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Race Routes Discussion
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| Stromeon |
Posted on 30-09-2015 19:06
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If you don't want the Giro route presentation in a week or so spoiled, then don't open the spoiler.
Spoiler 
Folks over at CN Forum have found this leaked image of the route for the Giro next year, corresponding to most of the rumours.
There are several things I like about this route, but there is immediately one problem: there are three mountain stages. That's it. Just the three. Added to that, the medium mountain stages don't look that difficult.
I'll wait for official confirmation (plus proper profiles) on October 5th to give my full verdict, but the two mountain stages other than Risoul, which we already knew about, look very good. The one to Corvara, which looking at the very vague altimetry looks like Sella-Gardena-Campolongo-Giau-Valparola, and to Sant'Anna di Vinadio, which I'm pretty sure is Vars-Bonette (Bonette in the Giro!!!)-Lombarde with a very short uphill finish at the end. Alpe di Siusi MTT is also in there, and there are other bits of interest - the Cividale del Friuli stage I showed earlier, a finish in Pinerolo à la 2011 Tour with Pramartino, and Arezzo stage has a very high chance of featuring strade bianche.
Edited by Stromeon on 30-09-2015 21:14
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 30-09-2015 19:45
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Early on that looks like one part awesome two parts terrible  Will keep hopes up.
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| Riis123 |
Posted on 30-09-2015 20:05
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Hard to judge right now, I'll be waiting for the real profiles, but so far, I dont think it looks too good. Surely the 2014-route seemed a lot better. |
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| Movistar |
Posted on 30-09-2015 20:16
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Always a fan of MTT so that is fun, though it seems like the entire race is going to be decided by the 2 major TTs. Also the second half of the Siusi looks pretty hard from what I saw so that is good. Nothing over 10% though which isnt great and seems like it will really favor a big engine guy. So with the other TT and the MTT we may get a very out of the ordinary winner. |
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| Riis123 |
Posted on 30-09-2015 20:22
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Movistar wrote:
Always a fan of MTT so that is fun, though it seems like the entire race is going to be decided by the 2 major TTs. Also the second half of the Siusi looks pretty hard from what I saw so that is good. Nothing over 10% though which isnt great and seems like it will really favor a big engine guy. So with the other TT and the MTT we may get a very out of the ordinary winner.
Tom Dumoulin, suddenly realizing all the big mountain stages is at 2500 metres, betting on them getting cancelled and smashing everybody at the ITT's?
Uran surely has good cards on his hand as well.
But if those stages doesnt get cancelled or shortened or whatever, they surely are sufficient to launch big attacks and gain lots of time. |
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| Shonak |
Posted on 30-09-2015 20:31
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Only three mountain stages? Landa to give the Froome Dawg some of his own medicine at le Tour. It's happening. 
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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| Riis123 |
Posted on 30-09-2015 20:48
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Shonak wrote:
Only three mountain stages? Landa to give the Froome Dawg some of his own medicine at le Tour. It's happening.
After the first MTF and ITT, Landa is 5 minutes behind Froome anyways. You know that, duh |
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| Spilak23 |
Posted on 30-09-2015 20:52
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everyone should go to the giro just for that final stage. It's 10x times tougher than the 'hardest Vuelta stage ever' in Andorra.
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| Stromeon |
Posted on 30-09-2015 21:52
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The more I think about the Vinadio stage the more excited I am getting. Lombarde is a very difficult climb, its official stats are 21.5km @ 6.9% with the steepest parts coming at the beginning. It tops out around 10km from the finish, and after a short descent the last 2km are at nearly 10% or so. Should see some excellent racing, if the stage is raced as planned, and the idea of seeing a snow-covered Bonette in the Giro is very exciting, although I don't think they will do the 'Cime' loop so that Agnello is the Cima Coppi 
On the downside however, the top of Bonette is around 70km from the finish and there's quite a bit of valley road between that and the start of Lombarde, which would probably neutralise attacks. But it's still an excellent piece of stage design.
I am rather worried about the weather though. Bonette and Agnello are both >2700m, this is Stelvio territory, and Lombarde is also well above 2000m. There are not many decent options for last-minute weather-influenced modifications - in fact the most likely options if Bonette is impassable is either doing a ridiculously short stage Guillestre-Larche/Maddalena-Vinadio from the north which would essentially just be an MTF sprint or go back over Agnel, which would waste Agnel not once but twice!  Doing Cayolle instead of Lombarde is a possibility, but it's the shallow northern side which is pretty meh and it's quite high itself.
Spilak23 wrote:
everyone should go to the giro just for that final stage. It's 10x times tougher than the 'hardest Vuelta stage ever' in Andorra.
It certainly was the hardest Vuelta stage ever, the only stage that comes close is the stage in 1992 from Vielha across Portillon, Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and then Luz Ardiden. It wasn't raced amazingly, but it was still a very difficult stage. This Giro stage, yes, is maybe tougher, especially in May weather conditions, but it's even shorter than the Andorra stage, the main criticism of which was it's insubstantial length.
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| Riis123 |
Posted on 30-09-2015 22:14
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So we got Agnel at 19 and Bonette-Lombarde at 20, but what's the climbs on stage 14?
Stage 13,14 and 15 are super good, but without a rest day between it could prove problematic and without the druuuuugs (at least not as drugged), it could come down to a waiting come on stage 19 and 20 which I fear |
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| Spilak23 |
Posted on 30-09-2015 22:17
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Pordoi-Campolongo or Giau-Valparola. It's not known yet
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| Stromeon |
Posted on 30-09-2015 22:24
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I'm 99% certain it's Giau-Valparola. Indeed it seems to me that 13,14 and 15 are the wrong way round - the difficulty of 14 will inhibit attacking on 13, and the MTT on 15 will inhibit attacking on 14. Thankfully the MTT isn't too long, it's not like Monte Grappa, and the mountain stage is difficult, but it's still not exactly optimal.
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| Strydz |
Posted on 01-10-2015 05:54
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Riis123 wrote:
Hard to judge right now, I'll be waiting for the real profiles, but so far, I dont think it looks too good. Surely the 2014-route seemed a lot better.
Agree that at first glance it doesn't look that great but without profiles it's hard to judge, I still rate this years route as being top shelf and we did get some fantastic racing with 2014 also pretty good but thanks to the snow we were robbed of some fireworks. The Giro is really is really in a tough spot when designing routes, we all want the big mountains but being in May it's 50/50 if they will be passable. I do like that we will have some gravel/dirt roads in this years route and being a fan of the TT I'm happy they are there aswell.
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| Riis123 |
Posted on 01-10-2015 10:47
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Strydz wrote:
Riis123 wrote:
Hard to judge right now, I'll be waiting for the real profiles, but so far, I dont think it looks too good. Surely the 2014-route seemed a lot better.
Agree that at first glance it doesn't look that great but without profiles it's hard to judge, I still rate this years route as being top shelf and we did get some fantastic racing with 2014 also pretty good but thanks to the snow we were robbed of some fireworks. The Giro is really is really in a tough spot when designing routes, we all want the big mountains but being in May it's 50/50 if they will be passable. I do like that we will have some gravel/dirt roads in this years route and being a fan of the TT I'm happy they are there aswell.
I actually meant 2015-route, not that it changes anything |
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| Stromeon |
Posted on 28-10-2015 19:10
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I hadn't found this when I was going through the Tour route a week or so ago, this is a really excellent medium-mountain stage finale design. I can barely believe what I'm seeing!
I've been trying to think of a better Tour design in recent years for a while now, pretty much since they released the route, but I'm struggling; 2007 and 2008 are probably the ones that run it closest. It's still got a number of flaws but I have to say I'm very pleased, it might even be better than the Giro for once (although I haven't made my mind up about that yet!)
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| Riis123 |
Posted on 28-10-2015 23:50
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2008? That route was turrible imo. Pyrenees sucked hard and the mountains were relatively izi. Ill take 2007 anyday. And definitely 2013 over those two. |
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| Stromeon |
Posted on 30-10-2015 12:20
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Riis123 wrote:
2008? That route was turrible imo. Pyrenees sucked hard and the mountains were relatively izi. Ill take 2007 anyday. And definitely 2013 over those two.
The mountain stages weren't the best in 2008, but the route had a nice flow to it (and there was the 3 HC proper queen stage). The first week was excellent: an uphill sprint and then a tricky bumpy finale on stage 2, an early TT to get things going and create some gaps on stage 4, and then two very nice Massif Centrale stages, and they continued with well-designed medium-mountain stages throughout the race. I suppose thinking about it further the Agnel stage was terrible, and the next two were the wrong way round, but it still wasn't bad.
2007 is the only route so far in recent times to have found the balance between mountains and TT, which I applaud, but we had to wait until stage 5 to see even the slightest bump in the road and the Alps were a bit meh (although they produced some interesting racing). I'd probably agree with you it was better than 2008.
I suppose 2013 in comparison with other routes is good, it's just I tend to look at it and think 'what a waste of the hundredth edition' This was their chance to go full Zomegnan, whack in 100km of TT and brutal mountain stages, but we didn't really get that.
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| Riis123 |
Posted on 31-10-2015 09:28
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But what he did get was a nice start at Corzika (well, the stages were turrible considering what he could have gotten, but its better than flat still), i super first stage in the mountains and the next stage Martin won there Sky cracked. Totally we had 90 kilometres of ITT and TTT which is a at least decent balance, Mont Ventoux which always is nice and some very tough Alpine stages, topping it off with Semnoz which was ridden super hard, obviously won in classy fashion by Nairo Q. I guess they didnt have any queen stage per se, but they had 4 very hard MTT + 2 extremely rough stages in the Alps and Pyrenees with 5+ category category 2,1 and HC climbs all over the map, finishing downhill.
I liked the route. Very tough and ensuring the best rider won. Unfortunately, it could been so much better if Froome hadnt dominated at Ax-3 and the ITT, but its all good. When I look back at the 2008-edition and the gaps in the GC.... uugh. |
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| Dusen |
Posted on 03-11-2015 10:54
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Does anyone know when the Vuelta route for next year will be showed?  |
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| clamel |
Posted on 15-11-2015 10:28
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Not sure if this is the correct thread, but I try...
I looked over the schedule for next years racing (2016) and to my surprise I saw "an old friend" returning.
Vuelta Ciclista a la Comunidad Valenciana
Put in first week of February.
Anyone know more about this race upcoming.
It has great tradition back almost 100 years, but gone some 10 years ago from the pro circuit as far as I know.
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