A day for the sprinters but the climbing mid-stage is worth more than a glance.
Ciuf Ciuf: a massive fight to get in the break, part of it tracked by the lurking Giro train that gets to follow the race at times, presumably adding rail closures to the nearby road closures. Those on board got first class seats to watch the racing. Close to 40 riders were away but the real selection only happened on the main climb of the day and Luke Plapp, Nairo Quintana, Pello Bilbao plus colleagues Wout Poels and Lorenzo Fortunato were away.
Behind an attack from Egan Bernal split the peloton and prompted a selection, including his colleague Thymen Arensman briefly going backwards and aware of the limited damage he eased off. Once the big riders calmed down it looked like the breakaway was clear for the day and thoughts turned to who would win: Bilbao from the sprint perhaps? Did Plapp have to go solo again, and if so how and where?
Only this was their problem, each rider was thinking about how to win rather than the need for cohesion to stay away. Their lead started to dip and after a few rampaging pulls from Mads Pedersen there was only a minute in it as Lidl-Trek had decided to go for the stage. Suddenly the breakaway was swept up and now EF lead the group and this launched Richard Carapaz’s attack. The move was telegraphed but nobody could or would respond, something Giulio Ciccone later confirmed.
Behind there was no Mexican stand-off as Isaac del Toro was the firs to chase, but alone and that wasn’t going to work. UAE put Majka to work but the Pole just limited the damage as up ahead the “Locomotive of Carchi” was full stead ahead for the win. At one point he had over thirty seconds but in the end he only took twenty, time bonus included and Del Toro sprinted for second, picking up the next time bonus. Behind Adam Yates lost a few seconds but Max Poole, already four minutes down on GC, lost over a minute.
It all made for a lively stage and still more uncertainty overall ahead of three calmer days before Sunday’s rendez-vous on Monte Grappa and the Asiago plateau.
The Route: 172km and 1,700m of vertical gain, today should be for the sprinters but the first half of the stage is hard going in the hills.
The first climb to Baiso is a tough one, 6km at over 5% and crucially with the best part of 3km at over 9%. The last climb to Borsea is hard too at 3.5km at 7% with a series of hairpins but that’s it for the day, almost 100km to set-up the sprint.
The Finish: a finishing circuit that’s a figure-of-eight shape on the banks of the river Po. It’s flat and and the route crosses the line once before so riders get to see the left hand bend with 400m to go, all on big roads on the edge of town.
The Contenders: pick your sprinter. Casper Van Uden (Picnic-PostNL) can put his time trial helmet back on but he’s lost his lead-out man Bram Welten. Olav Kooij (Visma-LAB) can try again and Wout van Aert is looking sharper so this can help, a lead-out is not essential but it can improve chances, especially as teams have relatively light trains at this Giro. Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) is the easiest pick, he and his team made it look easy in Napoli.
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) won’t like the flat dragster finish but the early part of the course could see Lidl-Trek try to sap rival sprinters.
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Groves |
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Kooij |
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Van Uden, Magnier, Fretin |
Weather: sunshine and clouds and the chance of a shower, 24°C.
TV: KM0 is at 13.25pm and the finish is forecast for 17.15 CEST.
Postcard from Viadana
Today’s finish is in a small town but there’s a cycling connection. It was here that Abici was founded in 2006. The company was created by three designers with the idea of recreating bikes like they used to be, solid steel bikes for riding about town but with top quality parts. The idea was to have stylish bikes with high functioning parts, all with a retro look.
Stylish it was, they did not have a shop but a bottega instead. When Fendi wanted a bike they called Abici, yours for $5,900 a lot today, even more back in 2009 when it appeared in Vogue magazine. When champagne house Veuve Clicquot wanted a fleet of orange bikes Abici did the work.
It felt like you were more likely to see an Abici in the pages of Monocle than up the road in Mantova. And as you might guess from the use of the past tense here the company has stopped trading. It’s an expensive proposition to sell a town bike at a premium price, although the starting price was a few hundred Euros.
In a different corner of the market Italian brands like Colnago, Pinarello and Campagnolo have become luxury brands and carefully positioned as such, but offer performance too. But this is becoming a challenge for Campagnolo. It’s back in the World Tour with Cofidis and also in the Giro with the VF Bardiani team too but this is neither luxury positioning nor, so far, performance… but Milan Fretin can change all that for day.
Is Pedersen the new Van Aert … he has been the life of the party!
That mid-stage climb was absolutely brutal and it seems a pity it was wasted on mid stage.
There are shades of Van Aert in the Tour in 2022, winning stages and in the point jersey, but also shaping the days when he can’t win.
Van Aert dropped Pogacar on Hautacam in the 2022 Tour. Mads has been incrediblely good but he will never get close to what WVA achieved in that year’s Tour. I think it was the greatest performance ever in a Grand Tour. Bunch sprint wins, TT win, working everyday for Vingegaard and in breaks on other days. He finished 21st overall too. Out of this world.
Spoiler alert!
Today’s stage reinforced what you are saying here. No Wout, no win.
I don’t know enough to put his performance in the 2022 Tour into context, but it was amazing.
Merckx in the 1969 Tour was probably the greatest performance in a Grand Tour (he did what WVA did, but also won the Tour and eight stages). But I agree, Van Aert was incredible in 2022.
I’d imagine Lidl-Trek will go bezerk on the mid stage climbs to shed some of the flat trackers. I haven’t been right much in this Giro though..
It feels like this Giro has come alive over the last few stages. I’m very much enjoying the open nature of it.
It’s likely to back to sleep in the coming days. It’s normal, we don’t get 21 days of action, sometimes it pays to ration TV time etc, eg tomorrow’s stage has a good finish.
@Richard S, the first couple of stages were good, just as the last five, which leaves us at 7 over 11 (7/11 very appropriate for cycling)… but although st. 3 disappointed because of the racers rather than the course, I’d agree with you that it doesn’t help to have *three sprint stages in a row* – plus a rest day – as it happened on week one, and as it’s going to happen again now (ok, Vicenza isn’t a proper sprint stage, but not really a tricky one, either, even if I’m sure something interesting might happen when I think back to that Contador vs. Gilbert duel).
Yes, “back then” we had 4-5 sprint stage in a row at the TDF but they were different times, people were more enthusiast just about anything in cycling, plus the sprinters were actually exciting… unlike now (I had hopes on Kooji, but it looks like his edge’s gone a bit blunt as the whole team’s for now). Three can be good if you have powerful popular figures duelling out, like match-rematch-tiebreaker, now it’s just dull. WVA struggling (notwithstanding his splendid victory) doesn’t help.
All in all, and to be frank, the unexpected may happen by definition anytime and anywhere, but on paper this second week is quite weak. We’ll be lucky if Sunday’s stage will provide as much (as little) as yesterday’s, given that the Grappa is climbed by one of the easier sides, if not even the easiest.
So, even if I totally agree with the theory of some balance needed, I can’t avoid to notice that the balance itself here has swung away from any proper uphill fight for too many stages. And it’s not like they’re really selective in any different manner, actually – even the ITT was “soft”.
I was expecting the race to go off the boil (although I was hoping for a bit more fireworks yesterday), and it duly has. It’s strange to hope for relatively boring racing, but that’s what these kinds of stages offer if nobody has any bad luck. Maybe we’ll get a little bit of excitement in the final phases, but it’s likely a lot of scenery and not a lot of action for a few days.
It’s also a semi-rest day for many riders, the climbing today adds to the fatigue so it’s not a free day but means riders will be more explosive tomorrow and later this week.
Oh, Mr/Ms Ring reads Monocle 🧐. Interesting but not surprising perhaps.
“ you were more likely to see an Abici in the pages of Monocle than up the road in Mantova.” 😁😁😅
Unfortunately, that kind of sums up the stuffs in that still very lovely magazine.
Carapaz’s attack shed some light on who was willing, or not, to chase. Ol’ man Majka got the short straw, but it was interesting to see Del Toro chomping on the bit and everyone else looking at each other. Not quite 2019 Giro all over again but an interesting move.
54 km in the first hour, up and over the big climb, yet still Pedersen was there at the front of the peloton chasing down the break, chapeau!
Back to the standard two man break today and a big bunch finish. 70 km on the flat as a run in to the line, could cause a headache or two if it’s “curb-to-curb” riders and all getting orders to be at the front. Let’s hope calmer heads prevail.
I was trying to find some context for the new women hour record, set at 50.455 kms by Vittoria Bussi a few days ago (along with the new women 4,000m “individual pursuit” record), so – as a far from exact comparison – I went checking male performances in flattish ITTs over 45 kms in recent years.
Well, I already knew it, but I was quite shocked by the extremely reduced number of occasions pro athletes now race that sort of distance / time as an individual test. Sort of Ganna having done 8 in his whole career until now, more or less the same for Küng, while Remco just 4 until now. And they’re specialists! Pogacar only ran that distance once and Vingegaard never did.
As a term of comparison, Cancellara raced ITTs at 45 km or more 26 times, Tony Martin 21 and even Wiggo got 20. Somebody like Nibali, closer to present day and an athlete who wasn’t surely going around looking for them, arrived at 12 (let me insist, not as a specialist, i.e. the reference should be Pogi and Vingo).
Michael Rogers raced 30 of them through his career. Indurain or Ullrich sit at 26, Rominger 36, Lemond 23, Fignon 26, Hinault 31, Coppi over 30…
So, it should be taken into account, when sometimes comparing speeds, if nowadays the effort duration happens to be notably shorter, as it often does. Not only in ITTs, obviously, but also as total distance of a GT, average stage distance, total and partial altitude gain etc. The impact on possible speeds is obviously huge.
While of course the (few) male athletes who reach the highest performance peaks can go well above 50 km/h on such a distance / time, a surprising big, big, big number of them would struggle big time to keep Bussi’s 50,455 km/h for a whole hour, at least according to the results of those few ITTs left as a (distant) comparison.
As a curiosity, Merckx had arrived at 49.431 kms (albeit normally considered a mediocre result against his potential, for a series of reasons, still a couple of kms over Anquetil). Until the unified protocol was introduced in 2014, even beating Merckx, still neither Boardman or Sosenka had hit the 50.000 km mark on a traditional setting, after the UCI had ruled out the tech and position novelties which had made the record skyrocket in the 90s.
Anyway, Bussi’s personal story (now 38 yo and a true lone wolf in cycling, in the tradition of Obree in a sense, a math PhD & researcher at Oxford) is well worth checking…
Bussi’s time is indeed incredible.
However, you can’t really compare road ITT to track times. The track is an ideal environment, and track bikes have an efficiency advantage over road TT bikes, in such ideal conditions (least, since UCI banned fixed-gears for road TT after O’Grady’s 2005 Giro prologue – strange choice, wasn’t really an ideal stage for a fixed-gear TT; fixed-gear should be allowed for road TTs IMO).
Of course, as I remarked a couple of times above!
More like a series of associated ideas spawn by the occasion, focus being on other aspects.
May I add that most ITTs happen at fixed dates so whatever accidental event in preparation brings you away from the optimum, whereas you’ve got normally some more margin with the Hour (although not a big one if you’re a private athlete as Bussi).
Guess a lot of tech entered more and more the equation, especially in the last decade, also as people adapted to the new rules and all. The first string of records in 2014 showed of course a big difference (~4%) with a long, flat top form ITT by the same rider (Worlds and such) but not the chasm which opened later, Wiggins being an exception (that is, at his best he could have aspired at a way better record). And perhaps part of it is not having anymore many long ITTs when you’re just racing…
It’s also telling and anyway just interesting how the whole Hour thing sat still for nearly two decades between the “back to ol’ rules” in 1997 and the “unified” thing in 2014. As I discovered reading about Bobridge, Aussies’ previous national record for th Hour was McGee’s (a good athlete) in 2000 at 50.300.
Stuey used a fixed gear for a road TT?
I never heard that. I assume the course was pan flat ?
Yeah, the 2005 Giro prologue, he had a special Willier fixed-gear TT bike with brakes: https://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2005/giro05/tech/?id=wilier
I don’t know if it was pan-flat, but I assume so. However, it was just 1.125 km. Slightly more than a kilo on the track! Not even sure TT bars are an advantage there. Hard to pick the right gear for that kind of distance, especially from a standing start, especially outside with wind. However, with the right gear, fixed would definitely be a big advantage – you can punch out power much better and accelerate much harder on a fixed-gear, so long as you’re on the gear. But such a short sprint, other factors could make or break.
He came in 8th, with a time of 1m22s, 2s behind the winner.
Note, even if not pan-flat, as long as the gradient is consistently up or down, and doesn’t vary massively, fixed-gear is still better.
There is a reason fixed-gears were popular in hill-climbing, and are still being raced in (non-UCI) hill-climbs to this day. On a consistent hill, a fixed-gear has multiple advantages – much more efficient, and lighter.
Thanks PaulJ
interesting info on hill climbing on a fixed gear
I should add that along with a consistent grade, you should be aware of sharp turns – which rules out my favorite climb that I’d want to outtech (= set a PB by means of smarts)
Lot of fixed-gear frames are built with a higher BB. Plus, tradition is to run shorter-cranks (165mm is very common on fixed-gears). I don’t worry about pedal strikes anyway.
Has Sam Bennett just totally disappeared… a tdf green jersey winner…
Ever heard of the QS effect?
I’d love more analysis of this, i.e. was the QS effect associated with a particular group of riders (lead-out men, plus big engines like Stijn Vandenbergh to keep everyone else fresh)? Or was it some other atmosphere/attitude in the team, perhaps instilled by Lefevere and other management? Or does it just reflect good talent ID by QS management (i.e. hire sprinters on the up and sell once their powers are waning)?
With the focus on Remco, presumably any QS effect for sprinters has now gone. But it’s an intriguing phenomenon that deserves more attention.
The short version of this is that Quick-Step had good scouting, a method of trying to give a lot of their riders their chances and also offering them relatively low contracts so the incentive was to go for the wins and then sign elsewhere for comfort, which helps explain the post QS slump for many. It’s different now, with the team built more around Evenepoel.
A good while ago. He’s 34 now and likely to be replaced at Decathlon with Kooij.
Just have to say Sam Bennett is an absolute star when it comes to giving time to fans. He hung around after the presentation at the national champs the other year for at least 15 minutes, for selfies and signing stuff, just worked the whole queue. He was there long after all the other riders, and most of the crowd, had gone! Absolute gent.
Ben Healy also very gracious about selfies, but legged it a lot quicker.
“tracked by the lurking Giro train that gets to follow the race at times, presumably adding rail closures”
Just a quick comment. Italy has the same population in a much larger area than England. There are lots of rural rail lines that run through largely empty countryside which only see one-or-two trains a day (sometimes even less). Hence it is quite easy to run the Giro-train along the race-route without having to cancel any timetabled train service.
This line has a train or more per hour, perhaps there’s room for overtaking, coordinating on one small section? We’ll see it again apparently on Stage 20… and if Carapaz wins there too.