The stages that will decide the Giro d’Italia GC

Cyclist
The stages that will decide the Giro d’Italia GC

We’re into the second week of the Giro d’Italia, with the first big mountain tests and the race’s only time-trial now in the rearview mirror. The general classification is starting to take shape, with just four big days of climbing left in the race.

With the GC pretty much all to play for, here are the must-watch stages that you need to set your alarms for.

Stage 14: Saturday 23rd May, Aosta – Pila, 133km

A stage bookended by big climbs

The next big GC test comes on Saturday and sees climbing from the off, with the 15.8km, 6.5% Saint-Barthélémy ascent inevitably leading to a breakaway of proper climbers while softening the legs of the contenders. If anyone is having a bad day, things could get messy very quickly with over 4,000m of elevation to deal with.

The third category Doues climb shouldn’t see any big action, but it will add to the building fatigue. The following pair of climbs is essentially one big climb with a descent in the middle, with the Category 1 Lin Noir (7.4km, 7.9%) leading to the Category 2 Verrogne (5.9km, 6.9%) for a total of 13.3km of ascent with a few kilometres of rest in the middle.

After that it’s a lengthy downhill to the Red Bull KM point at the base of the final climb to Pila (16.5km, 7.1%), which was last used in the 1992 edition and will likely be won by a GC contender (ie Jonas Vingegaard).

• Giro d’Italia star rating: 5/5

Stage 16: Tuesday 26th May, Bellinzona – Carì, 113km

A lumpy unipuerto stage

In the middle of the peloton’s journey in Switzerland from Bellinzona to Carì is a 33.3km stretch that consists of two laps of a loop with a pair of short climbs to help get the blood pumping and dish out some KOM points to someone not named Jonas.

There’s around 40km of subsequent relative calm before the day’s big summit finish of Carì (11.7km, 7.9%) arrives. It’s a continuous grind of around 8% only broken up by a slight dip to a generous 2% after 8km, but from there, the max 13% gradient hits in the final kilometre, which should cause some decent time gaps on the line. Coming just after the final rest day, this should set the race up for a big final week.

• Giro d’Italia star rating: 4/5

Stage 19: Friday 29th May, Feltre – Piani di Pezzè, 151km

The queen stage

While there could be some gaps created in Stage 17̵…