Giro d’Italia 2025 Route Analysis – Mortirolo, Gravel & Return of Colle delle Finestre

The 2025 Giro d’Italia will be heading to Albania for the first time in its history and will also feature numerous familiar big mountains such as the Colle delle Finestre and the dreaded Mortirolo. With two time trial stages and gravel it gives some various along the way for the big favourites for the general classification.

Collaboration between @thecyclingdane and @OwDoCycling

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What is the route for the riders in 2025? Well, as I said earlier, we are starting in Albania. Stage one is 160 km from Durz to Tana. It’s not the easiest stage. It’s got over 2,000 m of climbing in there. We’re taking the Glacron climb and then two climbs of the Surell, which is 4.9 km at 5.4%. But the first kilometer is like 8%. It’ll be an interesting one. There’s certainly going to be a variety of riders who’ll be looking to try and take the first Maya Roza of the Jira Datalia. Stage two, we have a time trial around Tana. It is 13.7 km. There’s a small climb in the middle of there. 1.2 km at 5.7% but 14 km you will see some time gaps amongst the GC favorites. It’ll be somewhere in the realms of, you know, near a minute or so, possibly between a good time trialist versus somebody who’s not so good. Stage three, we go from V to Vo. We’re taking two climbs. The last one, the cafe Roz is 10 km at 7.3%. It’s a bit of a weird one to predict. This could be one for the breakaway. It could be one for some GC action actually, considering 10 km at 7% is no mean feat. But then we have a long descent and then a flat to the finish. So it’s a hard one to predict. It might well go to the breakway if nobody wants to control it. And then we actually have a rest day where everybody hops on a ferry or something and goes from Albania to Italy where we start off stage four 189 km from Alberlo to Leche. This is a pretty standard sprint day. Nothing too much going on here. Stage five, we go from Kegley Mesa to Matera. The uh profile is kind of a little bit beguiling. It’s seems harder than it looks. The organizers seem to suggest this is going to be a reduced bunch sprint. It could very well go that way. So, uh I think it’s going to be an interesting one. It’ll be a puncher versus sprinters who are hardy to kind of try hang on. Stage six, we go from Portenza to Napoli. This is 227 km long. I think this is actually the longest stage of the race. We taking two climbs in this day. One a category 2, another category 3, but we are on a net downhill for the day. So, this will likely be another sprint. Stage seven, we go from Castell de Samuel to Taglia Koso is 168 km long. A lot of climbing in the day, just shy of 3,500 m. And the climb up to Tagliao is 12.6 6 km at 5.3% with the final 2.6 km averaging 9.1%. I don’t know whether the GC riders will control this day just for this climb which averages kind of a low gradient but has a steeper finish. It might well go to the breakaway instead. Stage eight, we go from Julenova to Castoondo. This looks like a classic breakaway day. There’s four categorized climbs in here. One’s a category one right in the middle of the day. up and down all day long. 3,777 m of climbing. So, this looks like a breakaway day to me. Stage nine from Gubio to Sienna. Obviously, if you have watched Slatter Bianke, you’ll be pretty familiar with this stage. Uh because we’re going to have some of the Tuskan Slatter Bianke in this stage. I’m not sure exactly how many kilometers of gravel there are go up into Sienna at the end. 700 m at 9.1%. It’s going to be a chaotic day. There’s barely a meter of flat road in the final half of this race. So any GC riders who aren’t used to one day racing are going to have a pretty tough time here in my opinion. Then we have another rest day. Obviously we had one going from Albania and now we’ve got our kind of first kind of proper I suppose rest day. Stage 10, we go from Luca to Pisar. It’s a 28.6 km time trial. Pretty flat. Therefore you go look at guys like Josh Tarling to try and take the victory here. Stage 11, we go from Vario to Castanova Nemonte. It’s 186 km long. We go up in the middle, 14.3 km at 88.6%. But the two category 2 climbs finishing off the day are relatively shallow, averaging about 5% each, even though they are 11 and 6.5 km long, respectively. So, I think this looks a bit more like a breakaway day to me. Stage 12, we go from Mana to Vardana. Again, going to be a battle between the sprinters and the breakaway. We’ve got quite a bit of climbing in the first half of the stage, but then from a kilometer 100 to 172 is pretty much just flat all the way. So, I think you’re going to be looking at likely a sprint. Maybe some of the pure sprinters might struggle in the climbs in the first half. Stage 13 from Roviggo to Vicenza is 180 km long. There’s not that much climbing in the day, but when it comes, it’s really kind of short and sharp. It’s a real day for the punchers. The Venzar climb at the end is a 1.1 km at 7.5%. But inside that last 50 km, you have the Sanjiovani in Monte 5 km at 6.7%, the Vicenza climb for the first time, the Argano climb, which is 1.8 km at 6.4%. So, it’s a really brutal puncher day at the end. I’m not sure how it will go. maybe to the breakaway or possibly to a team who brings a puncher who really fancy their chances here. Stage 14 from Tiso to Nova Gotchia. It’s 195 km very much like the previous stage and apart from you have some less severe climbs towards the end. So I think this is more likely to end in a sprint cuz it’s got a flat finish. Stage 15 from Fume Vento to Asio is 219 km long. We taken the Monte Graa climb as Scott mentioned this earlier. This is where Tad Pagatcha last year demolished everybody with a double ascent of this. However, we descend off this and go up the Dio climb 16.6 km at 5.3% and then we have this plateau to a Sagio. So, bit of a strange stage. I think it’ll probably go to the breakaway because there’s no mountain top finish here, which is kind of a bit of a theme of this Jurro is that so far you will have noticed there’s kind of been a lack of GC days, but that is about to be rectified because we go on to stage 16, which is the Piazolo Subenta to the San Valentino stage, 203 km, 4,879 m of climbing. The final climb is 17.5 km at 6.3%. However, there are a couple of downhill sectors in there. So, realistically, the average gradient will be a bit higher than that. And preceding that, we have the Santa Barbara climb, which is 12.8 km at 8.3%. This is going to be arguably one of the most important stages of the whole race for the GC. Stage 17, we go from San Mikll AI to Boro. This is 155 km long. There are 5,722 meters of climbing in this stage, which is absolutely ludicrous. We go with a Pasa del Tanale 15 km at 6%. The Pasad del Morto 12.7 km at 7.6%. But then we have this kind of strange plateau slightly uphill sort of section at the end to the base of the Paso Stelvio. So again, I’m not sure how this will work. Maybe some satellite riders could instigate an interesting GC battle, but it could also just go to the breakaway as well quite equally. Stage 18, we had a small break from the GC action. We go from Morbago to Cissano Madano. Again, this has got three categorized climbs in there. A category 2 and two category free threes. And I think this is realistically going to be again a battle between Hardy Sprinters versus a strong breakaway more than likely. Stage 19 we go from Bella to Campoluk. This takes in five categorized climbs. We go through the clices the Color which is 16 km at 7.5%. The Colan Pantelon 16 km at 7.3%. The CEU 15 km at 6.8% before going finally up the Antagnod which is about 9 km at 5%. Then we have a slight descent down to Campoluk. So that’s a pretty brutal day. 166 kilometers and just shy of 5,000 meters of climbing. And then lastly for the GC action, stage 20, VZ to Cestier, 205 km taken in the famous color deesta which is 18.2 km at 9.2% with a gravel sector at the end just for good measure. You know why not? I remember you descend off the bottom of that and then you have a 16.2 2 km 4% climb to the round off that day. However, there are rumors that there’s snow at the top of there at the moment. So therefore, it might be cancelled, which will be a real shame, but hopefully, fingers crossed, it remains in there. And then lastly, stage 21. We have 143 km of the circuit around Roma, which is obviously where Mark Caves talked about famous victory. So that is the 21 stages of this year’s Jerro Tatalia.