Giro Route Released Early!

For your viewing pleasure.

The wheel of Giro route has been released, showing 21 stages, starting in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands and finishing in Turin. There are 4 "One Star" flat stages, 3 "Two Star" less flat stages, 8 hilly "Three Star" stages, 3 "Four Star" mountain stages and time trials, and 3 "Five Star" mountain stages.

Risoul, a major climb in the 2014 Tour de France features, along with Sestola, Sant'Anna di Vinadio. Notable features include a 40 kilometres time trial in the Chianti region, a ten kilometre uphill time trial and two insanely difficult mountain stages to conclude the race.

This is authentic, it's almost certain. Take this, the picture of this year's giro route, and then change the "5" in the link, to a "6". See what I mean! My first impression of it is that it's a bit unlike the Giri of the previous few years, with 60 kilometres of time trialling, and very little climbing until the final two stages.

Me - I don't really think much of it. Stages 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 17 and 21 look like sprint finishes, which is a relatively high number. There are also two flat time-trials making up 50 kilometres between them. The one I want to talk about is the mountain time-trial. It's on a 25 kilometre climb, but it's less than 11 kilometres long. This is the climb in question.

There's a conveniently situated last 10.6 kilometres that happen to be the steepest of the climb. I imagine they'll use those.

That Risoul stage. Here is Risoul:

That's no mystery, go and watch stage 14 of last year's Tour if you're curious. The climb beforehand could be the Col de Vars.

This looks like a Giro for time-triallists who can defend in the mountains more than climbers. If only we knew one who had nearly won a recent Grand Tour...