Giro d’Italia Stage 4 Route Details
Stage 4 of the Giro d’Italia, on 11th May 2021, from Piacenza — Sestola, 187 kms with an elevation gain of around 1800m. Can be watched live on EuroSport or on GCN +.
Stage 4 of the Giro d’Italia is again a backloaded one, with the first 75kms of the stage pretty flat and the final 112 kms containing all the hills and mountains.
There are a total of two category 3 climbs and one category 2 climb in the stage and 2 intermediate sprints.
The first intermediate sprint is at 86.8 kms from the start line, and looks to be at the top of a small ramp at Rossena. I was trying to find the gradient of this climb, but it is not listed on the bigger sites. Do let me know if anyone is able to find it.
There are a few bumps after the first sprint line, after which, the riders will reach the first categorised climb, Castello di Carpeneti. This climb is just 3.6 kms in length, but has an avg gradient of 7.7%. This climb is loosely comparable with Bapdev ghat in Pune, which is 3.7km in length at 7.5% avg gradient.
Just for the fun of it, lets compare the efforts my the pros on their climbs to Bapdev ghat KOM holder (Sudershan Devardekar). Sudarshan’s time is 13:33 for the Bapdev ghat section (WSSM Bapdev Climb Challenge) on strava.
According to GCN, the road leading down to the valley is incredibly narrow, and hence, we could see some splits in the peleton on the way down. Also, rain is expected on the day, which will make the descent dangerous.
The next climbs is Montemolino, which starts at around 134.6kms from the start line. This is a 8.6km climb. The final 2 kms of this climb are brutal and has a maximum gradient of a whopping 18%. We might see a few attacks on the steeper parts of this climb, mostly from puncheurs, aiming for a stage win.
There is no doubt this is not a sprinters day, and that we will see them at the back end of the bunch, if they are able to stick.
There is an uncategorised climb (Roncoscaglia) after Montemolino. It has a length of 6.3 kms and an avg gradient of 5.5%, which, in my opinion, is quite steep to be an uncategorised climb. This is another place which might see some action, although I dont think pure climbers will attack here. Another perfect place for puncheurs to attack IMO.
The second intermediate sprint of the day is at the bottom of this climb, at Fanano. This is at the 180.2 kms mark form the start line.
And finally, the riders will reach the final (and the toughest) climb of the day, Colle Passerino. This is a category 2 climb, averaging 9.9% for 4.3kms. The maximum gradient is 16%, and has ramps in between of 8%. There could be attacks here from the main GC contenders and the pure climbers. Dan Martin for one, will want to take as much time back as possible from other GC contenders, and this is a perfect place to attack.
According to me, there will be a likely GC battle on the final climb of the day. The riders to look out for are Simon Yates, Aleksandr Vlasov, Mikel Landa, Dan Martin, Egan Bernal, Jefferson Cepeda, Jay Hindley, Romain Bardet.
What are your thoughts?