After a delay of two months, the route of the 2025 Giro d’Italia was presented yesterday.
The Grande Partenza and two other stages in Albania where already “leaked” in advance.
Stage 1 and 3 will be 160 kilometer hilly stages, stage 2 a 13.7 kilometer ITT.
The 2025 Grande Partenza is the Giro’s 15th start abroad and marks the first ever that a UCI World Tour visits Albania.
As the two hilly stages are probably not going to end in a peloton bunch sprint, sprinters will get their first chances in stages 4, 5 and 6, after the caravan travelled back to Italy on the first rest day.
Stage 9 is a tribute to the famous Strade Bianche classic, with some 30 kilometers of gravel over the white roads of Tuscany.
After the rest day, there’s another 28.6 kilometer ITT, and the Giro visits Slovenia in stage 14, expected to be a bunch sprint.
Monte Grappa in the last stage before the last rest day may give some fireworks, which are certainly expected for stage 16, with no less than 5 climbs.
Stage 17 enters the region where I will concentrate most of my own Giro: it features the Passo del Tonale and the legendary Mortirolo.
They might be taking the Recta Contador, though, to make this relatively tame Monno climb more spicy.
The two stages before the parade into Rome are going to be brutal, with lots of climbing, culminating in the final climb of the Giro, the infamous Colle delle Finestre, with savage gradients and a gravel section that brought me to my knees.
Although when the Giro travels the Finestre, that gravel section will be perfectly levelled for the occasion.
In the Giro the Italia of 2018, Chris Froome rode away from all his competitors on this mountain in what seemed like a suicide mission, but he subsequently captured the pink jersey after an 80 kilometer solo and eventually won that Giro…
