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.
Two changes on GC with Egan Bernal now 10th overall after O’Connor slid to 14th but Netcompany-Ineos won’t cheer given the other was Thymen Arensman falling off the provisional podium after he was dropped on the final climb and Jai Hindley is now third. Also Jhonatan Narvaez did not finish the stage, with reports he was sore after colliding with an unmamed 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
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 and off you go. 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 problem is it 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 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.
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.