With a rest-travel day in the Giro, why not pull out a book whether you’re travelling or looking for something to replace the TV coverage for a day? Dino Buzzati’s account of the 1949 Giro d’Italia stands the test of time. A writer dispatched as a special correspondent it is as much the story of Italy and its people as it is of the race where Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali duel. Many of the Giro’s sights and sounds from 1949 often find a reflection or an echo today.

It’s been translated into English, Spanish, German and French so many readers can enjoy it.

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A stage for the sprinters including a dragstrip finish along the shores of Lake Balaton.

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A time trial stage to reshape the overall classification. It’s also a small GC day, a form test and also because today supplies one third of the Giro’s total TT distance so anyone hoping to use their time trial bike as a tool to gain time on their rivals needs to get the most out of this stage.

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The Giro begins with a road stage that’s all about the uphill finish at Visegrad. Who will take the maglia rosa?

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The Giro d’Italia starts this Friday in Hungary and ahead lies over three weeks of racing. That much we know, the hard part is rating all the contenders and pretenders for the maglia rosa because so many have question marks about their form, their season so far or their consistency during a grand tour.

Richard Carapaz is the deductive choice in the absence of Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič because when they’ve beaten him he was at last often on their wheel while all the others had been dropped. Yet Carapaz hasn’t had it easy this season and it’s far from certain he can hold it together for three weeks. It makes for an enticing race, any emerging hierarchy we see atop Etna could be altered at the Blockhaus and rewritten again and again in the Alps.

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The Giro’s starting in Hungary and if you just want to enjoy the sport of a bike race riding across the countryside and through a capital city… then skip this post, do not read any further. A preview of the GC contenders should go up later today is available to read instead.

To look more closely at the race is to keep stumbling into Hungarian politics, and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán seems to be everywhere.

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With the Giro d’Italia around the corner the last thing on many people’s mind is arithmetic but there are molto points for the GC. However neither Lotto-Soudal nor Israel have any obvious candidates so they’ll have to seek points elsewhere this month.

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Here’s the Giro d’Italia for your diary with all stages listed along with a rating for their likely importance to the race or potential for action.

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Ciao, here’s an overview of all the Giro stages. There’s the stage profile and a short preview for every day, as well as more on TV coverage and the big stages to watch.

If you want this info over the coming weeks it’s also at inrng.com/giro and available via the fixed “Giro d’Italia” link at the top of the page for desktop users or the drop-down menu for mobile browsers.

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It’s always fun to muse over the new names and faces from the cobbled classics with a view to seeing them again in the coming years. Here’s a selection of riders who made a name for themselves…

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