The Grande Partenza this year is in Liguria, where things kick off with a fairly short TTT, before a difficult first week, encompassing several well-designed hilly stages, sees us hit our first MTF on stage 5, the climb to Abetone. The long and fairly gradual drag is unlikely to be conducive to big attacks, particularly so early on in the race, but we should see who's on good form. Soon after on stage 8 we encounter another MTF, this time at Campitello Matese (which, incidentally, and somewhat tragically, is the hardest MTF of the race), which is a more difficult climb than the Abetone, and with these two climbs we should see a little bit of a climbing hierachy established, something similar to the two Apennine stages last year, although one hopes with slightly more meaningful gaps.

However in their travels through central Italy the riders must be on alert at all times, as a variety of tricky hilly stages, perhaps the most difficult coming on stage 9, follow in quick succession, culminating in stages 11 and 12, which should see some decent action, if perhaps more from the slight outsiders than the main favourites.

Stage 14 is the key ITT, the longest in a GT since the epic 2009 Sestri Levante TT, and we could see pretty large gaps here, and the pure climbers could be facing large deficits as we head into the mountains. The first mountain stage follows immediately afterwards, with the 1-2 punch of the steep and challenging Passo Daone followed by a more gradual climb up to Madonna di Campiglio, scene of a memorable stage win by Marco Pantani 16 years ago, the day before he was pulled for a ridiculous hematocrit. The riders may be spurred on by such history, and we as the audience certainly hope so: a theme of this parcours is that the climbers have to seize their opportunities, with the MTFs few and far between and a general formula of putting the hardest climb as the penultimate climb emerging, so the Passo Daone could prove an important battleground.

A far more likely battleground however, manifests itself in the first stage of the third week, the Mortirolo. Like Daone, it is the penultimate climb, but is followed by the climb of Aprica, a much easier climb than Madonna di Campiglio. Overall Stage 16 is quite a difficult stage, although probably easier than the sawtooth profile suggests - only one cat.1 climb on the stage, after all. This will be a key stage for those looking to win back time lost in the TT; the Mortirolo will hold the key to success.

Stage 18 presents an interesting opportunity: the tough climb of Monte Ologno before a descent, yes you read that right, finish into Verbania. With descent finishes sadly becoming increasingly rare - I think there are in total three mountain stages with descent finishes across all three GTs this year? If I am correct that is simply abominable - this adds a little variety to the route.
However, the race will most likely be decided on the last two proper stages, Stages 19 and 20. Stage 19 presents a good case for being the queen stage, with three 1st category climbs in the Valle d'Aosta, and should be more of a spectacle than 2012's insipid offering, and Stage 20 is a repeat of the same stage from four years ago, tackling the epic Finestre with its gravel roads before finishing at Sestriere. Once again attacking on the penultimate climb will be key here.
The race then finishes with its usual flat procession; we return to Milano this year after a two-year hiatus.

Thoughts:
I really quite like this route, although in my opinion it misses a classic Dolomite queen stage. A nice long time-trial gives the 'all-rounders' some encouragement, but while the race may lack truly difficult mountain stages there are certainly enough mountains to compensate, and well-designed stages as well. Another big plus about the route is the medium-mountain stages; some of them look excellent, such as stages 4 and 9, and others still quite interesting, such as 7, 11 and 12. For the mountains we seem to have gone with an 'avoid the high altitude mountains' approach after shambles of 2013 and last year's Stelvio-gate, with only three climbs topping out above 2000m (Cervinia, Finestre and Sestriere, although Sestriere isn't really much of a climb) and while yet again the Dolomites proper are inexplicably overlooked there are plenty of beautiful climbs along the route, and I quite like the importance placed on the penultimate climb in most of the mountain stages, encouraging attacks from far out.

Alberto Contador

The undoubted favourite for the 2015 Giro title, Alberto Contador was in imperious form last year and looked as good as ever to challenge for another Tour title. However, like his rival Chris Froome, he had to abandon before the Tour really got going with an injury sustained from a crash. Nevertheless he bounced back incredibly from this setback, going onto win the Vuelta in a fairly dominant fashion ahead of Froome. This year his form has been less impressive, but that can be attributed to the fact that he is going for the Giro-Tour double, and so has been building up to a tough mid-season period. However, his ability at the highest level is unquestionable, and one thinks that it would take a crash or some other unforeseen disaster/miracle on the road to prevent him from taking his third Giro title.

Rigoberto Urán

Second behind Nairo Quintana last year, and second behind Vincenzo Nibali the year before, Rigoberto Urán must be wondering whether an elusive Giro title will finally come this way, and he out of all the contenders would have been the most pleased during the route announcement, with a long, undulating time-trial that should play to his strengths, and an absence of big mountain stages where he could crack and lose time like Val Martello last year. However, the question remains whether he can climb with the very best like, say, Alberto Contador in top form.

Richie Porte

Despite having never excelled in a Grand Tour before, Richie Porte must make the list of favourites simply on account of his outstanding form so far this year, winning Paris-Nice, Catalunya and Trentino, and accumulating five wins on hilltop/mountaintop stages along the way. Similarly to Uran, the long time-trial should benefit Porte greatly, and he has shown flashes of unbelievable climbing skill; the question remains as to whether he is able to sustain his 2015 level over three intense weeks of Giro racing.

Fabio Aru

With a mysterious 'stomach illness' and being publicly called out on Twitter by Greg Henderson, the past few days have been uncertain ones for Fabio Aru. However, his class, very much present last year where impressive displays of climbing, particularly up to Montecampione, saw him leap up to a surprising third place overall. 2015 sees an older and wiser Aru, and although he has not had many racedays this year, he will likely be prepared and motivated for what could be an exciting Giro for him.

Domenico Pozzovivo
Beñat Intxausti
Jurgen van den Broeck

Damiano Cunego
Roman Kreuziger
Leopold König
Przemyslaw Niemiec
Ryder Hesjedal
Darwin Atapuma
Esteban Chaves
Franco Pellizotti
Ion Izagirre
Yuri Trofimov/Ilnur Zakarin
Damiano Caruso
Mikel Landa

Other notable participations:

Philippe Gilbert
Tom Boonen
André Greipel
Michael Matthews
Simon Gerrans
Giacomo Nizzolo
Elia Viviani
Grega Bole
Luka Mezgec
Stefano Pirazzi
Luca Paolini
Diego Ulissi
Davide Formolo

alexkr00 wrote:
It seems that I missed this but is Grosu not riding the Giro?

trekbmc wrote:
What's going on with Nibali then? I thought he was racing both the Giro and Tour? (I probably missed some large piece of information somewhere )

Riis123 wrote:
Very nice preview there, allthough I dont quite agree on the route (and the thing about this being the greatest race..) I like the hilly stages and the long ITT, but it could potentially turn out to be extremely boring mountain stages if none show courage to go from out far. On the other hand, it could turn out the other way around, but I doubt it given the tendencies the last 7-8 years. The Cervinia-stage is nicely designed, but the last climb is just too easy.