It was a big surprise and a big day for Qhubeka as youngster Mauro Schmidt got in the modest breakaway that marked the day and was allowed to fight for the win. The Swiss stuck with Alessandro Covi in the hardest sections of the dangerous stage and had the best legs in the final sprint. The real story of the stage took place behind though as the GC fight blew up, as expected Egan Bernal took another hit on his rivals, specially Remco Evenepoel who clearly struggled on the technical sectors, and now leads the race 45 seconds ahead of Alexander Vlasov.
Positive: Ineos played it out perfectly once again today, in every sector, Bernal took time on his competitors and had another dominant performance. Buchmann was the surprise of the day for me, not only survived but attacked the GC, seems to be coming into peak form at just the right time. Tobias Foss was another rider who did brilliant climbing into the Top10, Simon Yates was a positive surprise hanging with the best and EF showed tremendous team power which will come handy later in the race.
Negative: Evenepoel struggled in the gravel, it was a possibility and the Belgian lost around 2 minutes and sits in 7th now. It could've been worst though, riders like Formolo and Dan Martin lost ground very early on and lost over 6 minutes, and riders who were expected to ride well like Ciccone and Bardet also had a rough day.
The Route
The hardest stage the riders will have to face in the Apennines and it's a really well designed one. You look at this stage and you don't know what to expect, 12 stages deep into the race and with an easy day afterwards it's a stage that calls for attacking, and possibly raiding. Let's look at the essentials: 212 kilometers in lenght and 4430 meters of climbing, it's a brute, it features both long and sharp climbs, very technical descents and a very tricky start.
It's a day meant to take everyone outside their confort zone, it's a rough day with tons of uncategorized little ascents, small mountain roads and it isn't on paper one of those pointed out as the most important, but when you look in detail to those climbs there's convincing arguments that big things can happen.
The Monte Morello will feature 3Km at 10% but I won't even consider the show starting there, but on the Passo Della Consuma which finishes with 79.5 Km to go and is a very long climb, very consistent and will see the grupetto form, shed the peloton and get the riders ready for the following climb.
The Passo Della Calla won't be too different, a very consistent climb at 5/6% for 15 kilometers will be an opportunity to smash the peloton, and there will be a furious pace near the top for the descent that's to come, summits with 48Km to go.
The descent is extremely technical. The screenshot is zoomed out so that you can see the extent of it, that it goes almost all the way down to Santa Sofia, but there are so many switchbacks, if it's raining it will be brutal.
And the final climb is 10.8Km long but it's very inconsistent. It has two small descent sections, some flat ones, it's explosive and hard to control, 3.3Km at 8.9% will be faced in it's bulk, summits with 10.4Km to go.
The descent into Bagno Di Romagna is again nasty with some technical sections, before the run-up to the town that's completely flat and straightforward.
The Weather
Who knows?? Back in the mountains and the forecast says it's possible to have rain showers and possibly thunder, but it's small so chances are it stays dry. As for the wind there will be a nothern breeze early on that'll fade throughout the the day.
The Favourites
Breakaway chances are... good. With a mega effort today by the GC men tomorrow will be an attempt to recover as much as possible, but the biggest reason why is that at this moment Bernal and Ineos look unbeatable so I think there's no point in trying to attack him tomorrow, but instead wait for Zoncolan and onwards. Ineos will keep it conservative like today early on, and the lumpy start will help the climbers settle in the head of the race. Adding to that, today's losses mean even more riders will have freedom to go. And the list is big, I mean big big.
Dan Martin and Alessandro De Marchi for Israel, Davide Formolo and Diego Ulissi for UAE, Pello Bilbao/Gino Mader/Jan Tratnik for Bahrain, Koen Bowman and George Bennet for Jumbo, Ruben Guerreiro/Simon Carr and Alberto Bettiol - who is a local - for EF, Felix Grossschartner and Matteo Fabbro for Bora are the riders who've got numbers in their team and likely freedom to hunt the win. Solo you've got riders like Geoffrey Bouchard who will have an important day for his KOM jersey, Bauke Mollema and Rudy Molard who I consider big candidates for the win tomorrow.
As for the GC big things can happen too. Today there was blood in the water, the rise of form of Emanuel Buchmann mainly is perhaps the most important factor as the Bora man can dream of pink in my opinion, but even in the fight for the podium he may try to distance the men that struggled today, which we can see from other riders too if they're on a good day. I expect Ineos and Bernal to race conservatively and try to save energy, Vlasov is in good position and I think Carthy and Yates will also try to save their legs a bit for later in the race, aswell as Damiano Caruso who's come up to third in the overall and would be very happy to keep it until the end.
From Deceuninck we could see something too, Evenepoel took a hit today but I feel like it had nothing to do with his legs, he just struggled in the technical sections. He may be looking for vengeance, and although he hasn't been attacking the race so far and racing conservatively, that may change with today, and with a strong and set team behind him they definitely have the ability to cause damage. Giulio Ciccone may also be looking to net back some time, and Tobias Foss' performance today may motivate Jumbo to also try something if they sense there are men in the Top10 struggling.
Prediction Time
⭐ Vlasov, Ciccone, Buchmann, D.Martin, Bilbao, Bouwman, Grossschartner, Fabbro, Molard
He came here with the goal of getting a win and I think his form is right about hitting the spot. With Ciccone loosing time today Trek will be able to focus more on stage wins, and one of the few riders who openly came with that goal has been saving himself, and has a perfect stage tomorrow to grab it in Bauke Mollema.
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