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Bill  On The Road

 by: Bill Oetinger  6/1/2021

The Show So Far

Often in recent years I have used my May column to review the pro cycling season leading up to the Giro d’Italia, which occupies most of the month of May. Then I do my Monday-morning water-cooler rehash of the Giro in June.

I skipped that May jump-start of the season this year. Instead, I’m adding it onto the front of this Giro report. The spring season was a bit abbreviated because of lingering COVID constraints, but thanks to the vaccine roll-out and other proactive measures, we actually have had a few good races…just not quite the jam-packed calendar we usually have. I’m only going to touch on a few high points out of the already slim list of results: just the ones that seem relevant for predicting the future.

So let’s hit the road…

Tadej Pogačar took up where he left off last year by winning the 7-stage UAE Tour (February 21-27). He did it by turning in a good time trial on Stage 2, then winning the uphill finish on Stage 3 and finally finishing a close second on the other hilltop finish on Stage 5. Final margin of victory: 35 seconds over Adam Yates.

He followed that up by winning the 7-stage Tirreno-Adriatico (March 10-16). Same path to victory: he won the only real hilltop finish on Stage 4 and then finished very near the top in the time trial on the final stage. Final margin of victory: 1:03 over Wout Van Aert and considerably more over all the other top guns: Landa, Bernal, Nibali, Simon Yates, et al.

Meanwhile, his compatriot, Primoz Roglič, looked like he had won the 8-stage Paris-Nice (March 7-14) right until the final stage. He finished 3rd in the Stage 3 time trial, just six seconds off the lead, then won Stages 4, 6, and 7, building up a lead of almost a minute over Max Schachmann and the rest of the hopefuls. He was clearly the best rider in the event. But a funny thing happened on the way to the podium. He crashed twice on the final stage, each time on a fast downhill. He got back to the group after the first crash but not after the second one. The rest of the riders did not wait for him the second time. He was isolated and badly beat up and eventually lost tons of time, dropping all the way to 15th. A great disappointment, no doubt, but at least he could take some solace from the rest of his week’s performance.

He got back on track a few weeks later at the 6-stage Tour of the Basque Country (April 5-10) where he won ahead of a stacked roster of good riders, including Pogačar (who finished 3rd at 1:07). He won the Stage 1 time trial. Then he and Pogačar finished together in the lead on Stage 3. And he sealed the deal by again finishing at the front on equal time on the final stage…but not with Pogačar this time. It was some of the best racing of the season, both for mano a mano physical effort and also for tactical strategy. The case has been made that Pogačar’s team kind of messed up their tactics along the way, but that’s all part of racing, same as crashing on a downhill.

Adam Yates transferred to the almighty Ineos-Grenadiers team over the winter (replacing Chris Froome). He followed up his 2nd overall at the UAE Tour by winning the 7-stage Volta a Catalunya (March 22-28). He had a decent time trial on Stage 2 and then won the hilltop finish on Stage 3. It wasn’t all that exciting—how he did it—but it was effective. After that, his team kept the race in a stranglehold, eventually putting Yates, Richie Porte, and Geraint Thomas on the podium. Total dominance but not much drama.

Adam’s twin brother Simon won the 5-stage Tour of the Alps (April 19-23). He won Stage 2, going off the front on the penultimate climb and hanging on up the final hill to win comfortably. It looked a lot like his brother’s stage win at Catalunya. He also finished third with the same time as the winner on Stage 4. Final time gap was :58 to Pello Bilbao.

More Ineos dominance at the 6-stage Tour de Romandie (April 27-May 2). Geraint Thomas won with Richie Porte 2nd. They were 2nd and 5th after the hilltop finish on the next-to-last stage but their efforts in the final-stage time trial moved them to the top of the heap.

So that’s pretty much it for the spring stage races. I don’t see much to discuss regarding the one-day races. The best of them all—in terms of drama—was Fleche-Wallone, with its usual fireworks on the final wall, the Mur de Huy. Primoz Roglič launched what looked like the winning move halfway up the climb but Julian Alaphillippe patiently watched and waited, and when Roglič started to wilt right at the end, he had just enough to come around him for the win…his third win at this event in the last four years. And then Tadej Pogačar beat Alaphillipe by half a wheel at Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

That brings us to the Giro d’Italia (May 8-30). You can see from the summaries above who the most active riders have been so far this year. The two Slovenians, Tadej Pogačar and Primoz Roglič, look like they’re in grand tour shape. The Ineos-Grenadiers team looks ready to rock, with a deep roster of heavy hitters. The Yates twins are looking lively. But of all the early-season hotshots, only Simon Yates was entered in the Giro. Many teams appeared to be keeping their powder dry for the Tour de France and sent riders to the Giro who were not quite top tier. Ineos’ team leader was Egan Bernal. He is a proven race winner but struggled in 2020 with a bad back. They claim he’s fully recovered. We shall see…

Filippo Ganna, the hottest time-trialer lately, won the Stage 1 ITT and then held onto the maglia rosa through two more sprinters’ stages. Stage 4 had a substantial but not too brutal uphill finish and that shook things up. Out of a break, USA’s Joe Dombrowski won the stage—a big break-out moment for him—and ended up 2nd overall behind his breakaway companion Allesandro De Marchi. Unfortunately for Joe, he crashed the next day and lost time, dropping back down the GC standings. The same crash also took out Mikel Landa, team leader of Bahrain-Victorious and one of the favorites. He was hauled off in an ambulance, his Giro over. Damiano Caruso thus inherited the leader’s role for that team.

De Marchi held the jersey for one more day, then Attila Valter wore it for three more stages of sprints and rollers, with the GC favorites biding their time. That all changed on Stage 9, which finished with a steep uphill on hard-packed dirt in a drizzling rain. Egan Bernal let the peloton know that, at least at this point in the race, he was back to his best or close to it. For a while it looked like he was content to sit in near the front of the lead group and not make a move. But with about half a K to go on the dirt road, a couple of other riders launched attacks and he responded. His acceleration was prompt and emphatic and he passed and dropped all the other wannabes and left them gasping.

He took over the leader’s jersey and kept it through several more stages of sprints and breakaways. Those nearest him in the standings shuffled around a bit but he stayed on top. Stage 14 was the next big uphill finish: Monte Zoncolan. They tell us this was the easier side of Zoncolan although the profile shows a pitch near the top listed at 27%! There was a break of lesser riders up the hill that took the top spots but just behind them, Simon Yates went on the charge and only Bernal could hang onto his wheel. Up and up they went until, near the top, Bernal came around Yates and left him behind, further padding his lead.

Two stages later they tackled what should have been the queen stage of the Giro, with three major passes in the Dolomites: the dreaded Fedaia, Pordoi, and Giau, all near or over 2000 meters on a day when rain, sleet, and snow were forecast. (The weather had been dismal for many of the Giro stages, with rain early and often…miserable conditions.) At the last minute, after consulting with the teams, the organizers rerouted the stage, bypassing both Fedaia and Pordoi but retaining Giau: almost 10% for almost 10 K, with a long uphill grind before the official climb begins. The weather was almost as bad as predicted, with cold rain most of the day. But Bernal rose to the challenge once again and attacked on the Giau ascent, going clear and staying away on the rain-slick 17-K descent to the finish. It was epic, heroic stuff. 

One little thing struck me right at the end of the stage…out in front, all by himself, Bernal rode no-hands along a twisting, slippery, cobbled road, slightly uphill, so he could strip off his black rain jacket, stuff it up the back of his jersey, and cross the finish line showing the pink leader’s jersey. He said he did it to honor the jersey and the Giro. Watch it in replay and ask yourself if you could pull off that stunt. As I say, a little thing, but just a minor reminder that these guys can do things we average riders cannot.

After the second rest day, with five stages left, Bernal led Damiano Caruso by 2:24 and Hugh Carthy by 3:40. Yates lost contact with the leaders on the Giau ascent and never got back, losing 2:37 and dropping to 5th overall at 4:20.

Of those final five stages, the last one was a fairly short time trial (just under19 miles and an almost flat profile). Three of the other four stages featured significant uphill finishes and the one nearly flat stage was the longest of the tour at 143 miles. So no rest for the weary warriors…nowhere to hide. 

Better weather returned for Stage 17 and the rain jackets stayed in the team cars. The stage ended with an 11-K ascent of Sega di Ala in the beautiful hills above Lago di Garda. Graphics on the TV screen showed the gradients hovering between 10 and 12% most of the time but there were a few pitches near the finish that topped out at a brutal 18%. Dan Martin won the stage out of a break. Behind the remnants of Martin’s break—at one point six riders—Ineos set a steady tempo that kept most of the handful of elite riders under control. In fact, all but a dozen or so had been shelled out the back of that group by the relentless pace. It was looking like a typical Ineos show of force, with three teammates pacing Bernal up the hill…everything under control. 

But with around 4 K to go, Joåo Almeida and then Simon Yates attacked. Bernal had to jump on his wheel. That worked okay for about a kilometer, with Bernal’s lieutenant Dani Martinez still there as well. But all of a sudden Bernal was off the back of the little group. It took Martinez a minute to even notice he was gone. Then he slowed and paced Bernal up the hill at whatever speed he could manage—damage control—while Yates danced off up the road. Second place Caruso, who had been dropped earlier, got back onto Bernal and Martinez and rode with them to the line. In the end, it was not a disaster for Bernal. He lost less than a minute to Yates. and other riders who had been potential threats lost even more time, in particular Hugh Carthy, who dropped from 3rd to 5th, while Yates went from 5th to 3rd. The real damage was perhaps psychological. Bernal and Ineos had seemed totally dominant up to this point. Now they looked a little vulnerable. 

The long, almost flat stage did turn out to be something of a rest day for most of the peloton, if you can call 143 miles at an average of 25 mph an easy day. After a busy and contentious selection process, a break of 23 riders was allowed to go up the road. Alberto Bettiol eventually won. (His average speed was 27 mph.) As he crossed the finish line, the Ineos-led peloton was just passing under the 15 K to go banner. It was frisky and feisty for the fastest handful of boys in the break, hammering hard right to the end, but for everyone else, it was cruise control…status quo. No changes among the favorites.

Stage 19 looked a lot like Stage 17, both ending with big but not quite ridiculous uphills. This stage finished with a 10-K climb to a remote nowhere called Alpe di Mera, southeast of Lago Maggiore. The lower slopes are in the 6 to 8% range but all of the top half is near 10% and a few pitches reach 14%. All the leaders hit the final climb in a bunch, most still with teammates to lend a hand. Once again, Almeida was the first to go off the front at around 7 K to go. Half a K later Yates jumped across and that started a bit of a jailbreak, with three or four riders from the top ten scrambling in pursuit. 

This looked like it might be big trouble for Bernal but he didn’t panic. He still had two teammates and they set a steady tempo, eventually catching and dropping all of the escapees except Almeida and Yates. (Almeida was riding well but was too far down the standings to be a threat. Yates however was another matter.) Yates won. Bernal conceded :29 to him, but he put time into all his other nearest rivals. When the dust had settled, his lead was 2:29 over Caruso and 2:49 over Yates. No one else was within six minutes so we pretty much had our podium right there…but who would be on which step?

Before dealing with the final mountain finish on Stage 20, I want to reflect a bit on the routes the organizers put together this year, or most years, really. I’m not 100% sure of this, but I believe the Stage 17 hilltop finish—Sega di Ala—and the Stage 19 finish—Alpe di Mera—were making their first appearances in a Giro. The final “mountain” on Stage 20—Passo dello Spluga—has been used before but I’m fairly sure they haven’t put it together the way they have this year. (More about that in a minute.) Anyway, the point is, I continue to be amazed at how many of these wonderful new roads they can keep pulling out of their hat, year after year. I love laying out routes (for tours) so I have a special appreciation for the creative thinking the Giro planners are doing with these new roads.

So…Passo dello Spluga! What a road! We did it on a tour in 2001 and I think I can safely say it is the most outlandishly insane mountain road I’ve ever done. It was the last of three major passes for us on a day that ended up being 112 miles, with over 12,500’ of gain, half in Italy and half in Switzerland. We did the road straight through, north to south: six miles up at 7% and then 20 miles down to the city of Chiavenna, losing almost 6000’ along the way. The Giro stage doesn’t do exactly that. They got really creative and figured out how to turn a downhill into an uphill. They descend from the snowy 6837’ summit for 12.5 miles, losing 3300’. Some of that is fairly tame, but much of it is extremely extreme: super tight hairpins carved into the cliff face, with steep chutes between the switchbacks…really tight; really steep. Halfway down the hill, they dodge off onto another little road—more downhill hairpins—race way down the valley, and get back onto the bottom half of the Spluga road, but now going in the opposite direction, back uphill…up and up, through many more hairpins and dinky tunnels. Finally, they veer off onto a teeny twister running up to a small ski station, Alpe Motta. That final ascent is 5.5 miles at 7.6% with the steepest sections touching 13%. Depending on how you define a hairpin—or tornanti, as the Italians call them—from the Swiss border to the finish—27 miles—I count 30 downhill hairpins, 16 uphill hairpins, and 12 tunnels, often unlighted. With the big stage in the Dolomites shortened because of weather, this stage really became the queen stage of this year’s Giro.

Now that I’ve set the table for the final road stage, how did it play out? Very nicely! It was one of the most exciting and entertaining races in a long time, with all sorts of drama, and fortunately none of it due to crashes or other bad voodoo…just good, hard racing. Well before arriving at Passo dello Spluga, the riders had to work their way over the massive Passo San Bernardino and descend into Switzerland before climbing to the Spluga pass. Various riders had been off the front in breaks but by the time the Spluga summit was reached and the route tipped back over the ridge into Italy, only four riders were left off the front: 2nd place Damiano Caruso and 5th place Romain Bardet, each with a teammate to help them. They went over the summit with a 43-second lead over Bernal, his Ineos workhorses, and the remaining small cohort of top guns.

That strikes me as a little strange, that the 2nd-place rider could have been allowed to escape. But it was more of the same keep-calm-and-carry-on strategy Ineos had employed the day before, knowing they had a little cushion of time to play with. Also, they were probably just as concerned about the lurking Simon Yates, who was comfortably sitting in, right behind the Ineos train, presumably waiting to attack. (“Train” might not be quite the right term: there were only two domestiques left with Bernal over the summit, but they pulled like a train for the rest of the stage.) So…first the fast and super technical descent into the Valle Spluga, made quite bit more hairball by being wet. Then the final climb to Alpe Motta. Thanks to the superb handling skills of the riders and perhaps to their prudent respect for the slick, high-risk descent, everyone made it to the bottom in one piece.

Shortly after they turned back onto the Spluga road and began the last climb, all the bit players fell away. Caruso’s and Bardet’s helpers dropped off, as did one of Bernal’s. None of the other leaders had any helpers left to lose. It was fitting that as they settled into that final climb of the 2021 Giro, only the top eight riders in the GC standings were still at the front…they and no one else: Caruso (2nd) and Bardet (5th) half a minute ahead and then Dani Martinez (6th) and Egan Bernal for Ineos, plus Simon Yates (3rd), Aleksandr Vlasov (4th), Hugh Carthy (7th), and Joåo Almeida (8th).

Once Martinez got on the front of the chase group, he put in a monster pull for Bernal, for the team, and for himself. Eventually, his hard tempo shelled all the others out the back, except for his team leader Bernal. The much anticipated attack by Yates never happened. With about 2 K to go, he quietly drifted off the back of the group, all his matches burnt and his hopes of a Giro victory or even a 2nd place gone up in smoke. Meanwhile, up front, Caruso dropped Bardet and hammered on alone, putting in the ride of his life, cheered on by thousands of manic fans thronging the narrow, switchback climb. Bernal finally took over from Martinez within the final kilometer and nibbled a few seconds off Caruso’s lead. But the gritty Caruso hung tough and won the stage, :24 ahead of Bernal. That left him 1:59 behind with just the 19-mile ITT as the final stage.

Think about this for a minute. Caruso’s job going into the Giro was to ride in support of team leader Mikel Landa. He’s 33 and a good, solid rider but not often thought of as one of the best. For all of his dozen years on the pro circuit he has been a domestique, a gregario, with no thought of either being a team leader or indeed of winning a race. In fact, he had never won a race at this level before, ever. But when Landa crashed out on Stage 4, Caruso’s role changed. As the stages ticked off and he stayed well up in the standings, he began to wrap his head around the idea of actually duking it out for the overall win. In 13 prior grand tours, his best results have been 8th at the 2014 Vuelta, 9th at the 2015 Giro, and 10th at the 2020 Tour de France. Three top tens is nothing to sneeze at but still, not the palmares that would suggest a podium step at this year’s Giro, let alone a heroic, determined bid to win it all. 

He did not quite win it all. He took 30 seconds out of Bernal in the final time trial—pretty much what was expected—reducing the final gap to 1:29. Yates did a lackluster, tired-looking ITT but managed to hold onto third place, now down a distant 4:21. Almeida was the best of the GC hot shots, finishing 5th to leapfrog a couple of people to move from 8th overall to 6th. Dani Martinez also did well and moved up to 5th overall, another good result for Ineos-Greandiers. Speaking of Ineos, the ITT was won by another member of that team, Filippo Ganna, as expected. It was not without a little excitement though, as he had a puncture late in his ride and had to do a quick bike swap. Rémi Cavagna almost caught him but crashed in a late corner and had to do his own bike swap. He finished :12 behind Ganna, which is just about the time he lost with his crash. Remember my article from two months ago about the problems with sketchy, twitchy time trial bikes? This is a classic case in point.

Bernal is not a great time-trial rider. We knew that. He knew that. All he wanted to do was set a good, solid tempo, hammering the straights and pussy-footing around the many urban corners in downtown Milano. Which he did. All he wanted to do was avoid a disastrous crash. Which he did. It may not have been spectacular but it got the job done.  He made his spectacular moves back in the Dolomites to carve out a healthy lead and everything after that was careful race management and damage control by him and his very well run team, with a special tip of the old chapeau to his domestique Dani Martinez. Even though this column has already gone on far too long for any but the most devoted race fans, it’s still too short to itemize all the little ways the team managed the race…for instance the fact that Martinez pretty well sucks as a descender and got dropped on every major downhill, so the team had to work to pull him back to Bernal so he could then pull Bernal up the next ascent. Little things…the little stories behind the big story.

A time gap of 1:29 between 1st and 2nd seems tiny. When you consider that the riders traveled almost 2100 miles over the past three weeks—essentially the distance from my home in Sebastopol to Chicago—and all the trial and travail they encountered along the way—headwinds, alpine summits, sprints, urban stews, rain, bronchial infections, saddle sores, crashes, mechanicals, pacelines, pack riding, hairball descents, team tactics, calories consumed and calories burned, brain-deadening fatigue, etc, etc—and then, at the end of it all, for the guy in 2nd place to be able to see the guy in 1st place, just a few hundred yards ahead of him…just that measly one minute and 29 seconds ahead. And to think of the many places and moments where a few seconds might have been lost or gained. It almost fries the circuits of our understanding. So close! And yet this was the widest margin of victory in a Giro since 2015.

I guess that’s at least part of why we love it and keep coming back, year after year, to glory in the struggles of these road warriors. And—an added layer of magical miracle this year—to have the Giro back in its proper May time slot and to have the roads thronged with wildly enthusiastic fans, yelling their brains out and acting like half-wits—after all the trauma and tragedy of the past year-plus… Recall that Italy was one of the countries hardest hit by the virus, back in the beginning, and how our hearts ached for their suffering. We’re not quite out of the woods yet with this nasty plague, but we’re getting there. And this wonderful first grand tour of the year sees us some way along the road back to normal. Bravo for that!

Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net



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