First stage after the rest-day is a very interesting-looking one. At 132km it's the shortest road stage of this year's Giro, but the last 20km should provide us with some nice GC action. The Passo della Mendola will likely not have any impact on the race other than shedding some domestiques out the peloton, but the climb of Fai della Paganella (10.3km @ 7.4%) is pretty serious for a second-category, and topping out 10km from the finish offers a great platform for an attack to stay away before the final little rise to Andalo (though with the actual climbing about 2km @ 6% its barely worthy of cat.3 status). Sandwiched in between a rest day and a flat stage we should see some GC moves here as the first Kruijswijk-dethroning attempts begin.

A flat stage. Either the sprinters teams want it, in which case it will be a sprint and Nizzolo won't win, or they don't, in which case Nizzolo won't win either.

A hilly stage with a beautiful finale. The climb to Pramartino (4.7km @ 10.5%) is the opposite side to that climbed in the 2011 Tour, and is actually the steeper side (the one the Schlecks were moaning about having to descend). It's a really tough climb and my eyes are immediately turning towards Nibbles for an attack and then a fast descent on this one. Not to be forgotten is the Muro del Gatto-esque Via Principa d'Acaja just 2km from the finish, it may only be 500m in length but it averages 13.2% and gets up to 20%, meaning we won't have a sizeable group sprinting to the line together.

The mighty, mythical beast that is the Colle dell'Agnello returns to the Giro for the first time since 2007 (although we have seen it in the 2011 Tour, from the same side, and the 2008 Tour, from the other side) although its position more than 50km from the finish means we're unlikely to see attacks unless someone's feeling very brave in very bad weather. In full, it's an ominous 21.3km @ 6.8%, but it is in two fairly distinct parts: the first, from Casteldelfino to Chianale, is 10.8km @ 4.4%, taking us up to an altitude of 1763m, before the next section is a smidge harder than the Giau, yes the Giau, in its entirety; 10.5km @ 9.3%. If we have bad weather conditions and snow this could be an epic climb seeing loads and loads of riders dropping off the back like flies. A long descent which after negotiating a few tricky turns near the top is for the most part not particularly technical, however, negates much action before we have our only straight-up mountain-top finish of the race, at the ski resort of Risoul (12.9km @ 6.9%), where Rafal Majka will have happy memories of his victory from the 2014 Tour de France.

This is a PROPER mountain stage, make no mistake. Although only 134km in length, we pack in long cat.1 ascents in a non-stop whirlwind of pain. The Col de Vars begins right from the very start of the stage and with 18.3 inconsistent kilometres at 6%, with the steepest stuff at the beginning, it will ensure a good fight for a strong break. The monolithic Col de la Bonette follows soon after (22.3km @ 6.7%) although we're not climbing the Cime loop in order to keep the Cima Coppi in Italy (or at least on the border). Nevertheless it's still a very long, very hard grind and the peloton should be minimal at the top of the ascent. A period of 10km of false descent between the end of the descent and the start of the next climb is the only flaw in this stage design, but it's a small one, and if someone's feeling very daring and there's weather chaos about, a move could be made on the Bonette. More likely, is that we will see a great deal of action on the Colle della Lombarda, which at 20km @ 7.5% is considerably steeper and perhaps more difficult. It's an absolutely brutal climb and we should see allsorts going on here. It tops out 10km from the line before a fast and furious descent takes us to the foot of the small but steep ramp to the Sanctuary where we finish (2.4km @ 8.1%) This stage will be absolute carnage whatever the weather, so I'm just praying that it goes ahead as planned.

The flat parade stage finishes proceedings off much like last year, although we get to see a nice finish in Torino (would have been nice if they'd included the Superga somewhere...)