The final mountain stage. If you plan to watch, note the timing is different so that TV coverage can switch to the start of the women’s Giro which begins today.
Stage 19 Review: a breathtaking stage, and that was just the scenery. The fresh green foliage of early summer, the jagged peaks with their last stripes of snow, and deep blue skies. It was even better because of the racing.
Tudor surged on the Passo Duran with Michael Storer and Mathys Rondel on the attack. Derek Gee-West joined them as did others and a group coalesced with Giulio Ciccone, Giulio Pellizzari, Einer Rubio, plus Sepp Kuss as a watchman for Visma. Ben O’Connor was briefly there but could not hold on. The group was a clear threat to others with top-10 positions on GC to defend so it had a hard time riding away but slowly took time. Netcompany-Ineos and even Decathlon-CMA CGM had to ride later on to ensure the move was contained.
Ciccone was sprinting for the mountains points all day and got into a beef with Einer Rubio when the Colombian started to challenge him for these. When Rubio went for the intermediate sprint he got heckled by Storer and Gee-West, they wanted the time bonuses but perhaps didn’t realise Rubio leads the Red Bull classification so had a reason to go here. When Rubio sprinted again on the final pass of the the day, the Falzarego, Ciccone was stung into action and attacked solo. He took a minute on the descent but it was insufficient on the final climb, sapped by the flat valley road he was fading, his pedal stroke was less a tell and more a broadcast.
Pellizzari and Kuss attacked with Gee-West trying to follow, only for Pellizzari to blow and wait for his team mate Jai Hindley. Kuss then sprinted past Ciccone to take the stage, with Ciccone unable to help Gee-West much. The Italian now has the mountains jersey but to use an Italian idiom, he’s put “too much meat on the fire”, as in he’s been fighting on several fronts and having lost his cool with Rubio might have cost him the stage. That’s conditional given how well Kuss was moving.
For all Tudor’s commendable audacity, the net result was they cracked Ben O’Connor who slid from 10th to 14th meaning Rondel is now 11th overall or top onze in French. Two other changes on GC to note with Egan Bernal 10th overall thanks to O’Connor’s slide, but Netcompany-Ineos won’t cheer given the other move was Thymen Arensman falling off the provisional podium, he was dropped on the final climb and Jai Hindley is up to third. Also Jhonatan Narvaez did not finish the stage, with reports he was sore after colliding with an unnamed team bus after Stage 18.
The Route: 200km and 3,750m of vertical gain. A flat dash across the plains after a start to commemorate the 50th anniversary of an earthquake and disaster. The first climb of the day is 7km at under 6%, nothing severe but with a series of fun hairpins.
It’s up to Piancavallo on the main road, the ski station access route that’s built for traffic. It’s 14km at almost 8% and that’s comparable to Alpe d’Huez but the difference is today is more irregular, the first half is steeper with some 10% and even 800m of 12% along the way. Then it’s 6-7% with even a flat part in the second half.
It’s down from Piancavallo via a small backroad amid forests and mid-way there’s a brief rise and then a series of tricky, irregular hairpins. At Lake Barcis the route is on a main road that loops back to the Piancavallo climb again.
The Finish: the Piancavallo climb again. The slope eases to 4% once in town.
The Contenders: Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-LAB) is again the easy pick, his team can try to keep the breakaway within range and then he’s got a long climb that is perfect for him, steep slopes to shake off his rivals that then ease for him to go into time-trial mode and gain time on others.
It’ll be hard for other GC rivals to get a look-in but the way the slope eases does leave Vingegaard exposed if he hasn’t distanced them.
The breakaway has a good chance, more space to build up a lead but ideally contenders for the summit finish go clear with a colleague tasked with towing the group clear. Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull) has got some energy back but can he go for the stage or does Jai Hindley’s third place the absolute goal? This makes him a harder pick.
Can Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) relax now? He’s got the mountains jersey and can secure this with a few points on the first time up Monte Cavallo and with this he ought feel less pressure to take the stage, he doesn’t have to go in the breakaway.
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Vingegaard |
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Pellizzari, Ciccone, Gall, Hindley |
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Rubio, Harper |
Weather: sunny and 30°C
TV: KM0 is at 11.00am and the finish is forecast for 4.00pm CEST. The first time up Piancavallo begins at 1.55pm and the second time at 3.20pm.
This earlier finish is because the first stage of the Giro Donne is on TV after the men’s stage finishes. The stage is by the coast, as flat as a piadina and a Lorena Wiebes win looks likely.
Postcard from Piancavallo
Want to go skiing on Monte Cavallo today? Then just bring your skis and boots. Never mind the absence of snow, there is now a synthetic ski run and so can ski here every day of the year. It’s not very long so few will travel far for the experience of sliding down a plastic slope.
The plastic slope could get crowded in winter. The ski resort sits at 1,200m and lifts can take skiers up to 1,805m. That’s low for a ski resort. It’s not a “car park + ski lift” either. This is a purpose-built resort with hotels and inns, nothing vast but one of those places where you climb up a mountain and find incongruous urban architecture. Its selling point had been the first resort in Italy to have artificial snow cannons, almost a guarantee of snow.
Only these days it can be too mild for the snow cannons to work. In recent years the local press has headlines of the resort having no snow. What to do? It’s a question many similar places are facing, in Italy and beyond. Some are closing, ski lifts rusting in the wind, hotels boarded up.
Piancavallo is doubling down. Hosting a Giro stage is part of this, a way to draw people to the resort for day-out but also to remind TV viewers that it exists as a destination for hiking and il biking, Italian for mountain biking.
One thing Piancavallo has going for it is that if there’s no snow in winter then it can still have better weather than down below. It’s where the mountains meet the pianura friulana plains and in winter the flat land below can be blanketed in fog formed by cold air stuck below the mountains. So people drive up to get above the clouds and find sunshine.
All this has an effect on pro cycling. The highest ski resorts can do without the publicity of the Giro and the Tour de France, they don’t have to invest as much in alternative activities, even if the summer can be lucrative. But for other places cycling is increasingly a salvation and something to buy into. Literally in the case of today.
little editorial note: in your route description you write: “The first climb of the day is 7km at under 6%, nothing severe but” and it ends abruptly.
Stage 19 was a great watch, to be sure. I wonder what tumult in the standings might occur today.
Fixed the missing text, apologies if anyone was hoping for “brutal medieval cobbles on a steep wall” 😉
Dead for 4 days but up and riding! Pellizzari seems to have outdone Lazarus … Kuss looked good all day (well, he’s not been overly busy in the peloton) so the win was not unexpected, especially so after Ciccone run out of anger energy.
Podium spots seem decided so will today be a case of protecting GC spots? Somebody will have to be on a really bad day for there to be changes.
With less than 30s between Hindley and Arensman I would not call the podium ‘decided’. Last mountain stages have surprised before.
With Pellizzari mean to say yesterday that having given up on GC if he had a couple of days to rest relatively and get some energy back he can rebound and he did yesterday. A contender today but how much help does Hindley need?
Well maybe there’s something to that Red Bull marketing slogan about getting wings 😉.
Really enjoyed yesterday’s stage. There was always something going on. I find Rubio a curious and fairly annoying rider. He seems to have spent his entire career getting shouted at for not doing a turn, and is now making friends pointlessly sniping mountains points.
I’ve read and heard Rubio’s assertion is that he and Ciccone agreed Rubio would take the Red Bull Kilometre points, a competition he leads, (and coincidentally bonus seconds which seem meaningless to either) and in return Ciccone could take the KoM points, a competition he leads When Gee-West, Ciccone’s teammate, took the Red Bull Kilometre bonus seconds, and the points which seem meaningless to him, Rubio felt the agreement was broken and hence “stole” the KoM.
Whether justified or not Rubio certainly felt he had a point to make. Classic Giro polemica, all very entertaining and reinforces it as the best Grand Tour…!
It’s not just Rubio’s assertion, it’s also Ciccone’s version, so we can assume it’s pretty true
^___^
I must have pressed the reply button just moments before you posted yours!
Yep. Heard that too. Seems perfectly reasonable too.
Much the same is true for Ciccone and his determination to never act better than half his age. Carrying on like that He desperately needs a slap in the face and some lengthy sessions with a good sports psychologist.
Other reports have suggested that Rubio did a deal to get the Red Bull points in return for not contesting the KOM points, the other Lidl rider sniped him for the Red Bull points and so he felt the deal was off and he was allowed to race for the KOM points.
He had agreed with Ciccone that he would not contest first place on GPMs if they didn’t fight for the Red Bull km. Apparently, he expected (rightly so, may I say) that the agreement included all Lidl Trek riders but Ciccone then said that he could not speak for Gee… ROTFL…
In fact, it’s not like Ciccone raced much as if Gee was a teammate ^____^
Funny what you say about Rubio after Valgren’s stage just happened and, more generally, Rubio having worked quite much on the front in breakaways this Giro (or in the past). He generally gets shouted at for two reasons:
– racism and abuse
– people not understanding that if a team places three athletes in a break and two are pulling hard, this gives the team all the right to keep their “break captain” protected.
But racism is really reason number one, as point 2 is normally well understood with other riders.
Silly assertion, racism.
In addition to being a pedant.
Great argument, Doubter. One notices from far you’ve learnt it all from Descartes.
Hi. Racism is a bit of a stretch no?
The highlight for me was Eulàlio’s smile for the camera.
He frowned later on when things were getting hard. Seeing Kuss and Gee-West in agony too was notable too as you don’t see these pain faces as often.
I thought, at first, Kuss was teasing T. Rex for his now famous pain face. But then it lasted for 500m and it was clearly not fakery.
That descent from Piancavallo to Lago di Bàrcis looks extremely sketchy on Street View – narrow, irregular, mossy surface in places.
A real “back road”… but it’s been resurfaced in large parts for the Giro.
The other day I wondered in the comments if Kuss was off form or building for the Tour after an alarmingly short pull for Vinny. Yesterday gave us the answer! Ciccone would do well to learn about Kuss’ temperament too as he may well have lost himself the stage win with his antics.
You’re right about the antics but the comparison is sheer nonsense!
Kuss could sit tight all day with no other objective and no need to work for the break, it was a great athletical feat all the same but still quite a “parasite win” (totally legitimate, of course), and, to me, inferior as an overall performance to Gee’s (probably also to Ciccone’s).
Very interesting thing to say about Kuss. I don’t think Gee would agree with your assessment, as he said in an interview that Kuss pulled the chasing group through the valley before the final climb. He made a point of saying that Kuss had done it but was still able to chase down Ciccone and hold off the rest of the group to win the stage.
I guess they’re buddies 😉 Probably much more than Gee himself and Ciccone, and rightly so!
Jokes apart, interesting take. I clearly didn’t notice live: the flattish section after the descent was less than 15 minutes so I probably didn’t pay much attention, but maybe I’ll give a second look at that part of the stage with the “multicamera”.
Anyway, was it so, it was the same effort as Ciccone on the front, only with much less previous energy wasting.
Totally agree with you. Totally disagree with Gabriele (not for the first time).
As for a school of character, perhaps Kuss isn’t precisely the right role model, in that sense, as he himself made clear during the post-race interview, describing himself as a person who, when trying to achieve something which matters to him, makes much more mistakes etc.
^____^
(By the way, as I often wrote here I’m quite rooting for Kuss whereas I frankly don’t care much about Ciccone)
“Top onze” ! Then Rondel is fine…
I didn’t know about racism for Rubio, but what strikes me the most is how bad he rides tactically : the Valgren stage was a model in that perspective. It’s the same as Ciccone or sometimes Remco : a series of attacks without surprising anyone, just to show how you’re strong, and then act very annoyed when the others have defiance for you. There’s a lack of basic psychology or understanding about the consequences of your actions on other people minds… If you have to make more than one attack, then it means you’re already wrong 🙂
To come back to the author of the beginning of my post in an absolutely virtuosic circular construction, the duel between Rubio and Pinot few years back was very funny in this way, with Cepeda the only clever rider.
Good reference re: Rubio! ^___^
Talking of basic psychology, also worth noting that several cyclists, including Remco and Pinot in that case, sort of ignore that their own status places them in a different condition than most rivals, not to speak of less winning or much younger ones. Hard man Cancellara was also a full-time whiner on this subject, despite having been literally gifted a Monument (or three) by people riding too generously towards him.
However, although I essentially agree with your post above, let me add that sometimes you need partial attacks to select a different set of riders on the front, especially when you’re clearly the strongest or you have a Rui Costa glued. You attack at different levels of effort but with a series of repeated moves hoping that the roulette eventually gives you the most suited numbers. It’s not always because of this, but it often is, and of course some riders are better than others playing that game. Equally, even the best riders in this practice may sometimes fail. All that is part of cycling’s beautiful complexity which everybody’s getting less used to in the current time and age, first and foremost many athletes and DSs. Not implying that’s what Ciccone is doing, obviously…ROTFL.
Currenrly it looks like the table is perfectly prepared to allow Vingo and Visma to sweep up everybody’s dishes including the mountain jersey. Now it’s just about them deciding to do so or not.