- Sep 20, 2017
- 11,945
- 22,562
- 28,180
The last all-Italian stage of the race. Just like Sunday, the finish is in the Alps, but this time the route is even softer.
Map and profile
Start
As I’ve said previously, this Gran Salida makes little sense, and the stage hosts for this stage are perhaps the best showcase. The stage starts from San Maurizio Canavese, a small town in the exurban area of Torino. Although there was a village here in antiquity, it never really developed beyond that. After the Italian unification, there was an internment camp for political prisoners from Southern Italy who refused to recognise the new regime here. Shortly after this, in 1869, the railway arrived, and the village slowly developed into a commuter town.
However, there is one thing San Maurizio Canavese is notable for: it is the birthplace of Giovanni Brunero, a rather forgotten but legitimately great rider from the early days of cycling. I’ve written about him in a previous analysis:
Brunero has never really been commemorated by the Giro, which has never started or finished in his hometown. Heck, I can’t even find any evidence of anything having been named after him or a sculpture having been erected anywhere. But apparently, it made plenty of sense to host a race which didn’t even exist yet at the time of his death instead, and so here we are.
I think we can all agree a picture of a three-time Giro and two-time Lombardia winner is more exciting than one of a bog-standard town. Here he is taking the other of his big wins, Sanremo in 1922 (picture by Agence Rol)
The route
The start and finish towns are close enough together to organise a mid-length TT, but with this being early in a race organised by Unipublic, it should hardly be a surprise that we are getting a road stage. That being said, it’s still a short day – aside from the TTT, ITT and Madrid parade, every other stage is longer than this one. Broadly speaking, the route consists of two halves: a rather circuitous trek northeast that mostly sticks to the Po valley, from where the riders double back via the Prealps. There are some rolling sections on the way in, but nothing steeper than an uphill drag. That changes when the riders reach the turning point after 60 kilometres, as the way back starts with the day’s hardest climb, Issiglio (Morris).
After a much shallower descent, it’s time for the intermediate sprint in Cuorgnè. The remainder of the stage is somewhat hilly, but never complicated. The route out of Cuorgnè is exemplary: the 4.7 ascent to Prascorsano may be irregular, but at a 3.0% average it can hardly be considered challenging. This is followed by the climb up to Corio, which is the profile below up to about 200 metres past the point where the village is marked.
After the brief descent, there are 20 kilometres left to race, and all of them are spent heading up the Stura di Lanzo valley towards Ceres. As such, the road constantly gains elevation, but until 1.4k from the line it’s a false flat that is usually at 2% or below, never exceeding 3%. At 4.1 kilometres to go, the route joins that of the 2023 Giro Donne stage that also finished in Ceres.
In the final kilometres, Unipublic have done four weird things. For one, they’ve categorised the finish as a climb, even though it really isn’t difficult enough to merit this. For another, they’ve categorised it as a cat. 4, a category they haven’t used for years and are not doing at any other point in this race. Moreover, the categorisation starts 1.4 kilometres before the false flat actually ends. And finally, the finish is exactly the same as in that Giro Donne stage, which means we have a hairpin at 60-70 metres to go. On that day, this wasn’t an issue as it was the queen stage and the peloton had been shredded on the climbs, but here we should have an uphill sprint. The gradient means speeds should be low enough to prevent particularly nasty injuries, but a significant crash in that final corner is very much possible. The profile below shows only the section after the false flat.
Finish
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most random GT stage host of all time: a town of barely 1000 people, of little historical or touristic significance, in Italy, but being visited by the Vuelta. Ceres dates back to the 11th century, and was apparently significant enough by the next century for the construction of a church with a tall bell tower (the latter still stands). It became the terminus of a railway line from Torino in 1916, but despite this, Ceres and the surrounding valleys have remained a little-developed part of the Alps. Aside from the aforementioned Giro Donne stage, no pro race has visited before.
(picture by Franco56 at Wikimedia Commons)
Map and profile
Start
As I’ve said previously, this Gran Salida makes little sense, and the stage hosts for this stage are perhaps the best showcase. The stage starts from San Maurizio Canavese, a small town in the exurban area of Torino. Although there was a village here in antiquity, it never really developed beyond that. After the Italian unification, there was an internment camp for political prisoners from Southern Italy who refused to recognise the new regime here. Shortly after this, in 1869, the railway arrived, and the village slowly developed into a commuter town.
However, there is one thing San Maurizio Canavese is notable for: it is the birthplace of Giovanni Brunero, a rather forgotten but legitimately great rider from the early days of cycling. I’ve written about him in a previous analysis:
Brunero has never really been commemorated by the Giro, which has never started or finished in his hometown. Heck, I can’t even find any evidence of anything having been named after him or a sculpture having been erected anywhere. But apparently, it made plenty of sense to host a race which didn’t even exist yet at the time of his death instead, and so here we are.
I think we can all agree a picture of a three-time Giro and two-time Lombardia winner is more exciting than one of a bog-standard town. Here he is taking the other of his big wins, Sanremo in 1922 (picture by Agence Rol)
The route
The start and finish towns are close enough together to organise a mid-length TT, but with this being early in a race organised by Unipublic, it should hardly be a surprise that we are getting a road stage. That being said, it’s still a short day – aside from the TTT, ITT and Madrid parade, every other stage is longer than this one. Broadly speaking, the route consists of two halves: a rather circuitous trek northeast that mostly sticks to the Po valley, from where the riders double back via the Prealps. There are some rolling sections on the way in, but nothing steeper than an uphill drag. That changes when the riders reach the turning point after 60 kilometres, as the way back starts with the day’s hardest climb, Issiglio (Morris).
After a much shallower descent, it’s time for the intermediate sprint in Cuorgnè. The remainder of the stage is somewhat hilly, but never complicated. The route out of Cuorgnè is exemplary: the 4.7 ascent to Prascorsano may be irregular, but at a 3.0% average it can hardly be considered challenging. This is followed by the climb up to Corio, which is the profile below up to about 200 metres past the point where the village is marked.
After the brief descent, there are 20 kilometres left to race, and all of them are spent heading up the Stura di Lanzo valley towards Ceres. As such, the road constantly gains elevation, but until 1.4k from the line it’s a false flat that is usually at 2% or below, never exceeding 3%. At 4.1 kilometres to go, the route joins that of the 2023 Giro Donne stage that also finished in Ceres.
In the final kilometres, Unipublic have done four weird things. For one, they’ve categorised the finish as a climb, even though it really isn’t difficult enough to merit this. For another, they’ve categorised it as a cat. 4, a category they haven’t used for years and are not doing at any other point in this race. Moreover, the categorisation starts 1.4 kilometres before the false flat actually ends. And finally, the finish is exactly the same as in that Giro Donne stage, which means we have a hairpin at 60-70 metres to go. On that day, this wasn’t an issue as it was the queen stage and the peloton had been shredded on the climbs, but here we should have an uphill sprint. The gradient means speeds should be low enough to prevent particularly nasty injuries, but a significant crash in that final corner is very much possible. The profile below shows only the section after the false flat.
Finish
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most random GT stage host of all time: a town of barely 1000 people, of little historical or touristic significance, in Italy, but being visited by the Vuelta. Ceres dates back to the 11th century, and was apparently significant enough by the next century for the construction of a church with a tall bell tower (the latter still stands). It became the terminus of a railway line from Torino in 1916, but despite this, Ceres and the surrounding valleys have remained a little-developed part of the Alps. Aside from the aforementioned Giro Donne stage, no pro race has visited before.
(picture by Franco56 at Wikimedia Commons)
Last edited:
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