Roads to Ride: Abetone

Monte Gomito 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.

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Giro Stage 4 Preview

Yesterday’s stage had the action concentrated mid-stage, today’s finish includes a very difficult climb near the finish.

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Giro Stage 2 Preview

The race begins its anti-clockwise lap of Italy with a 177km jaunt along the coast to Genova, much of it retracing part of the Milan-Sanremo route in reverse. A sprint finish looks likely.

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Giro Stage 1 Preview

Giro Stage 1

Italy’s most famous finale in Sanremo is the starting point for the Giro with a 17.6km team time trial. As well as the race to win the stage and take the race lead there’s also the battle not to surrender too much time to rivals.

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Team Victory Rankings

With the Giro starting tomorrow a quick chance to check the lie of the land across all teams with the victory rankings. After the busy month of April we’re now one third of the way through the season as measured by race days.

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The Giro’s Sprinters and Stage Winners

Michael Matthews

Covering the contenders for the Giro is like trying to preview the dessert course of a meal because the GC riders will be serving up their specialities late in the race, biding their time until the final week and the race’s final sweep across the Alps. Before then many will animate the race so here’s a look at some of the names likely to liven up the race in the coming weeks.

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Who Will Win The Giro?

With Nairo Quintana out of the picture the 2015 Giro d’Italia is likely to feature Fabio Aru and Rigoberto Urán again but they’ll have to confront Alberto Contador and Richie Porte too. Four riders in search of a podium? It could be a Pirandello play but it’s the 2015 Giro d’italia.

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Astana Licence Reasoned Decision

The UCI have published the Licence Commission’s reasoned decision to let the Astana team ride on. It confirms last week’s speculation that whatever trouble the team was in was related to softer, cultural issues rather than anything dramatic.

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Old News: Bio Passport isn’t Watertight

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News that the athlete bio-passport isn’t foolproof has been doing the rounds after France Télévision’s Stade 2 show took some athletes, “microdosed” them with EPO and their values didn’t ring alarm bells on the AMPU bio passport system.

News? Actually no it’s been set out in academia since 2011 and in the same year Italian pro Leonardo Bertagnolli was telling the police just the same. Still since the report has got some traction so here’s a quick look at the issues.

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