With tomorrow'sstage 10 from Civitavecchia to Assisi, the Giro leaves Lazio and heads to Umbria's most famous town. Although only the final climb is categorized (and that only barely, at cat. 4), this is one of those classic lumpy Giro stages with barely a kilometer of flat road.
After riding stage 10's 166-kilometer course, Michele Bartoli, interviewed on Processo alla Tappa, picked Joaquin Rodriguez for the stage win. As the winner of all three climbers' monuments, Bartoli knows his way around an uphill finish, and I think he's right on the money here. Just nine seconds behind race leader Ryder Hesjedal on gc, J-Rod is clearly chomping at the bit to grab the maglia rosa. Tomorrow's finish offers him much more fertile territory than the unlikely ripple on which he tried to take a flyer today.
Meet me on the flip for an in-depth look at tomorrow's final kilometer (average grade: 8.5%).
Today, I walked the last kilometer of tomorrow's course, and took a few pictures.
The riders will climb to the city gate
then go through the gate, with a view of the Basilica di San Francesco
across the Piazza Inferiore di San Francesco (RAI van already in attendance):
around the corner and up, on Via San Francesco
continue on a straight, uphill drag
then up a bit of false flat and through another gate
to the final, sharp climb
to the finish in Piazza del Commune, in front of the 1st century BC Temple of Minerva, the best-surviving Roman temple front in Italy.
There are a couple of great spots for attacks on this climb, and also a few kilometers earlier, where a similar one-kilometer climb maxes out at 15%. Should be a fun one!