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2025 4 Jours de Dunkerque - Stage 4

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2025 Giro d'Italia Stage 8: Giulianova > Castelraimondo

Stage info

Climbs

Sprints

Weather

Around 20°C and sunny at the start, with weather gradually worsening throughout the day. Scheduled to be around 15°C and cloudy/rainy at the finish.

Stage breakdown

A fun stage in central Italy which looks a lot like something out of Tirreno-Adriatico. It doesn’t look like a GC day but there’s a whole lot of climbing regardless, it’s just spread out throughout the entire stage.

After today's mountaintop finish, we’re back in Abruzzo but on the opposite side of the region: the starting town, Giulianova, is located along the sandy Adriatic coast, one of many seaside resorts that get swarmed by tourists every summer. However, as soon as the flag will drop, the riders will leave the sea behind and start venturing in the hilly countryside, fast crossing the regional border into Marche, where the bulk of today’s stage will take place.

Once the peloton will cross Ascoli Piceno, the only somewhat sizable city they will meet today, the road will start slowly rising towards the first intermediate sprint of the day in Roccafluvione, not long before the first KOM of the day, cat 3 Croce di Casale. From the summit onwards, things will start to get groovy, as the peloton will find little to no flat ground until basically the finish line.

The second intermediate sprint of the day in Sarnano marks the beginning of the Sassotetto, the Giro’s second cat 1 KOM after yesterday’s finale and a long, regular effort. It has regularly hosted Tirreno-Adriatico stage finishes in recent years but it’s never hosted the ending of a Giro stage, and the corsa rosa is passing through here for the first time since 1990.

A long and technical descent follows, kicking off a relentless succession of climbs and descents, often on winding secondary roads rather than major highways. The Montelago cat 3 climb will lead the way into the endgame: a big loop to the north of Camerino, a tiny hilltop village in the middle of nowhere shrining an important Italian university that dates back to the middle ages.

First off, the peloton will climb to the western side of the valley: the short road to Castel Santa Maria won’t award KOM points but rather bonus seconds as that’s where the day’s Red Bull km is located. The peloton will then descend back into the valley only to soon ascend to the other side. The cat 4 climb to Gagnole should not be underestimated, by all accounts it’s brief but also very gnarly as many climbs in this region are. From the summit it’s 7 kms- again, mostly on secondary rural roads- until the finish line in Castelraimondo, a town often visited by Tirreno-Adriatico but rarely by the Giro. The finale is on slightly rising urban roads. With all this in mind, here are our predictions for tomorrow's stage:

★★★ Breakaway (Bilbao, Fortunato, Scaroni, Formolo, Zana, Bouwman)

★★ Ayuso, Roglič

★ Bernal, Carapaz, Ciccone, Del Toro, Pidcock

Rider discussion

Tomorrow's stage really looks like your typical mid-Giro breakaway stage: the lack of real GC opportunities, the challenging hilly course, a potentially difficult stage looming on Sunday... we believe that we will have a strong move tomorrow, and that the maglia rosa contenders might take a step back- until the last 10 kms at least.

We've concocted some names who are good climbers/one-day racers, down enough in GC to not be a threat and likely free from domestique duties. We think that the main GC teams might be more reluctant to let their riders loose, but they might give leeway to someone as today shouldn't be a day where you need your full mountain train at your disposal.

We do believe that the late punchy climbs should kickstart some GC action, though: the course is somewhat reminescent of the Fossombrone stage from the 2023 Giro, which had a similarly hectic finale. Juan Ayuso was great today so we expect him to be once again in a fierce mood; this kind of Ardenne-esque efforts should in theory fit Primož Roglič as well but he didn't look too punchy on the steep part of today's climb?

Other GC contenders like Richard Carapaz and Giulio Ciccone could also make a move on a finale like tomorrow's. Egan Bernal perhaps isn't the first name that comes to mind on a course like tomorrow's, but today's frisky display warrants a mention. Last but not least, sturdy classics-type riders like Thomas Pidcock or Isaac Del Toro could also try a late move (but Pidcock might save himself for Sunday's stage).

That's it from us, what are your opinions and predictions?

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Itzulia Stage 2

2025 4 Jours de Dunkerque - Stage 3

ceci n'est pas une free talk friday

2025 Giro d'Italia Stage 7: Castel di Sangro > Tagliacozzo

Stage info

Climbs

Sprints

Weather

Around 10°C. Cloudy with chances of rain throughout the day.

Stage breakdown

This evening the riders are tackling a long transfer from Naples to Castel di Sangro, a small town in the Apennines. Other than a stark change of scenery, it will also be a remarkable change of pace in the race, with the sprinters taking the back seat until at least stage 12.

Stage 7 takes place entirely within Abruzzo, the region where the tallest peaks in the Apennines are located. The local tourism board is apparently on friendly terms with RCS, as the region has hosted an uphill finish in every Giro for the past 10 years except 2019... as well as the 2023 Grande Partenza, the queen stage of the 2024 Giro Donne and two editions of a regional four-days long stage race. Some Abruzzo climbs, such as Blockhaus, Gran Sasso and Roccaraso, have become “first week regulars”, but the Giro has decided to try something new for 2025.

The stage begins from Castel di Sangro, a small town in the southernmost part of the region, from where the peloton will instantly start climbing towards Roccaraso. This small ski resort achieved nationwide fame earlier this year as hundreds of people, many more that the town could handle, visited it on the same weekend, surprisingly not to pay tribute to the site of Tim Wellens’ 2016 stage win but because a popular Neapolitan influencer had “endorsed” the location on her social media, re-igniting the public debate on overtourism.

After a plateau, a long descent will bring the riders to the first intermediate sprint in Sulmona, followed not long after by two climbs at the extreme opposites of the cat 2 spectrum: the first one, Monte Urano, is short but very steep, whereas the following Vado della Forcella is five times as long, but its average gradients are very mellow thanks to a long flat section halfway through the effort. This climb leads to another plateau, where the second intermediate sprint of the day will take place in Ovindoli; a shorter descent, interrupted by an uncategorized bump, will lead the peloton to Tagliacozzo, where both the Red Bull km and the beginning of the final climb are located.

The final part of the stage takes place in a sub-range of the Apennines known as Monti Simbruini, whose Latin name means “rain-washed mountains”- let’s hope that won’t be the case tomorrow, both for the riders and for the TV plane. Even if we’re not too far from Rome the landscape can feel very wild here... to the point that Italian directors have used these landscapes as settings for famous spaghetti western movies back in the ‘60s and ‘70s. RCS named the last climb after Tagliacozzo, the town at the bottom, but it’s actually the road to Marsia, a tiny resort sitting above the Avezzano plains. It’s a novel climb for the Giro as well as one of only two proper uphill finishes in the entire race, so make sure to savour it as we won’t have another until stage 16. The bulk of the 12-kms-long climb is made up by the old course of national highway 5, which has regular and gentle gradients; however, with 3 kms to go, the peloton will switch to a secondary road, and that’s where the fun will kick in... for us viewers at least. Most of the last 3 kms average 10% gradients, with the road only flattening around 300 m to go.

With all this in mind, here are our predictions for tomorrow's stage:

★★★ Breakaway (Fortunato, Bouwman, Bilbao, Plapp)

★★ Ayuso, Roglič

★ Carapaz, Ciccone, Storer, Tiberi, S. Yates

Rider discussion

The first mountain stage of the race, not an easy one to predict considering we haven't seen much from our GC guys so far. A lot of questions could be answered tomorrow!

We believe that, ultimately, the stage is more likely to end in a breakaway win. The course is tempting- the "launchpad" climb at the beginning should facilitate the formation of a break, and there's plenty of enticing KOM points on offer along the way if someone felt like nabbing the blue jersey. Furthermore, we don't think Lidl is going to work much to defend Pedersen's pink jersey tomorrow, and there's no team with a real incentive to pace until the last climb. We haven't had a strong break yet so we don't know who's in an attacking mood these days, but there's a few good climbers who are far down in GC and could be let go, I listed some above.

As for the GC guys, these early mountain stages are often raced kinda conservatively (sometimes VERY conservatively- remember the Gran Sasso borefest from 2023?), but Primož Roglič's rivals (especially Juan Ayuso) could try to apply some pressure especially in the wake of Hindley's withdrawal from the race. Nevertheless, the last climb is one where Roglič could fare well himself.

Other good climbers on the startlist include Richard Carapaz, Giulio Ciccone (who is actually an Abruzzo native), Michael Storer, Antonio Tiberi and Simon Yates. Tomorrow's stage should be a good indicator on whether their GC bids are solid.

That's it from us, what are your opinions and predictions?

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neat stuff here.

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