The best of the Bulgaria stages for action awaits with a difficult climb with 10km to go.
La vie en rose: the surprise were the crowds, plenty of people came out to see the race go by. The shock was the crash in the final with 600m to go, it felled so many riders the road was temporarily blocked. Riders can recon the finish, bloggers can scour maps, but organisers can place barriers where they want and the crash happened in a narrow point on a normally wide boulevard.
In the chaos this left ten riders clear to contest the sprint with Lidl’s Max Walscheid surging clear rather than leading out Jonathan Milan. Tobias Lund had a better lead-out but Paul Magnier even better one and the Frenchman was able to power past for the win and the maglia rosa.
Milan looked underpowered in the sprint, legs spinning in high cadence. Moments later he looked distraught when interviewed by Italian TV for losing out on the maglia rosa but he can try again tomorrow and came through unscathed. There were no immediate injuries in the crash but others will be sore today and into tomorrow. Kaden Groves seemed to come off the worst but the plan is to start today. Update: Matteo Moschetti won’t start today out of concussion precaution.
French cycling’s future is called Paul and not just Seixas. Magnier is from the Alps near Grenoble but he was born in Texas and lived there just long enough to start singing nursery rhymes in English. His father was a good amateur racer and Paul started out in mountain biking. Crossing to the road he saw himself as a climber, even when he turned pro with Quick Step for 2024 where he wanted to go back to the U23 Giro and race for GC but soon found out from his team mates at Calpe that he wasn’t going to be the new Mikel Landa. Instead he out-sprinted Tim Merlier and this and more gave him team leadership for his first ever pro race in Majorca… which he won. He had 19 wins last year and if they were in smaller races he was 21 with a lot to learn on the road. Now he’s leading his team at the Giro and wearing pink.
The Route: 221km, the second longest of the race and 2,700m of climbing. The middle part crosses the Balkan mountains with some 7-8% slopes in places.
With 14km to go the climb of out Lyaskovets stings. It’s 2.5km at 9.5% and has long parts of 12% and even an 18% moment on the way up thanks to some tight hairpins. It’s all on a small road in woodland so moving up is costly or probably impossible making this a crunch point for stage contenders and GC riders alike. The descent is more regular.
The Finish: charming streets to saunter past the churches and fortresses… if you’re strolling about on foot but these are narrow roads for a bike race with a pinchpoint before 2km to go, although the previous climb should have thinned out the field. It’s uphill at 5-6% between 2km and 1km to go with some cobbles too before flattening out for the finish.
The Contenders: a tricky climb to thin the field and reward attackers but it’s only one climb, this isn’t Liège or the Amstel. Seven minutes and basta.
There are a several names to contend with but none of them is a prolific winner. Among the attackers on the climb Christian Scaroni (XDS-Astana) has had a slower start to the season this year but his team can afford to aim for more quality than hustling for UCI points. Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) packs a good sprint for a finish like this but like more hills in the finish to make it more selective. UAE have options, Jhonatan Narváez is suited but form unknown after crashing out of the Tour Down Under, can António Morgado make it over the climb with the best If not then Jan Christen probably can. Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain) is a fit for today with colleague Edoardo Zambanini still after a first pro win so today is asking a lot.
Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché) is suited to the finish but is he in form? His team mates Simone Gualdi and Lorenzo Rota have a chance here too and all three did not ride the Famenne Ardenne race that has made half the team sick.
More Italian picks include Filippo Zana (Soudal-Quickstep) and Andrea Vendrame (Jayco) with the later having to hold on for the climb and get back for the finish.
Some sprinters have a chance. Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) among them as he’s part of a new generation of sprinters with big aerobic capacities too but his problem here is he can’t control the speed of the others in the finish, he can only react and follow and hope there’s hesitation up ahead. Orluis Aular (Movistar) is another fast finisher, Corbin Strong (NSN) too.
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Scaroni, Ciccone, Buitrago |
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Morgado, Aular, Magnier, Strong, Turner |
Weather: cool and cloudy, 18°C with the chance of some rain and damp roads in places.
TV: KM0 is at 11.05 and the finish is forecast for 4.15pm CEST.
Postcard from Veliko Tarnovo
Today’s finish town has hosted the Tour of Bulgaria plenty of times, although yesterday’s city of Burgas has enjoyed more visits. The stage race dates back to 1924 although it’s had its interruptions. Today is a fixture on the calendar and 2.2-rated by the UCI.
Last year Byron Munton was 7th overall, he’s been impressive with the Modern Adventure team this season, having rode with the Epronex-Hungary Cycling Team last year. Others in the top-10 overall over the years include Paul Double and Georg Steinhauser but the race is not big on revealing talent. This is not down to the event itself, more that the Continental / 2.2 stage race scene is structurally this way with few riders on this circuit moving up the pro ranks. Why could fill a whole blog post but riders are often picked up earlier by pro teams and put into development paths.
In 2021 Lukáš Kubiš finished sixth overall and came back in 2023 to finish one place higher. Now a stalwart of the Unibet-Rose Rockets team he is back on Bulgarian roads to ride the Giro.
If Pidcock were here, I would expect this stage to suit him. He was recently 2nd at Eschborn-Frankfurt, Ben Tullet 3rd, Simone Gualdi 5th, Alex Baudin 8th, Florian Stork 9th. Let’s see if any of them do well today.
He’s the archetypal rider for today, good for the climb and quick for the finish. But just as in Frankfurt he was heavily marked, we could see this today where the fastest rider up the climb isn’t guaranteed to win, it’ll get tactical on the descent, the twisting run through town.
Was unimpressed by the scenery yesterday but perhaps being unfair as only saw small sections, including the final kms. Hopefully better to come. Visma had opted for an old fashioned strategy for the final, which worked out very well. It did seem odd that the GC contenders (contender?) teams were not at the front “keeping their rider safe” but clearly there are other tactics too. Good that injuries seem relatively minor after such a big crash (not sure who thinks a mass sprint on a narrow section is a good idea for the first day of a GT). Wonder if we will see the same tactic today from Visma or whether JV might fancy a bonus second or two
The most scenic locations on yesterday’s route were obscured by coastal fog. Tune in today before the peloton reaches Sliven for views of the Balkan mountains and then for the final kms.
I thought the scenery was fine, although as you say coastal fog kind of ruined the view at times. In places, it even looked like England!
Not that narrow. A bunch sprint on the 1st day is a typical approach in many GTs. It motivates teams to bring better sprinters to the race, and it helps the race visibility to have a famous leader jersey wearer for the first days (sprinters are often more famous than stage hunters and some GC men won’t want to wear the jersey so soon; obvious exception, Pogacar, who had his tailor-made 1st stage – which he lost; or if you have the Vans/Mads at the start; etc.) In this case it was clearly to have Milan in pink, but… ops! Another interesting aspect is that you can have a fight for the jersey with frequent changes in the following stages thanks to bonus seconds (the Red Bull km yesterday was very lively for mere 2 seconds). Moreover, the first couple of stages (or three) tend to have terrible viewing figures (I personally struggle to fully understand why, but that’s it), so it can be a good idea not to “waste” interesting, selective stages there, given that you’ll have to comply with a general balance in stage types. This latter trend can be reversed, anyway, although you won’t have huge audience results in any case; the three GTs are trying hard to do that with course innovations.
All that said, a very short prologue can work for all the above. Make it 1-2 kms and a sprinter can win it, or make it 4-5 kms and you’ll have the fight for pink through bonus seconds in the following stages. Viewing figures might be bad anyway, but so what?
It was a bit narrow, they put the barriers in the road rather than up on the kerb. But you can run the finish on a wider road and we could have a crash too.
Still thinking of Milan’s post-race interview, as if the presenter had told him his house had burned down earlier in the day.
“Sbagliare un rigore” o “un gol a porta vuota” might be the idea. This was literally made for him.
Lidl-Trek seem to be on a complicated year physically, so it could be a real problem if Milan is not really where he should be because preparation didn’t work, which could explain him feeling worried. OTOH, if Milan’s impressive lack of efficacy yesterday was just contingent or mental, he can overcome it and make of it a decent comeback story, maybe winning in Milan, a bit like Bilbao losing in Bilbao…to later win in Issoire.
Magnier said in interview that a lot of GC riders were still in the mix when they should have been pulled out the way to let the sprinters through.
Riders will find a way to crash, no matter the width of the road but this was excessively narrow
Visma will probably set a decent tempo on the climb to Lyaskovets Monastery to keep Vingegaard in front and out of trouble but not chase down any non GC attackers. Christen if in form could feature in the finale and sneak away for the win.
Any thoughts on Michael Valgren’s chances? He got away from some handy GC riders to win stage five at Tirreno on a lumpy course with more climbs than today’s Giro stage.
I did think of him but he might be a bit too heavy for the final climb, he would need a harder course to wear down more riders. But it’s open to a lot of riders, if he didn’t make the list above he and and plenty have a strong chance.
As I commented elsewhere, I wouldn’t deem the road especially narrow, albeit for sure not the widest, but it wasn’t the cause of the crash, either. RCS has had some terrible arrivals, and I think I recall Naples this year being quite bad, indeed, but this was really nothing special. Huge speed, old style crazy sprinting, the head of the bunch always going for the barriers. The space was there, but this sort of crashes always happened in bunch sprints on every sort of road. Other interventions should be applied to prevent them.
Chris Horner has got a whole analysis of the crash (not sure its really needed) but two things can be seen. Firstly the barriers are the type with feet which protrude forward, although this was not the cause of the crash it does reduce the space available. We know safer barriers are in use elsewhere, RCS could have used these. Rider safety is a big issue yet here is one of the most high profile races using older, less safe equipment. Secondly there appears to be plenty of space to either side, the race route could have been wider, maybe less room for spectators but that is a lower priority than rider safety.
High speed sprints will always be dangerous but every effort should be made to reduce the risks.
Agreed on barriers’ feet, which I cited from the very first moment yesterday, but I think it made sense to use those available on site unless they were illegal (they weren’t).
As I said, space wasn’t really an issue in this case, and this is the opinion of most commenters I’ve read or listened in Italy or Spain.
In the case of “safety” it’s very important to act on what’s actually relevant, not use the word as a passepartout to defend whatever, and maybe to avoid tackling different aspects of the question.
The inflation of the mere word safety in cycling is one of the factor preventing real improvements when it puts the focus on less relevant aspects but then there’s a huge resistance on GPS or reducing speeds.
The wrong barriers were used so rider safety wasn’t great and that narrowed the road a bit but it seemed just about wide enough for a GT first day sprint. But perhaps the organisers could have erred on the side of caution and given the riders the full width of the road to avoid this discussion.
That’s not a way to tackle a serious subject, “what will cycling influencers will say if there’s not much to comment about?”.
Besides, road width is no neutral question. Finish locations, roadside type of public etc. are going to be impacted. Of course, I guess that people wanting to have paid entrance for motorsport circuits as cycling stage finishes will just love it.
Plus, say, why the focus on organisers and not on UCI officials approving the finish? Riders crashing at the TDF are to blame, but at the Giro… the finish might have been wider, although it had no relation with what happened
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Thank you as always for the postcards!