COLLE DELLE FINESTRE
Maybe its a little bit strange to start with a climb which was only used 3 times in the giro but I am already a little bit annoyed about how the giro organizers make stages with the finestre in it. However first of all I start with some data about the climb:
heigth: 2178m
length: 18.5 km
elevation gain: 1694
average gradient: 9.2%
maximum gradient: 14%
That alone makes a very very difficult climb but thats not all, because the last 7.8 km are on gravel roads. Btw, these 7,9 km's are still over 9% steep. Although this first little description sounds like one from a mtf the finestre is a pass with no possibility to make a mtf up there. However I still only have to describe this one side (the north side btw) because if you would come from the south you couldn't descent because of the gravel. To be honest thats not really a problem because the north side is by far more difficult anyway.
Now lets go over to the part which this thread is actually about. What is the problem of the climb and how could it be used better. Well, first of all you have to watch this three profiles to understand my problem:
Yep, the race designers of the giro managed to use a total of 2 different climbs in stages with the finestre included and all of them had the same finish. Until now that wasnt a real problem because these 3 stages were spread over 10 years but I think if we will have 6 more stages which look like this in 20 years we will already question why the hell there are no other climbs included in this stages. You can split the rest of this post into two parts. The one where I will write about possible climbs you could put in front of the finestre and the second one where I will write where you could finish stages with the finestre included.
1.)
Which climbs to put in front of the Finestre
There are 4 main possibilities of climbs you could put in front of the finestre, but each of these climbs share the descent with another one of these possibilities.
The most obvious one (and also the only one which was already used) is
Sestriere. If you ride from Pinerlo to Sestriere (you could also use Pramartino on the way up there) you have a very very long false flat ascent with some steeper sections at the end. 2005 it was rated 1st category in 2013 2nd category. Personally I think its more 1st because of the length. Although this opportunity is obvious I don't really like it because this climb is very unspectacular and you can't put many other hard climbs in front of it. Moreover the descent is very long and flat so any action on this climb will have hardly any impact on the finestre (maybe you can isolate someone but I think thats hardly possible and even if someone is isolated I think his teammates might come back on the descent).
The other climb which uses the same descent is the
Col de Montgenevre. This is the easiest possibility, which means it is a 2nd category climb and the descent is still very flat. Moreover the west ascent of the climb is in france. At the first moment that sounds by far worse than sestriere but this time the climbs you can link to it makes montgenevre pretty great. To be honest this climb would only matter if the tour wants to pass the Finestre or if a giro stage starts inside france because otherwise I don't see a possibility to go from italy to france, over montgenevre to italy and then include the finestre. (I would see some but they would be too difficult). the two most obvious climbs you could put before montgenevre are the Galibier (the side with the telegraphe) or the south side of the izoard. Some people might say that a stage with the galibier would already be to difficult but I think it is okay.
The other descent is the descent of the Col du Mont Cenis. Obviously the first climb which uses it is also the
Col du Mont Cenis. The climb has two problems IMO: 1.) its also a pass between france and italy and 2.) the descent is also very very long (but at least not very flat this time) In the tour the Col du Mont Cenis would be a 1st category climb from the north side. However the giro would rate it 2nd category I think. If you use the Col du Mont Cenis you can either come from the maurienne valley or you come over the great col de l'Iseran, the highest pass of the alps, and of course you can also put other passes before the l'Iseran like I did here.
The last serious climb you can put before the finestre is over
Moncenisio. This would be a 1st category climb and completely in italy. Like sestriere you cannot put many hard climbs in front of it but the climb is pretty steep so you don't need much more before finestre. IMO not the best way but if you have a finestre stage and nothing before finestre you can actually always use Moncenisio so its great that this climb exists.
Btw, you could also use the Col de I'Echelle before the finestre but I don't see any scenario in which that would make sense
Which climbs to put after the Finestre
Lets start with the most obvious one, which is of course
Sestriere. Easy flat mtf, hardly any flat after the descent. I don't want to say much more about this possibility because its the classical one and actually everyone should know it so lets go forward to the second one which is:
Montgenevre is a climb which is comparable to the climb to Sestriere. However you would need to climb first to Sestriere and after a short descent to montgenevre. I posted such a stage on the Race Design thread not long ago. I think it would make a very interesting finish because most people would be isolated after the Finestre. Now that the riders are isolated nobody would want to set the pace up sestriere, so there would be attacks and I think that there would be a possibility of some big gaps due to tactical skirmish. Btw, you could also make a downhill finish in Briancon directly after Montgenevre. If you go even further than Briancon you would have the chance to make a very hard mtf on the
Col de Granon. To be honest I am not the biggest fan of that because the Finestre would become less important but it would definitely be interesting to see how such a stage would be ridden.
The most obvious finish besides Sestriere is a finish in Pinerolo. For that the riders first have to ride down the actual finestre descent and than a lot of false descent down to Pinerolo. However the route would probably go over
Pramartino a 2nd category climb which was used in a giro stage with the equal finish in 2009. That stage also featured Moncenisio btw.
I am not the biggest fan of this finish but I other people here like the idea for example Libertine Seguros once wrote something like:
The Finestre is difficult enough that after the climb there would be people all over the place. However many riders could come together on the descent, but they would have to spend a lot of energy for that because it is a false descent and not a real one. So the race would completely explode on the Colle Pra Martino.
Of course there are numerous other possibilities to finish the stage after the Finestre but there is only one more I want to mention, which is a mtf in
Jafferau. You could do that either with: Finestre - Sestriere - some flat - jafferau or with Finestre - Montgenevre - Col de I'Echelle - Jafferau. Not the biggest fan of both but I think that hardly anyone has ever thought about especially the second one, so I thought its worth mentioning (I know that the street of the Col de I'Echelle isnt always in good condition but according to quäl dich this bad street is only about 200 m long)
Sorry for spelling or grammar mistakes, but I really don't want to read through this a lot so I just hope everything is fine