Planche des Belles Filles. Especially when he heard its translation. “The place of the beautiful girls.” And what hot blood – with maybe some frozen – cellared men would not travel great lengths for beautiful women?

“But we mustn’t go there Mauro,” his advisors told him. “Think of the transfers. And in the middle of week one; why, we won’t even be able to have a transfer.”

“Then we shall have as many actual stages act as transfers as is required,” Vegni declared, “no matter how many pancake flat stages it takes.”

Suggestions to return to Etna instead didn’t help. Vegni broke that down to Et-na. It was a stern no to that extra-terrestrial ugly, and an Italian yes to beauty, even if it was French.

And so a finish atop Planche des Belles Filles was set in stone for the 2020 Giro d’Italia.

And there would be time gaps. Proper week one time gaps. Vegni was in love.

But most love stories involve heartbreak, and this one is no exception.

PDBF was “the one”, Mauro was sure. It was a pure climb. But he discovered the harsh truth that faces many cycling fans, that it only achieved its peak via unnatural means. “Sterrato?! This beautiful climb once also finished with sterrato?! How could they do this to it?! Asphalt; Asfault indeed! It was fine, just the way it was. Everything is tainted now.”

That twenty-four percent section wasn’t real. So Vegni duly ended it all. Right there and then.

His time as a race director that is.

For lovers of the Giro and of grand tours in general all accept that there are flaws in everything, even in their favourites.

For without flaws there is no story.
 
https://www.dw.com/en/bodies-retrie...fierce-storms-wreak-havoc-in-italy/a-46147916
A 'complex meteorological situation'

Italy has been hit hard by a series of storms that have claimed at least 30 lives over the past week and caused massive damage. The country's north, including in and around Venice, has been particularly affected, with millions of trees uprooted and villages cut off.

"It's like after an earthquake," said the governor of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia. "Thousands of hectares of forest were razed to the ground, as if by a giant electric saw."

On Friday, a 62-year-old German woman was hit by a bolt of lightning while walking with her husband and son on San Pietro, a smaller island near Sardinia.

Italian authorities have described the weather conditions as "one of the most complex meteorological situations of the past 50 to 60 years."

30 dead ... tragic.
 

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