Rate the 2022 Giro d'Italia Route

[Bavarianrider]

The lack of TT basically takes it out of being a GT and the winner is already diminished. The contenders that are now being cited are lesser one-dimensional riders and true all-rounders are being encouraged to ride other races instead…Telling.

The greatest, most exciting GT ever had a ton of ITT (TDF 1989: 144.3 kms including a MTT, on top of a 46km TTT). One dimensional riders were minutes back after stage 5 ITT. But we had the absolute best riders fighting it out for the podium with lots of changes in who was wearing the yellow jersey. And, in fact, Fignon’s breakaway stage win in the yellow jersey only happened specifically because he felt he needed more time on Lemond before the last ITT. And he attacked from fairly far out.

Nothing indicates that lessening ITT KMs has made GTs more exciting in recent years. Absolutely nothing. In fact it has encouraged even more defensive riding and last minute attacks for stage bonuses.

The best post this board has eher seen. You are lightening my day,

 

[gregrowlerson]

As a cycling fan it's a 6

As a Landismo fan its a 9

69

Now that's sexy.

 

[Netserk]

If this route is above average, what routes are below average?

 

[houtdffan]

a 2

Someone needs to tell Vegni that a GT winner is not the best climber, but the best all around rider. If the best climber cannot ride a TT bike, he should face the same fate as Ricco from 2008 and LOSE

 

[zlev11]

I gave it a 2. It's the worst Giro route since I started watching the Giro in 2011. There's almost nothing good about it...I guess woo whee Fedaia and uhh, Santa Cristina is cool.

 

[jimmy_8888888]

4 Too few TT km. Mortirolo stage should be done better by just copy 1994 route (minus Stelvio), and Dolomite stage are not good enough.

 

[BlueRoads]

I see Nibali is quite enthusiastic about the route...

 

[topcat]

Nibali: "It's a beautiful Giro. Heavy but also balanced at the same time."
I give it a 10.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Nibali: "It's a beautiful Giro. Heavy but also balanced at the same time."
I give it a 10.

Was the 10 from Nibali or Top Cat?

 

[OlavEH]

People are pretty polarized in their ratings of GTs in these kind of threads. I don't think I would have rated the design of any GT the last 10-15 years lower than 4 (TDF 2012 and perhaps the Vueltas with most muritos), or higher than 8. And since the poential is higher for the Giro, it would also require more to rate a Giro 8 or more than the Tour and Vuelta.

 

[SafeBet]

Lol what do you expect Nibali to do?
Scare fans and sponsors away from the Giro by sh*tting on his home GT? He's still the face of Italian cycling.

With the Giro going to Sicily for the millionth times in the last few years on top of that...

 

[topcat]

No, the route really is great, I swear ... Oh God, I can't do this anymore

 

[YavorD]

When rating a GT route we probably have to keep in mind that AOS/RCS may not be able to swap stages the way they (we) want to make the overall route better. As of some locations may pay to host a stage on a certain day hence you can't do the stages in reverse order. Of course that's just assumption, so if someone has more knowledge, correct me.

However, this is not a huge issue with this route. Mountain stages could've been better by simply adding a pass or so. Now we get goo mountain stages finishing on a really hard climb...actually discouraging riders to attack from a far.
Add to that the small number of TT km's ant disappointment is huge.

That said, I don't think a long(er) TT would make the race better as we have good TT riders that are genuine contenders. Bar for Rog, Pog, Vingegaard if he confirms 2021. And all of them would target the Tour 100% The only way to draw Pog in for me is to have 2012 Tour like Giro route. That leaves us with only Almeida as a very good TT'er among the GT contenders.. Yeah, one could say Thmoas, Tom D and Remco, but Thomas will do the Tour (likely), Tom D is probably done GT wise and if Remco proves to be good enough climbing wise in a GT, he'd be good enough on this route, Not to mention, he won't/wouldn't start anyway.
However, while more TT probably won't really impact this Giro, it certainly impacts GT's long tern. As this way you attract Bardet-like climbers and that doesn't make it for a better racing.

 

[Red Rick]

Lol what do you expect Nibali to do?
Scare fans and sponsors away from the Giro by sh*tting on his home GT? He's still the face of Italian cycling.

With the Giro going to Sicily for the millionth times in the last few years on top of that...

"Go home Nibbles you're drunk"

Nibbles proceeds to attack on the climb on the stage to Messina, 100km from the finish

 

[Netserk]

People are pretty polarized in their ratings of GTs in these kind of threads. I don't think I would have rated the design of any GT the last 10-15 years lower than 4 (TDF 2012 and perhaps the Vueltas with most muritos), or higher than 8. And since the poential is higher for the Giro, it would also require more to rate a Giro 8 or more than the Tour and Vuelta.

The scale isn’t from 4-8, but 1-10. Why not use it? Tonton’s scale is from 8-8, in some sense similar to yours.

My approach is simple: 1 for the worst route of the 10 most recent routes, 10 for the best route of the 10 most recent routes.

So I gave it a 2.

 

[Pantani_lives]

Imagine the uproar if Landa takes pink on the Fedaia, just to lose it to Rohan Dennis in the final ITT.

"That time trial was way too long!"

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Imagine the uproar if Landa takes pink on the Fedaia, just to lose it to Rohan Dennis in the final ITT.

That time trial was way too long!

Brilliant. But is Masnada he has to worry about in the final TT.

 

[Nirvana]

"Go home Nibbles you're drunk"

Nibbles proceeds to attack on the climb on the stage to Messina, 100km from the finish

A couple of days ago, talking about the route with Beppe Conti, he literally said that someone could try something on that climb and already in the past the peloton was split there. Vegni probably bribed him and had to do a PR stunt...

 

[Netserk]

A couple of days ago, talking about the route with Beppe Conti, he literally said that someone could try something on that climb and already in the past the peloton was split there. Vegni probably bribed him and had to do a PR stunt...

Didn't Trek attack on that very climb/descent in 2020? Or was it only Bora?

 

[Nirvana]

Didn't Trek attack on that very climb/descent in 2020? Or was it only Bora?

I remember Bora pulling uphill but was at modest pace and only Gaviria, that was totally crap in that Giro, was dropped along with some other irrelevant riders. In the descent i remember seeing almost nothing because there were rain and fog and it's the Giro... Trek pulled the previous day when Thomas was struggling in the hills due to the crash he had at the start.

 

[Escarabajo]

This is the perfect route to lure Pogacar to ride it!

 

[Escarabajo]

The lack of TT basically takes it out of being a GT and the winner is already diminished. The contenders that are now being cited are lesser one-dimensional riders and true all-rounders are being encouraged to ride other races instead…Telling.

The greatest, most exciting GT ever had a ton of ITT (TDF 1989: 144.3 kms including a MTT, on top of a 46km TTT). One dimensional riders were minutes back after stage 5 ITT. But we had the absolute best riders fighting it out for the podium with lots of changes in who was wearing the yellow jersey. And, in fact, Fignon’s breakaway stage win in the yellow jersey only happened specifically because he felt he needed more time on Lemond before the last ITT. And he attacked from fairly far out.

Nothing indicates that lessening ITT KMs has made GTs more exciting in recent years. Absolutely nothing. In fact it has encouraged even more defensive riding and last minute attacks for stage bonuses.

I don't know if I agree. The Indurain and Armstrong Tours were an abomination IMHO. Actually I could argue that those Tours were the reason for lessening the TT along with the commercialization or cycling world wide. If they brought more spectacle and more fans they would have done it. That model is almost dead for ASO and now the Giro. The example you put belongs to another era. If you bring another era you have to bring all the changes with it. And we don't want to talk about that subject that has been talked here ad nauseam.

Personally I would agree to bring the long TT only if the bring the killer mountain stages. But they don't want to do that anymore either. So we are almost dead on both ends unfortunately.

 

[Pantani_lives]

This is the perfect route to lure Pogacar to ride it!

No, that would require the Stelvio and a start in Slovenia. It's still tough with Mortirolo and Fedaia, so I don't expect any of the Tour favourites to participate.

Carapaz probably has the best chance to win this. He could ride the Giro-Vuelta double.

 

[BigCoward]

The scale isn’t from 4-8, but 1-10. Why not use it? Tonton’s scale is from 8-8, in some sense similar to yours.

My approach is simple: 1 for the worst route of the 10 most recent routes, 10 for the best route of the 10 most recent routes.

So I gave it a 2.

Each to their own but I've never heard of anyone using that as a rating system.

Using that logic if someone lined up the 10 most attractive people in the world (to you) and asked you to score them out of 10, one of them would have to be a 1? That makes no sense.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Each to their own but I've never heard of anyone using that as a rating system.

Using that logic if someone lined up the 10 most attractive people in the world (to you) and asked you to score them out of 10, one of them would have to be a 1? That makes no sense.

It would make perfect sense.

The '1' would be offended and intrigued at the same time. Netserk would probably get lucky.