Even though S.Yates is decent at ITT and could hold his own at the Giro, I am certain he will go to the TDF - His season where he had a three month break before the TDF and then did OK in the Italian one dya races worked well.
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If Remco does the Giro, that will be a real shocker (although he'd probably win it).
cycling in the time of the Adam. Lets hope it stays dry and wind free.
After some thought I decided to give this a 5.
The good:
Very decent amount of TT
Good opening weekend
The return of Monte Grappa
The bad:
Too many sprint stages
Lack of a 'tappone'
Lack of hilly stages
The ugly:
Stelvio stage is terrible
Sterrato stage will likely just produce a reduced bunch sprint
Sappada stage is pointless
The good:
Very decent amount of TT
Good opening weekend
The return of Monte Grappa
The bad:
Too many sprint stages
Lack of a 'tappone'
Lack of hilly stages
The ugly:
Stelvio stage is terrible
Sterrato stage will likely just produce a reduced bunch sprint
Sappada stage is pointless
The balance TT-mountains is off. Too much TT considering the mountains they have. Yes, 60 km is not enormously much, but where are real mountain stages?
Stage 2-8-10 mountain top arrival. But that's not where the big differences are made, you can try to force the climbers to start gaining time early as much as you want, but these are simply not the kind of stages that allows climbers to gain a big amount of time. Too short, too little climbing before, everybody still fresh at the bottom of the climb.
Stage 15? It has the length, but not the climbs. Full peloton will arrive in Tirano, and by putting this Mottolino thing at the end, with the hardest km at the end, you disarm the whole stage even more. Forcola di Livigno is difficult enough to make some differences, but for the stage just waiting for the hardest km at the end sounds good, don't collaborate, wait. In the end hopefully something will happen already on the Forcola di Livigno, but it's far from guaranteed.
16 then is almost the same, hardest km at the end, in a way almost like this one better than 15, no pretense of being anything other than a stage that will be decided at the end. And with the Stelvio it has more potential to explode early than stage 15, where simply nothign of note will happen before we start the climb to the Forcola di Livigno. Yes, 99% here neither, but only 99%, there's a 1% chance of a team trying something very early.
17 on the other hand is quite ok. A bit short, the first Brocon too easy, so it all comes down to the final climb once again, but at least here they will have multiple climbs ridden at a certain pace in their legs.
19 of course is a complete waste here.
20 Double Grappa, ok, but it encourages everybody to wait for the second one again. Yes, some will have to try early. Or more likely too far back to have any realistic chances to catch those better in TT, so no need to bother at all. Go for stage, wait for the last climb. Here the possibility to try early is there in theory, in practice all might be already decided by the 2 TTs that aren't balanced with mountain stages that allow sizeable chunks of time being taken back. And those that are close enough, can wait for the second Grappa
With those 2 TTs you needed at the very least 1 stage where there's a) multiple climbs b) the final is not the hardes part of the stage. At least 1, better 2. And the pacing is off again too, The final starting at 15 is too late, 15-17 is a nice enough series of stages, but then nothing till 20? Make it 14-16 and then 19-20.
First week looks like the TdF designed by Leblanc, except for stage 1+2. Fully ok to give the sprinters their stages, but does it have to be that many in a row?
I'll give it a 7 for the blatant attempt to get Vingegaard or/and Pogacar to try the double, otherwise would be a 6
Stage 2-8-10 mountain top arrival. But that's not where the big differences are made, you can try to force the climbers to start gaining time early as much as you want, but these are simply not the kind of stages that allows climbers to gain a big amount of time. Too short, too little climbing before, everybody still fresh at the bottom of the climb.
Stage 15? It has the length, but not the climbs. Full peloton will arrive in Tirano, and by putting this Mottolino thing at the end, with the hardest km at the end, you disarm the whole stage even more. Forcola di Livigno is difficult enough to make some differences, but for the stage just waiting for the hardest km at the end sounds good, don't collaborate, wait. In the end hopefully something will happen already on the Forcola di Livigno, but it's far from guaranteed.
16 then is almost the same, hardest km at the end, in a way almost like this one better than 15, no pretense of being anything other than a stage that will be decided at the end. And with the Stelvio it has more potential to explode early than stage 15, where simply nothign of note will happen before we start the climb to the Forcola di Livigno. Yes, 99% here neither, but only 99%, there's a 1% chance of a team trying something very early.
17 on the other hand is quite ok. A bit short, the first Brocon too easy, so it all comes down to the final climb once again, but at least here they will have multiple climbs ridden at a certain pace in their legs.
19 of course is a complete waste here.
20 Double Grappa, ok, but it encourages everybody to wait for the second one again. Yes, some will have to try early. Or more likely too far back to have any realistic chances to catch those better in TT, so no need to bother at all. Go for stage, wait for the last climb. Here the possibility to try early is there in theory, in practice all might be already decided by the 2 TTs that aren't balanced with mountain stages that allow sizeable chunks of time being taken back. And those that are close enough, can wait for the second Grappa
With those 2 TTs you needed at the very least 1 stage where there's a) multiple climbs b) the final is not the hardes part of the stage. At least 1, better 2. And the pacing is off again too, The final starting at 15 is too late, 15-17 is a nice enough series of stages, but then nothing till 20? Make it 14-16 and then 19-20.
First week looks like the TdF designed by Leblanc, except for stage 1+2. Fully ok to give the sprinters their stages, but does it have to be that many in a row?
I'll give it a 7 for the blatant attempt to get Vingegaard or/and Pogacar to try the double, otherwise would be a 6
Agree with you. I also heard at GNC that the Tour comes 1 week early which makes things worse. Doing the double is so hard. Just add a couple of tappones and be done with it.
Lanterne Rouge take on the Parcours:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzvFI4LRWnI
Stage 16 is a crime to humanity. Then they go to show in which stage a climber can make time in the last week on a good timetrialer and found only stage 20. Again the next to last stage. A bit late. Finally they both scored 7.5/10 Lol. Anyway listen to your enjoyment.
Stage 16 is a crime to humanity. Then they go to show in which stage a climber can make time in the last week on a good timetrialer and found only stage 20. Again the next to last stage. A bit late. Finally they both scored 7.5/10 Lol. Anyway listen to your enjoyment.
We will miss your stage route analysis, but thank-you for all the ones you did in years past. Incredible attention to detail.
I'm not as down on this route as some others. I think getting the flow of a route right is at least as important as stage designs and this one is (completely unusually for the Giro) really getting the former part right while unfortunately being horrendous in the latter. The route really isn't overly backloaded with only one really serious stage in the final week, plus a few more easy mtf's. The two longish TTs are in the first two weeks and before mountain stages, not after them. Arguably the two hardest mtf's are on stages 8 and 10 (which positively reminds me of 2015) and the queen stage is stage 15, which in my opinion is the perfect place for it.
Now, if the mountain stages were still designed like in some of the previous years this would be a great route but my god does this Giro fail in that regard. I like stage 15, I don't mind the somewhat bland mtf's before the Alps and double Grappa is alright though I don't like it as much as some others. But you need to have highlights somewhere. It's just that they refused to make the sterrato stage a highlight, they somehow once again don't have a single good hilly/medium mountain stage and most importantly the first three mountain stages in the third week aren't looking exciting in the slightest. They don't even need to change all three, but give us one single good design. I'm not overly critical of stage 16 (that start could at least cause absolute havoc after a restday) and I think stage 19 is not completely horrible in isolation. But no idea what on earth they were thinking when they drew up stage 17. Make that stage more challenging and improve the sterrato stage and this route is already way better.
What baffles me so much is reading the average gradients of the crucial climbs of all mountain stages:
Stage 2: 6.2%
Stage 8: 7%
Stage 10: 5.6%
Stage 15: 7.1% and 6.6%
Stage 16: 4.7% and 6.1%
Stage 17: 6.5% and 6.4%
Stage 19: 5.4%
Stage 20: 8.1% twice
I get this makes some climbs look easier than they are but honestly, not by that much. It's just not 1990 anymore and those gradients are not sufficient to do damage except if you really lay it all on the table.
I don't know. I think this route is better than last year's but my god, the missed potential is just sad. Maybe a 6?
Now, if the mountain stages were still designed like in some of the previous years this would be a great route but my god does this Giro fail in that regard. I like stage 15, I don't mind the somewhat bland mtf's before the Alps and double Grappa is alright though I don't like it as much as some others. But you need to have highlights somewhere. It's just that they refused to make the sterrato stage a highlight, they somehow once again don't have a single good hilly/medium mountain stage and most importantly the first three mountain stages in the third week aren't looking exciting in the slightest. They don't even need to change all three, but give us one single good design. I'm not overly critical of stage 16 (that start could at least cause absolute havoc after a restday) and I think stage 19 is not completely horrible in isolation. But no idea what on earth they were thinking when they drew up stage 17. Make that stage more challenging and improve the sterrato stage and this route is already way better.
What baffles me so much is reading the average gradients of the crucial climbs of all mountain stages:
Stage 2: 6.2%
Stage 8: 7%
Stage 10: 5.6%
Stage 15: 7.1% and 6.6%
Stage 16: 4.7% and 6.1%
Stage 17: 6.5% and 6.4%
Stage 19: 5.4%
Stage 20: 8.1% twice
I get this makes some climbs look easier than they are but honestly, not by that much. It's just not 1990 anymore and those gradients are not sufficient to do damage except if you really lay it all on the table.
I don't know. I think this route is better than last year's but my god, the missed potential is just sad. Maybe a 6?
It's not better than this year. This year also had frontloaded flat ITTs. Big mountain stage designs were much better this year. I don't think having 3 6-7% MTFs in the first 10 days makes it better.
Unless by last year you mean 2022 then I might agree..
Grappa is 19km @ 8%, 1500+ meters uphill, 50+ minutes of climbing.
I think it should be sufficient to do damage in any era of cycling
I think it should be sufficient to do damage in any era of cycling
yeah but they really aren't very hard at all. it speaks to how horrible the rest of the route is more than how good these climbs are.
stage 8:
this climb is sometimes pretty selective when it's raced in March but when it's "one of the two hardest MTF's" of a grand tour...it's a joke (this climb would be perfectly fine at this point in the race if the rest of the route was better)
stage 10:
i dunno about this one, i see "breakaway 20 minutes ahead goes for the stage while the GC group of 30 riders finish together" which has become a signature of the Giro the past 3 years. the rest of the stage isn't hard, it's only 141km and there's not even any altitude to speak of here.
2015 had what, Abetone and Campitello Matese? both stages way overperformed and then the rest of the route was absolutely kick-ass. if this race had Mortirolo-Aprica and Finestre-Sestrieres (plus another 236k mountain stage and the fantastic Monte Olongo stage) then yeah we'd be cooking with gas.
But it's still a super bland stage design. Big climbs don't automatically make a stage good. Tre Cime made everyone excited last year and looking back we really shouldn't have been.
There is this weird thing happening where I was one of the few people heavily criticizing this years Giro route, but when I write about the route being bad people behave like nobody could have seen this route playing out like it did coming, and me criticizing is is just revisionism. No it is not. The mountain stages were significantly better designed but that doesn't change that all things considered I think next year's route is better than this year's. And considering just how bad the last Giro was I also don't expect anyone to be able to change my opinion on this years route.
Well I conceded the Campo Imperatore and Lago Laceno were ***. Aside from that I don't really get how we can ignore the context of Thomas being in the lead and Roglic nursing injury so much. Not to mention cancellation of the Cima Coppi AGAIN. I also think people were so put off by the first 2 weeks they were committed to whining about the final days no matter what. 2024 has a much easier first 9 days than the 2022 Giro, and 2022 is not remembered fondly by basically anyone.
I will admit the bad racing was down to a mixture of a bad route and unfortunate circumstances. But this is always the case in cycling and the route was undoubtedly a factor. People were just blinded by brilliant looking monster stages ignoring their placement most likely meant all of them would come down to the last few kilometers anyway. Also, Grand Saint Bernard getting cancelled was unlucky but my guess is that didn't change anything. It was never gonna be the main climb of the stage and the actual main climb, the Croix de Coeur, did get raced. I remember people prediciting the cancellation would make the stage even more explosive.
I don't see how its bland race design. That stage seems to me pretty well designed? It guarantees action, and it does so from afar with the built-in opportunity for real early attacking on the first ascent. That's all we need. I don't think anyone should be slamming that stage when its 16-19 that are ***.
Stage 20 is bland design because all the climbing consists of two times up the same side of a climb that literally has 10 different sides, some of which are harder than the one being used. That being said, it's still a good design, just a very lazy one.
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