Giro d’Italia Stage 11 Preview

The Giro goes into the Alps… the Apuan Alps. No matter what the label, one of the hardest climbs of the Giro awaits midway.

Hoole smokes: a win for Daan Hoole after everyone’s pre-race pick Josh Tarling faded on the latter part of the course to finish seven seconds behind the towering Dutchman. As well as being fast and tall, his name has plenty of vowels which came to the relief of Italian TV citing him each time a rider time posted a slower time than his. As the rain lashed down in Pisa he must have known he’d won the stage with plenty of riders left out on the course.

Among the GC contenders Primož Roglič crashed in the morning recon but had a better time for real, leaping up five places on GC and now less than a minute behind Juan Ayuso, who is still suffering from knee issues, he’s not in the clear yet. In the snakes and ladders game Egan Bernal crashed during the TT and Richard Carapaz lost time too.

Isaac del Toro had a tough time, slower to the first time check than Nairo Quintana (who not only isn’t suited to this course, he isn’t racing for GC either) and is now only 25 seconds ahead of Juan Ayuso.

The Route: 186km and 3,850m of vertical gain. It’s away from the coast with the small climb to Montemagno, but a big road and rarely more than 4%. The climb to Barga after 60km is harder, 2.5km at 6.5%.

The picture says plenty and the 19% section is real, not some exaggerated inside line up a hairpin bend. This is a long climb up a ridge with little respite, that descent two thirds up only comes after brief “wall” section and is chased by the hardest part. But at the top – the Bocca dei Fornelli – it’s only half way to go in the stage.

The next climb to Toano is gentle as it winds up past meadows. The Red Bull sprint comes atop an unmarked climb, 2.5km at 6%.

The last climb of the day is 4.5km at 6%, climbing from the river valley to pass the Pietra di Bismantova, a mini table mountain.

The Finish: a small tour around town, with an 8% ramp up for a few hundred metres then a brief descent to the flamme rouge and then a gradual drag uphill to the line with a sharp bend with 100m to go.

The Contenders: a breakaway day? UAE could always try to isolate Roglič but the risk is they’d be joined by others who could get a free ride like Simon Yates or Tiberi. So a breakaway win is the most likely outcome. The finish suits punchy riders but there’s the Alpe to get over first.

Diego Ulissi (XDS Astana) is suited and going well, his team mate Lorenzo Fortunato too. Luke Plapp (Jayco) can try a repeat too. Reprising the breakaway from last Friday Romain Bardet (Picnic-PostNL) comes to mind but he might be retained to help Max Poole. Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) seems suited but doesn’t seem to be at the height of his powers.

If the move doesn’t stick the uphill finish suits Isaac del Toro (UAE) as it’s not so steep.

–
Fortunato, Del Toro
Bardet, Plapp, Pidcock, Ulissi, Bilbao, Brenner

Weather: sunshine at first and 20°C in the valleys but cloudy later with the chance of rain.

TV: KM0 is at and 12.20 and the Alpe starts around 14.00. The finish is forecast for 17.15 CEST.

Postcard from San Pellegrino in Alpe
This isn’t the Alps but the Apennines. Within this long chain, the spine of Italy, sit the Apuan Alps, a series of jagged mountains that do look more Alpine. The Giro has only been here three times, a climb of this majesty and yet the race never visited until 1989, came back in 1995 and then 2000.

Why so few visits? Logistics and budget play a part, there’s little at the top, there’s no ski resort to host the finish. In fact there’s barely room at the top to put up a finish arch let alone more of the infrastructure needed so a summit finish is probably out of the question. It’s also probably because it’s so hard, the Giro’s route every year is a similar shape with the dip south in the first week and the Alpine conclusion. San Pellegrino mid-way might be too selective.

But the Giro doesn’t always have the same route. In 1989 the San Pellegrino was on Stage 21, the penultimate stage of the race before a finish in Prato. The next day it went further south again for a time trial finish in Firenze.

Imagine a Giro like this with the Alps mid-way and Apennines in the third week? This could require easing the course in the Alps so that the overall classification doesn’t set like concrete for the third week and then finding the hardest climbs of the Apennines for a tough conclusion but “the Alpe” today shows there’s plenty and if you can’t reach snowy peaks you can still get long climbs with savage slopes and that’s no bad thing for a race worried about snow ruining play. But while an Appenine conclusion could be interesting for the sport and for the sake of variety, the Alps will always tempt the race as they can bid for multiple stages and offer plenty of hotels. But it is possible.

26 thoughts on “Giro d’Italia Stage 11 Preview”

  2. I would imagine both UAE and Redbull-Bora want to let their respective leaders recover and heal this week, and attack next week. With 4 riders in the top 10, UAE does not have a lot of riders to cover break formation, and to pull the peloton. They will need help from other teams, or they start putting their riders in the breakaway. Redbull-Bora is down 1 rider. The only other teams in the top 7 are Visma-LAB and Bahrain Victorious. Will they help control, or will they attack?

    Strong, unpredictable breakaway seems likely.

    • The finish town feels a bit functional but it’s nice countryside for riding and the Pietra could look scenic but less so if it’s raining today. It’s Parmigiano Reggiano cheese country but visit and it’s very hard to find a cow, most are kept in sheds all year long.

      • Yes, I meant the rock itself rather than the town – a small provincial town with some great restaurants (you’ll probably get better tagliatelle there than in cities down on the plains) – but little else to offer. But the rock is magical, not overcrowded and reasonably approachable. 🙂

  4. When I was watching it I thought he was a but stubborn about going around the outside. Probably just a case of committing too early to that line but he knew the rider was there.

  6. The Centenary Giro won by Menchov, and featuring good ol’ Lance, had that sort of route, so more than just possible.
    The issue is Alps FOMO rather than Appenine limits, i.e., one feels that you haven’t got enough of the Alps (which regularly happens with a traditional course including 4-5 serious Alpine stages, because there are so many iconic climbs and areas that you end up “where’s Tre Cime and Gavia and Stelvio and Agnello and Fauniera and Mortirolo and Zoncolan and Grappa and Colle San Carlo and Mottarone and Marmolada and Pordoi and Giau etc”).

      • Yes, and may I add that an even better idea might be to shift away sometimes from the heavily back-loaded model with all the hardest stages clustered into the 3rd week and try…

        1) to get a better balance between the penultimate weekend and the 3rd-week block, like it was a 1st and 2nd round of a match, not a long climax (you’ve had some 13 stages before, to build up a crescendo). Before Vegni that was more often the standard, while he went increasingly for the “final nuclear bombing” approach, namely in 2015-2017-2020-2022-2023-2025. Note that most of them worked, especially when the first week was lively and selective, too. The other approach scores slightly better, for my taste at least, but that’s not the question. More about alternating and, even more so, back to our point, taking into account that you can draw a serious Alpine weekend at the end of the 2nd week, then go South to build your balanced final block in the Appenines.

        2) More delicate, even. Once in a (long) while, get a clue from the Vuelta as the TDF has also been doing recently and let the riders make the finale hard out of hard racing rather than mammoth climbs (in order to exploit the Appenine at its best). Delicate subject, I know, because it’s very specific of the Giro’s identity to test the extreme fondo limits having the riders facing the hardest climbs when they’ve been brought, no matter how slow they’ve ridden before, to the pointy end of their resistance, just out of ridin’ and ridin’ for 3 long weeks. I’m aware and I like the perspective. Yet, it’s just one more option offered by Italian territory… imagine today’s stage was the penultimate, maybe before a Sunday ITT, a bit like in 1989. Or last Saturday Sassotetto & walls as the “last occasion”. It’s not about having “easier” stages, more about less of set pieces, less evidently decisive climbs, less obvious tactics etc. Again, that’s just in order to conjecture “how could you make Appenine work at the end of a 3rd week”.

        However, yeah, a lot of it is about “who’s paying” but nowadays smart local networks of institutions (starting with Comunità montane and up) have been able to apply for and be granted European funding of different nature, especially when it’s not about ski towns anymore but a different angle, more akin to the Appenine’s qualities. Go for it before it’s all switched to war weapons.

  8. Winner (and possibly the podium) from the current top 5? Yes incidents can (and probably will) happen but seems a long shot to take out all five, everyone else has to pull back around 2 minutes. Yes there was Chris Froome but that was a moonshot extremely unlikely to be repeated.

    • Tao 2020 and Nibali 2016 and Quintana 2014 were also out of the top 5 or barely in come st. 11, minutes behind and with plausible rivals above, although they all already came some way up thanks to the penultimate weekend like Froome (less so Quintana), still feeling far from the top and with several rivals above when they entered the 3rd week, only to turn things around – of course all those four examples included someone cracking really big big time (Almeida, Krujiswijk, Evans, S. Yates).

      It’s like 4 editions out of 12, a decent 33%, not that unlikely, really. Barring Tao they had came into the race as favourites or among favourites of course but things had taken a different shape, only to end up in a turnaround.

      • God, what has happened to TGH? He hasn’t done much the past couple of seasons since his big injury, no? I always liked him as a rider and a frank human.

      • The 2016 Giro. My heart still aches for Kruijswijk! It was in the bag for him!!! But then, on the Agnello…

        For some reason, I’ve always found Stevie K to be very likable. Seems humble and mild-mannered, just focused on putting in the work to help his team. His quality as a rider goes far beyond what his palmares show.

  9. A fast and furious race to the sprint at 46 km then a large group tries it luck, is my guess. Fortunato to go for KOM points plus a whole bunch of guys from the “minor teams” looking for something from the Giro.
    Tarling “only” getting 2nd I suppose was down to having a week’s racing in his legs but the rain meant all the GC guys had to take it easy which might have saved some guys. Even so the big question is still, how are Ayuso and Roglic really?

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