In the cycling world, the month of May means only one thing. In fact, the month of May could honestly be renamed “Giro,” and no cycling fan would bat an eye. May is upon us once more, and thus we gear up for the first three-week Grand Tour of the long cycling summer: the Giro d’Italia. Most top-level cycling races, and most of all the three Grand Tours, can be labeled or characterized as “epic.” But alas! such a word in cycling is too overused and no longer gets the description-job done. As I have worked my way through writing race descriptions this year to serve as my previews of what to look for, I have been pleasantly surprised to recall or even better understand just how different each race really is. All have their own individual personality: for example, all the Flandrien Classics are siblings and yet none are fraternal twins. But with the cycling Spring completed, it is time for the biggest descriptions and previews of all, for the Grand Tours. They are the longest races, they produce the most content and drama, to tell each tale takes over twenty chapters. They are the summer Blockbusters of the cycling world, and these tales put to shame whatever the Disney and Marvel think-tanks are producing nowadays. But if we assume the descriptor “epic” is a given for all, what is the difference between them? For anyone who has seen the Grand Tours surely this is a hilarious question, but to articulate and pinpoint what separates the Giro from the Tour and Vuelta can be a tough business. Allow me to try my hand.
The Giro d’Italia outright triumphs all other races in passionate romance, even Jane Austen would admit her novels have been bested. The Tour de France is the cycling race that has transcended the sport and still captures new international imaginations. But once those allured imaginations check out the entire cycling calendar, all understand, all “get it”: there is something special about the Giro. The Giro is the most dearly beloved of all races. It is where the emotions ooze, bubble over, and run absolutely wild like gazelles on the lush plain. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Giro is the first Grand Tour of the year, the Giro simply has the benefit to be the first three-week journey all strap in for each year. It is the first race of the year where the viewers’ lifestyles change for a fortnight-and-half, because all are so enthralled and in-tune with the drama going on in Italy—never are the daily tales and chapters far from the mind. True enough about the lifestyle change, but that is a positive trait all the Grand Tours share in common. The simple first calendar spot cannot be the right cause of so much Giro love, for all felt the same romantic feeling for the 2020 October Giro that came after the Tour. For decades long before as well, the Vuelta was in the Spring before the Giro and from what I can gather the Italians’ race still had this same supreme passionate allure. The correct answer has already been said, the passionate romance is forged by combining the drama and title location. The RCS organizers have often billed the Giro as “The Hardest Race in the Most Beautiful Place.” Not bad, not bad at all. In fact, that is probably an accurate statement. Were one to pit entire country vs entire country for best cycling scenery, I think the majority would concur Italy firmly wins. Most Beautiful Place? Check. All would agree too, often the Giro route is longer and tougher than the Tour’s on paper. Often the Tour is ridden faster, but the Giro’s stages are longer, their mountains higher and more plentiful, the May weather cooperates less often; thus the Giro’s route is surely a more grueling affair. So, the Hardest Race? Check. But most importantly, because the Tour is the transcendent-ultimate and most important: the race and the racing becomes more serious and uptight. Whereas at the Giro, all have high hopes and aspirations with less pressure, the racing is much less constricted and the routes are designed to throw up surprises. Thus honor and prestige factor in less at the Giro, and the racing is filled with unbridled passion to win for the simple love of racing. It cannot go unmentioned as well how great the Italian fans are. Every town is decked out in Pink decorations to match the race leader’s maglia rosa. Every fan cheers not just because the Giro d’Italia is passing by, but because a bike race is passing by and these riders need support and encouragement. Pedalare! Pedalare! Yes, Italian cycling history is so illustrious that even though other sports have eclipsed it as the national-pastime, still all Italians have an intimate special place in their hearts for cycling. From the Grand Tour star of his generation to lonely old vagabond touring the country on his bicycle, all cyclists are loved and cared for by the Italians. Yes, the passion of the locals fuels the passion of the riders and that fuels the passion of the fans. Some think it is a “hipster” thing to say the Giro d’Italia is their favorite race, I think nothing could be further from the truth. Were all hardcore cycling fans to pick one race as their favorite: the Giro would have the highest tally of votes. Were such a survey conducted in May, the Giro would have 100% of the votes. Yes, “The Hardest Race in the Most Beautiful Place,” consistently the Giro lives up to such a title…and yet, like all the Grand Tours, no two Giri are the same.
This year the Giro is a reversal of the ancient Classic Milano-Torino. Typically on a normal year, it only takes the riders some four to five hours to traverse the distance of this Classic that more-or-less lives up to its roadmap name. But this year, the Giro shall start in Turin, and finish in Milan. And instead of an extended afternoon ride between them, the route shall meander around much of Italy for a full three weeks before finally finishing in Milan. After a short opening Time Trial in Turin, the route strikes out to cut across Italy for the Adriatic Coast tackling a few hills, but mostly providing the sprinters early opportunities to get off the mark well. Down the Adriatic coast the sprinters and puncheurs shall have their fun, perhaps even one or two General Classification (GC) men as well. The race shall travel to the lower-end of the calf muscle or even the Achilles’ tend of the boot that is Italy. But that will be the furthest South the race ventures this year. From there the route turns North and works its way up the spine of Italy, the Apennine Mountains. This shall be the exciting backdrop of that second-weekend Stages 8 and 9, where surely the GC men will be doing full proper battle after a week of skirmishing already completed. But after Stage 10 the first Rest Day in Perugia shall come and be O! too short. After little Rest, the peloton will be in for a rude awakening as they enter into Tuscany for a Strade Bianche “White Roads” gravel stage. Depart from Siena the day after and cross the Apennines again. By Stage 13, the surrounding shall seem familiar, for the race will be back in the flatter Po Valley having completed their weeklong Southern loop. And yet, relentlessly, the race shall B-line to the far Northeast of Italy to have a summit finish on the Stage 14, that third Saturday, on the mighty Monte Zoncolan—O! truly, truly, it is impossible to over-exaggerate how excruciatingly brutal such a climb is, it stands shoulder-to-titanic-shoulder with the mighty Angliru for toughest climbs in cycling. The following day shall involve a hilly foray border-crossing into Slovenia, but the Second Rest Day shall not come until after a High Mountain Stage 16 on that third Monday where the race shall traverse the famous Passo Pordoi and the Passo Giau among others. The Second Rest Day shall be Tuesday, and after another mountain stage on Wednesday, the race emerges from the mountains once more and enter the Po Valley for the third time of asking. Strangely enough, it shall loop to the South of Milan, perpendicularly cut across the route between Turin and Milan to enter the Italian and Swiss Alps for the finale of the race. Stages 19 and 20 shall surely be exciting mountain days, O! let us hope the race for the maglia rosa is still open by that point, and finely balanced. Let us even dare to hope the race is not sewn up after the summit finish on the penultimate Stage 20. For Stage 21 into Milan is not a coronation procession, but a 30km Individual Time Trial—truly there is no better way to end the Giro than with a dramatic Time Trial as has been the case multiple times in the last decade alone. But thus the route is quickly outlined with its loops, quasi-figure-eights, and zig-zags. The Turin-Milan route is unorthodox, and anything but point-to-point like its Milano-Torino one-day Classic counterpart. And yet, it shall still be a satisfying journey, with many new tales worth telling, and for multiple men it shall be the journey of a lifetime.
The only former Overall Winner who shall line up for this edition of the Giro d’Italia is the veteran Vincenzo Nibali the Shark of Messina (Trek-Segafredo). Alas! Alas! He has suffered a broken wristed in the recent weeks and it is remarkable he can even handle and ride a bike so quickly again; but even without the broken wrist to have shot for the podium would have been a tall order to be begin with for so many strong young riders are in attendance at this race. The top favorites in many eyes and especially the odds makers’ are Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange), and Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-Quickstep). Having won the 2019 Tour de France, Egan Bernal is the highest favorite, but he comes to the race with question marks. He was unable to defend his Tour title in 2020 due to aching back problems that we have all been led to believe are caused by taxing and relentlessly strenuous race—aka a cycling Grand Tour. In the early season, he showed he was coming along well, especially with his unexpected Strade Bianche podium finish. It is fair to assume he shall be on top form for this biggest May objective, but will the back hold up? In my judgement, Simon Yates has even more question marks. He was the man of the match, the first name on everyone’s lips during the 2018 Giro. O! He dazzled us all with those three stage wins, and he was close to two or three more. He was set to topple and upstage the mighty giants of Tom Dumoulin (now of maybe Jumbo-Visma) and Chris Froome (now of Israel Start-Up Nation), but he imploded in the final week in one of the worst unraveling in recent memory. He returned for redemption in 2019 only to see his form desert him by the end of the first week. And in 2020, he caught COVID in the first week of the race and had to abandoned. Yates’ love affair with the Giro is clear, but shall the love finally be requited this year? Or is more heartbreak waiting in the wings? And then, of this trio of top favorites, we come to the rider who has more question marks than anyone else entering this race. Remco Evenepoel, still currently the youngest of the young superstar titans on the rise perhaps destined to be the greatest of them all, is riding his first race since falling off a multiple-story-high bridge last August at il Lombardia. Besides the inside-est of insiders, none know where his form is at. Even the insiders cannot predict how he shall fair over the full three weeks of his first Grand Tour. The Belgian Quickstep team seem to be bringing a strong supporting GC squad, but do they have the experience to back Evenepoel up? Will Evenepoel be on such top form that he is even the undisputed team leader? How will Quickstep morale fair without being able to count on multiple sprint stage wins, for the first time in no-one-knows-how-long? Were anyone a betting man, surely this Giro is the time to stop being one. I do think one of those three shall win, but with question marks on all of them perhaps a rider from the second tier having the race of his life could pull off the Dark Horse upset. Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech) has been a solid rock this Spring, if admittedly not as sensational as 2020. For Trek-Segafredo, Nibali may be too old and injured to fight for the podium, but is Bauke Mollema? What about the other Trek hopeful Guilio Ciccone? All known Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) will be there on the long high Italian passes, but can he produce two even semi-decent Time Trials to stay in contention? Shall Romain Bardet find revitalized success with his new Team DSM? What about his Team DSM teammate Jai Hindley who was runner-up at the Giro last year? Or what of Quickstep’s Joao Almeida who spent such a long stint in Pink last year? Can Bora’s Emmanuel Buchmann bounce back from a disappointing 2020 Tour? Or can EF’s Hugh Carthy build upon his 2020 Vuelta podium finish? What of Israel Start-Up Nation’s Dan Martin, or Jumbo-Visma’s George Bennett, or Movistar’s Marc Soler? All are surely capable of Top 10 finishes, but can any of them exceed expectations and rise even higher? What if I have not even yet named the rider that shall win the Giro, could we see yet another meteoric shooting star rise to the top of the sport so unexpectedly?
The GC men have been laid out, but what of the sprinters? I dare say three or four of the stage profiles appear to be so flat it cannot be believed—they are so flat, it is seems the peloton shall not even climb a few-hundred-meters overpass. Yes, such news as that makes all the sprinters’ ears perk up. On paper, the fastest and top pure sprinter must now be Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal). The bigger question for me is not shall he win a stage, I predict he shall win multiple; the bigger question for me is will he finish the race? Supposedly Ewan is targeting stage wins in all three Grand Tours, an impressive feat to be sure—if he can pull it off. But as a demanding fan who sees the Grand Tours as modern adventure Odysseys, I prefer to see the riders struggle to finish the Grand-y instead of strategically stopping early to gear up for the next bigger fish—leave such antics to the old Cipollini. Ah! But a sprinter who shall surely hope to finish is the man returning for his second Giro in a row, Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe). Many think he will finish, for many expect him to target the maglia ciclamino Points Jersey. (Author’s Note: After some rapid Google searches, the Ciclamino color does not seem to translate easily into English, but the jersey appears to be Purple in my eyes). Italian Elia Viviani shall surely wish to finally take his first big win for his Cofidis team. Meanwhile for Qhubeka Assos, Italian Giacomo Nizzolo rolls in coming off a very respectable Spring; surely, he shall wish to capitalize on home roads and take a memorable Grand Tour victory for his team. Pure sprinter Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) is back from his long suspension for his first race—probably the only rider in the Giro who has gone a longer gap without racing than Remco Evenepoel. Tim Merlier and his second division Alpecin-Fenix team shall make their Grand Tour debut; this shall be fast-sprinting Merlier’s chance to prove his mettle against all the already named big guns. And finally, for UAE Fernando Gaviria shall be their designated sprinter. He has been in quite a funk for a few years with injuries and COVID, can he finally start to rebound here?
And who else are destined to round out the list of champions? Perhaps the Time Trial victories shall be battles between Filipo “Top” Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), Remi Cavagna (Deceuninck-Quickstep), Victor Campenaerts (Qhubeka Assos), and perhaps other surprise challengers in the almost Prologue-length opening Stage. Beyond the Time Trials, it becomes hard to name names who might win from the breakaway on the mountain stages or which puncheurs shall feature on the hilly stages. Surely, Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) will take marked aim at two or three stages ideal for a breakaway coup. And when was the last time Diego Ulissi (UAE) did not go well on an uphill sprint finish in his native Grand Tour? But beyond these basic examples, who shall have breakaway and solo up-start success depends if the team has a GC leader in contention to support. For example, if injury or illness were to end Landa’s GC campaign, I could see Bahrain’s Pello Bilbao, Damiano Caruso, Gino Mader, Matej Mohoric, and Jan Tratnik declare Open Season and launch a shotgun of attacks that should net them at least one or two stage victories. The same is true with Bora-Hansgrohe with Cesare Benedetti, Maciej Bodnar, Matteo Fabbro, Felix Grossschertner, and Daniel Oss if they do not have to support Buchmann or Sagan. How much leash shall some of the Grenadiers have? The likes of Pavel Sivakov, Gianni Moscon, Jhonathan Narvaez, and Dani Martinez; remember during the off season when the Grenadiers declared they wished to “race like Brazil.” Surely, in the first Grand Tour since that statement they shall be put to the test. What of Team DSM? Are they a team with two GC leaders or a team of eight synergetic opportunists? Can Rudy Molard get some results for Groupama-FDJ? What about Gianluca Brambilla for Trek-Segafredo? We could continue musing more and more on all the hopeful rising-stars or lone wolves fighting for a day of glory, but let us end and wrap this preview up.
Thus it is time to begin the end of this preview with my official 2021 Giro d’Italia Overall Winner prediction, the man I think shall wear the maglia rosa in Milan and lift aloft that Lovely Infinite Trophy. It is a tough choice this year, for all have their potential pitfalls and risks on fairly clear display. Thus I choice to take the favorite with the least question marks, I predict Egan Bernal the Ineos Grenadier shall bounce back from his subpar 2020 to win the 2021 Giro d’Italia. May it be another memorable and beloved edition of the Giro d’Italia. May all Muses in whatever form they exist work their magic or reach out to the ones with power to do so. May it be a true Odyssey that O! so inspires this show. It is the eve of yet another Grand Tour where our lifestyles change for the next three weeks. For these coming weeks, our hearts and imaginations shall be in Italy, watching a daily 21-chapter story of how heroes rise and fall, how champions cement their legend, how seemingly ordinary men pull off deeds worthy of eternal fame, and how intimately romantic many riders’ and a country’s and an international fanbase’s love for one race can be.
An Author’s Note: I will go “chalk” on Stage 1 and take Ganna to win the Stage 1 Time Trial. Boring pick and his biggest goal is clearly Tokyo, but I think he will still be motivated to win on home roads and wear the maglia rosa again for the second time in his career.
Cycling Odysseys 