The Giro swings north with a parade up the Adriatic coastline and an inevitable bunch sprint. The finish includes two late intermediate sprints and some cobbles in the last two kilometres.
Month: May 2015
The Giro d’Italia One Week In
The Giro d’Italia opened with a team time trial and for the whole week Astana and Tinkoff-Saxo have kept going in the formation. Day after day the bunch has been driven to exhaustion by a line of sky blue or fluo-yellow jerseys. But for all their efforts there’s little to show with Alberto Contador and Fabio Aru just three seconds apart.
Alberto Contador’s shoulder has been the preoccupation since his crash but what about his legs? His attack on the road to Abetone wasn’t the usual heavyweight blow to his rivals and he was quickly reeled in by Fabio Aru. Meanwhile Richie Porte has covered everything and sits in the perfect position, assuming his off-day doesn’t arrive.
Giro Stage 9 Preview
A day for a breakaway with tough terrain all the way to the finish to disrupt any chase. But there’s no script and Astana might fancy another tug of war with Tinkoff-Saxo. Unlikely but the hilly course as means there’s uncertainty.
Giro Stage 8 Preview
If Wednesday’s uphill ride Abetone had a lively finish it was short. Today’s arrival at Campitello Matese is a genuine summit finish with 13km at 7%, enough to scatter the field into small groups. Whoever takes the maglia rosa here can hope to hold it for a week.
Giro Stage 7 Preview
A marathon stage with a strength-sapping uphill finish. Of all the stages to ride after your shoulder has been dislocated and taped up this has to be a tough one. At least there’s no strade bianche portions for Alberto Contador to endure.
RCS, The Giro and The Gulf
This should be a piece detailing the finances of the Giro d’Italia but it turns out the event and its finances are mere footnotes buried with the accounts of RCS Mediagroup, an Italian media conglomerate. As great as the Giro is, it is no money-spinner.
Money can be made though and the Giro’s heritage is being exploited for new revenue opportunities in the Middle-East and perhaps beyond where a brand new short stage race can prove more lucrative than an established grand tour.
Giro Stage 6 Preview
Almost a rest day. Certainly fans and grand tour contenders alike can stand down from full alert and watch a sprint finish.
Geo-Location vs. Guerilla Racing
When a breakaway goes clear in a major race like the Giro it can take a long time to identify the riders involved. It’s a problem for TV viewers and teams alike. Viewers can see something is happening but without knowing who is involved and teams have to know what’s going on for tactical reasons.
The technology exists to solve this and it’s coming to the peloton. We saw it already with the IAM Cycling team trialling a geo-location system in the Tour de Romandie where rider location could be tracked in real time. Is this good?
Giro Stage 5 Preview
The first uphill finish of the Giro. The climb to Abetone isn’t normally that selective but the way Tinkoff-Saxo and Astana are riding at the moment we could well see a GC showdown.
Roads to Ride: Abetone
The first summit finish of the 2015 Giro d’Italia, the road up Monte Gomito to Abetone is something to look forward to but also a worry. It’s harder than the profile suggests and coming at the end of Stage 5 it could reveal who will win the race outright. Fanciful? Not really, it’s happened before.
But enough fretting about the future, it’s been a classic climb and the launchpad for Fausto Coppi’s first Giro win. But most of time the Passo dell’Abetone is a regular destination for thousands of cyclists in central Italy keen to test their form on a long climb.