Giro d'Italia Rate the 2026 Giro d'Italia route

[Krzysztof_O]

I gave it 4, weak route by Giro standards.

The Dolomites stage is epic with tons of elevation gain and going near majestic rocky giants (i.e. finish near Civetta, going close to Tofane). But you know what? The GC action on Giau is far from guaranteed as there is still a lot of climbing afterwards. They may opt for the last muro attacks as there's still a difficult MTF the day after.

Other than that a bunch of unipuerto stages straight from Vuelta, some decent MTFs. Alps are so underused. No Lombardia, no epic combo (huge climb + shallow finish) included i.e. Mortirolo, Stelvio or Finestre (while Fauniera is still just a wet dream). Too many breakaway stages.

 

[hrotha]

Guys can you please stop trolling with your 10's, it's working too well on me

 

[Brullnux]

Something remarkable is that only five stages have a climb Cat 3 or harder in the first third of the stage. I think only six have one in the first half of the stage.

 

[Red Rick]

Another one is that only 2 stages go over 1700m in altitude, and only 4 climbs go over it.

 

[Jan the Man]

I voted 6- would have preferred a second ITT or to make the first one 50km and would have preferred a proper mountain stage with a descent finish. A couple of the mountain stages are a bit meh but stage 14 and 19 are proper Tappone.

A couple of the medium mountain stages are nice

 

[hrotha]

stage 14 and 19 are proper Tappone.

But they're 133 km and 151 km long, they're barely tappe

 

[improb]

So, I have a friend who works for RCS and has designed a few of the stages here. Here are a few infos he told me:

Stage 17 was meant to finish in Madonna di Campiglio but would have been a unipuerto stage. They enquired about putting Fai della Paganella before Andalo but the stage would have been way too long (over 240 kms long). They wanted to include Daone and Duran in the Andalo stage but municipalities didn't want to pay the money needed to repay.

The Swiss stage was meant to go over Passo del Lucomagno, Oberalp Pass and San Gottardo but a few of the Swiss municipalities on the German side didn't want the Giro to pass as the Tour of Switzerland will go over those same roads a month later.

The ITT was inserted in the parcours a week ago, a last minute entry. The Milan stage was the one meant to be an ITT. If they skipped Milan, stage 19 would have to end in Cortina because there was big money to end the stage in one of the 2026 Olympics host cities.

Campania features often and will probably continue to feature in the Giro parcours because it's one of the few regions willing to repave roads up to Giro standards. Next year, there will likely be a stage ending in Matera, there's a contract already.

Said there's no chance in hell to see Fauniera in the near future of the Giro. Also said that there's very real talk within RCS to move the Giro to September and swap with the Vuelta.