THEMOVE - Giro d'Italia Stage 16 Analysis & Stage 17 Preview | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down the explosive action from Stage 16 of the Giro d'Italia, where the race's first true mountain stages exploded the GC, with UAE's Isaac del Toro finally showing signs of weakness as he struggled to hold the race lead, as Richard Carapaz, Derek Gee and Simon Yates closed in, and pre-race favorites Primož Roglič and Juan Ayuso both fell out of the GC completely, with Roglič leaving the race entirely. They discuss a few main takeaways from the stage before previewing yet another brutal stage tomorrow on Stage 17, predicting who will win, how the action will play out, and which riders present the best betting value. NordVPN: Get your Exclusive NordVPN deal here → https://nordvpn.com/themove It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! OneSkin: OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company, keeping your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get started today with 15% off using code THEMOVE at https://oneskin.co Troscriptions: There’s a completely new way to optimize your health. Give it a try at https://www.troscriptions.com/THEMOVE or enter THEMOVE at checkout for 10% off your first order.

A grand tour remains a grand tour and it's an effort of three weeks. And if you think that the efforts you do in week one don't come with a price, then you don't understand anything about cycling. I'm sorry you have to say it, but that's the way it is. Everybody welcome back to the move plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Berniel. We are talking about stage 16 of the Giro d'Italia before predicting tomorrow's stage 17. Before we get into that though, let's take a quick break to highlight our partners for the show.

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All right, let's get into the show. All right, Johan. So stage 16 just wrapped up Christian Scaroni from XDS Astana one Lorenzo Fortunato is teammates second but behind them was absolute GC chaos. Like we knew it was going to be an important GC day because kind of the first mountain stage, you would say, I did not expect this though. It starts off rainy, cold, rainy mountain day. UAE lets the gap go out to the breakaway really far. There's some jostling.

You know, maybe Ineos is going to pull it back to contest the stage. But Primoz Roglic, Richard Karapas crash. Primoz Roglic goes home, not even quite sure why he started the stage since he couldn't ride on the rest day. Never a good sign. Later in the stage, Egan Bernal crashes. Ineos comes off the front. UAE goes to the front, kind of interesting, maybe just keeping things under control. They get to the second to last climb though, where this was a brutally hard climb, 12 kilometers long, 8.3% average. EF gets to the front, starts pacing.

Juana Uso, who had been back to the team car and kind of tailed off on an earlier climb, is officially dropped. Here he's sitting very far back. You're like, oh, this isn't right. He's dropped. Egan Bernal dropped, get the catches back on. Richard Carapaz looks not good. I think, oh, EF's messed up here.

Well, they get to the final climb, which is extremely long, like 18 kilometers long, not so steep at the bottom. And by not so steep, I mean seven to 8%, which is still pretty hard. Wout Van Aert, who's been in the breakaway, is caught, reeled in, starts pacing on the front for Simon Yates. If it looked hard, it was hard because he was pacing at 510 watts average for 10 minutes. That's a pretty good little lead out. He pulls off, but he's been pulling so hard that stuff starts to kind of unravel at this point.

Giulio Pellizzari attacks because Rafa Mica comes to take over for UAE. He can't keep up the same pace while Van Aerts been riding at Pellizzari from Red Bull, Bora Hansgrohe, now given freedom because Roglic has crashed out, gets a little gap and then stuff gets interesting. Simon Yates attacks, pulls a little group with himself and Richard Carapaz free. Derek G. tailed off, but then Carapaz, smart, smart man knows how to race. He waits about a kilometer. Yates is stuck on the front.

Carapaz goes to the opposite side of the road, which is exactly what you're supposed to do. Attacks over there. Yates hesitates, probably tired from that attack he just did. And Jarrick G had just caught up to them. He responds, but he can't close the gap right away. So G's kind of stuck in the middle. Yates still has Isaac del Toro on his wheel.

Like within 2K though, Richard Carapaz almost has a minute on him. Eventually 3.7 kilometers to go. Isaac Del Toro dropped. You know, he had been swinging. It wasn't completely shocking. I thought he was going to melt down, but he actually holds the gap pretty well. By the finish line, the two XTS Astana riders finish and then Giulio Pellizzari, who started the final climb minutes behind these leaders, is only 55 seconds back. Like what a caught them if it was any longer. Richard Carapaz is 15 seconds behind him. Derek G 13 seconds behind Carapaz. And when all is said and done, Simon Yates loses 42 seconds on Richard Carapaz. Damiano Caruso loses 121, who's now moved up into the top five. Isaac del Toro loses 1 36 on Carapaz retains the race lead, though,

by 26 seconds over Simon Yates, 31 seconds over Richard Carapaz. One minute, 31 seconds on Derek G. Two minutes, 40 over Damiano Caruso. Egan Murnau loses time. Michael Storer moves into seventh place overall. Antonio Tibiri loses time. Giulio Pelasari moves into ninth overall 436 back Adam Yates and 10th at 508 back. I don't know how significant that will be.

But Johan, a lot happened today. What was your initial takeaway? Yeah, well, we don't. We also need to add a part of the crash of Roglic. Also, Josh Stirl darling crashed and is out. And especially Martinelli from VF. That was a scary crash. He went down over the rails down. Afterwards, I was happy to see the report that he doesn't have any serious injuries.

So he was super, super lucky. He doesn't have any serious injuries. So he was super, super lucky. But it was a horrible climate in the beginning to do such a long mountain stage. You know, if you see the guys with rain jackets on and then you, and you know, they have four or five climbs to do. It's like, ah, this is miserable, really miserable. Luckily for the last part of the rate of the stage, it cleared up and it was even sunny.

But yeah, as you say, we saw a lot, you know, a big group. I was initially convinced, you know, that the breakaway is going to make it. They did in the end. But then we see sometimes a few strange things. One of the things that I remarked is once again, I'm not gonna say strange tactics, but the tactics of Ineos, starting to set the pace and then Bernal attacks with, in my opinion, way too far from the finish.

And then on two stages he has paid for it at the end. I personally think Bernal is in really good condition. And I don't actually understand why he keeps doing these attacks, putting his whole team on the front so far out from the finish, because it's never going to work. He's never going to make it to the finish by himself or even without some of the favorites. He must probably have seen that Ayuso was in trouble. So, you know, that could be one of the reasons, but it's still not up to him to, and his team to do that. It would be Carapaz or, or Visma with, with, with Simon Yates, who should increase the pace if they see that one of the favorites is in trouble,

in my opinion. So that's a bit of a question mark for me, why they do that. It adds to the, you know, the spectacle of the race, of course, but it's not very efficient. Also, Spencer, if you think about we, we were now 16 stages down, uh, it today in one day, the two number one favorites that was basically when we started the Giro, we were talking, there was nobody else who could win the Giro except Roglic or Ayuso. The Roglic is out of the race and Ayuso is out of the classification.

He lost more than 13 minutes today. Uh, so, you know, it's a lot of things can happen in a ground tour, right? Uh, and especially in this, in this Giro, um, the Giro is famous to have a hard last week, but this is extreme. Uh, all the mountains and all the difficulties are concentrated in the last six stages. So today we saw the first time really big carnage in GC. And this is only a taste of what we still have to go. We still will go, okay,

today was definitely a very hard stage, but there are other hard stages. And the accumulated fatigue, I'm always talking Spencer about accumulated fatigue. It's and I today I want to repeat, you know, uh, what I said already many times, I said it on social media. I said it here in the podcast. People need to understand that a ground tour is a three week

effort. It's an effort that you every day need to measure having in mind that it's three weeks. Today is a good example that the last week is kind of, it's, it's the people who have raised smart and have, you know, but they, they were biding their time looking, you know, to conserve energy, you know, and there's, you know, there's people, I'm not going to name it by name, but there's one specific podcaster, for example, who says that, you know, uh, he doesn't believe that, that efforts and attacks you do in week one will have an impact in week two or week three. Um, that's absolutely not true. That's absolutely not true. I mean, I can tell you, I mean, and even if cycling has changed the way they race, the

way they train, the way they prepare, a grand tour remains a grand tour. And it's an effort of three weeks. And if you think that the efforts you do in week one don't come with a price, then you don't understand anything about cycling. I'm sorry you have to say it, but that's the way it is. And we will see now in week three. I mean, kind of pass, for example, was, I don't think he was one of the big favorites before the race.

You know, we haven't seen much from him and during the season yet. He came into the into the Giro. He was straight away. He was in good form, but he was not very prominent. He did one big attack. And I've always said, if you make, if you make an attack, you, it better, it better bring some benefit. And he did one big attack before today and he won the stage and he took some time. Right. We haven't seen much

else from him since then. He's always been there, but never spent any bullets. Today was a big bullet. And it, it, it, you know, it was very, very good for him. He gained a lot of time and he's now becoming, in my opinion, the biggest favorites to win the Giro after what I've seen today. But still we have a week, I mean, or, you know, we have five or six days of racing to go and a lot can still happen. Today's effort, for example, can be, it can be that he pays for it in the next stages. The, uh, the last week is different, you know, because it's always your race against the five, six, same guys all the time, right? It's always the best guys in front. Um,

so I expect that kind of possible stay on that level if not get better because he's very famous to get better and he's always has a great third week. And let's not forget, you know, he, he won this race already. It's been a while, but he's been up there second, third, another ground tour. So, um, that was an amazing race of Carapaz today. It was amazing. And I think I should probably apologize to Richard Carapaz. I thought his GC days were done. I think I've said that multiple times.

Me too. Me too. On the record. He did get fourth at the most recent Grand Tour. He did the most recent Grand Tour that happened, the Vuelta a España. Pretty good result. Think about Richard Carapaz. I mean, he could still, but it'd be funny if he falls apart and we're like, see that's why you shouldn't attack. He burned too much energy. But like this guy is really even, especially in grand tours where he has bad luck or he's not in great form

coming into the race. He has really good third weeks. And like, think of the, so I'm looking at the 2022 wealth. That guy was unbelievable. And the third week, same thing at the tour last year, kind of had some stumbles unbelievable in the third week. I hate to use the word it's overly general, but class. He is, he's a classy writer because I heard maybe some of his preparation is not, he's not embraced the ultra scientific monkish preparation that it takes to be a modern grand tour winner. But my theory for this third week is okay, maybe he doesn't come in as fully cooked as everybody

else, but then things get equalized. And as the race goes on, like his natural class, just, I mean, how many writers can race for three weeks? Not very many, you know, there's not many people that can physically win a grand tour. And he's just so good in that third week, which would bode well for his chances to win because he's only what 20, 31 seconds behind five seconds behind Simon Yates still has to beat him, but he looked pretty dang strong today. I'd say, and just as the ability to know more time trials, which is his weak point.

So that's also good. Yeah. Like this has worked out perfectly for him. Cause I thought too, I was like, well, even if he has a good climbing grand tour, he can't time trial. And that's going to catch up to him. But it's funny. It's like, if they had the same number of time trial kilometers, but space differently, maybe it keeps them from winning. But because they got them out of the way early, it kind of all comes out in the wash. I, yeah, I guess anything could still happen. Like let's just highlight Derek G for example. Yeah, Spencer, I need to apologize to Derek G. Not believing in his, because yesterday you, you, uh,

put him forward as maybe your candidate to win the Giro. I mean, I still think that's a stretch, but man, he is, he is riding really strong. Um, very strong. And, uh, and today he was, I mean, he, he reacted to Carapaz was not in the wheel, but he didn't lose that much time, you know, and then he was gaining on a kilometer, but quite drastically. Yeah. And another, another, uh, thing I noticed today, Spencer, uh, is,

and there you could see that Del Toro didn't have the legs that we have seen from him until now is it's the first time, the first attack that Del Toro didn't jump on the wheel and sat on the wheel. It's the first time in this whole Giro that this has happened. So this was obviously, you know, a sign that he was, he was gonna, he was going to struggle. I still think he did amazing. Get, you know, kept his pace. He lost what, he lost one and a half minutes on Carapaz. One and one 35. 36, I believe.

Okay. Um, it's a lot, but, uh, could have been worse. Um, we'll see now we'll see now in the last week, what, what happens with Del Toro. Um, what's clear is that this is changing the whole dynamics of the race in terms of the strategy of UAE. I think they're going to be aggressive with other riders now to wear out, I mean, maybe to try to win a stage or to wear out the teams of, I mean, Visma doesn't really have a team when it's uphill. And Carapaz,

yeah, I mean, EF, they're not the strongest team neither in the mountain stages. So we'll see what that will do now. Are you still being out of GC? To be seen what's wrong with him. You know, if, if he can recover and stay in the race and, and be used to go and breakaways personally, I think, I think at some point, I think we're going to lose Ayuso in this race. You know, once he's, once he's out of GC,

it's going to be difficult now to mentally bounce back for him. Cause this guy came into the zero to, to win. And until this morning, I'm pretty sure he thought he had a chance. Well, it's not been right for a few days. Like if you, if you knowing what you know now, if you go back and watch stage 15, it's just like not, he's at the car a lot, he had the mechanical, but he's kind of taking his time to get back. He's always the last wheel suffering when, when del Toro was attacking,

like I don't know if it's sickness. I don't know if it's the knee, but something's not quite clicking right there. Yeah. And also, you know, one thing we have to also take into account, I think we can only really judge, uh, especially del Toro, you know, uh, we'll see tomorrow. We'll see tomorrow how he is. Some people, and this is also something you need to, you know, get experience with, like the day after a rest day is different, especially when it's in the mountains. So some people react differently to a rest day. So this could also be one of the explanations while that Toro had a bit of a weaker day.

I'm thinking more towards his youth and, uh, getting really tired right now. But, um, you know, having no experience with rest days is obviously also, uh, something that we have to take into account. Yeah. I, yeah, the youth. And then even I'm thinking of stage 18, 20, 2018, Simon Yates been in the lead, been looking fantastic. He feels a little bit of time, like 30 seconds. You're like, Oh, but he's still okay. He's still in the race lead. And then the next day he just falls apart. So if I had to put

money on it, I would say that having said that you're right after it's, it's the first day after rest day. And then the beginning of the stage was freezing cold. Like people had two pairs of gloves on that must have affected the riders later. And then you're stripping everything off and then you're racing hard and it's sunny. Like that has to affect people, especially young riders, maybe not used to that. So I don't know, maybe, maybe he's fine, but I would imagine he's going to. Yeah.

She looks scary strong Spencer. And he believes, you know, he's seen El Toro go off his wheel. There is no doubt in kind of passes mind that, uh, he can win this Jiro. What do you do if you're UAE here? It's such a weird situation because they're, they were on top of the world. They've now completely collapsed, but they're still in the race. They're still in the lead. They have completely collapsed. I mean, they're still emotionally though.

It probably feels like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Um, listen, they, they're still in the lead. They still have to control the race. That's why I think probably that breakaways will have a chance in the next few stages. But still, they just they need to believe in del Toro. You know, he can, he can find his legs back and then he's still in the lead. They still have to take the time back. Uh, it's not because he's dropped the data. He's going to be dropped every day. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, I personally think it's kind of come down all to the

last, to, to stage 22, uh, quality finestre. I think it's, that's where the, that's, that's where the geo is going to be decided. Yeah, I could see that, especially since, I mean, EF has actually been decently strong at this race, but I mean, all of these teams could rise to the occasion, but you like Visma, EF Israel, like they want this Jersey as late as possible if they're going to get it because what's's not interesting. So Eagerman, all six, three 32, three 23 back.

Does any of us just keep trying this aggressive racing? Like how do they adjust? They need to check. I mean, listen, egg on the bed. All these two ways differently. He can't go from that far. It's, it's not going to, he can eliminate one guy, but then, you know, there needs to be enough interest to do from other riders. So I mean, he can crack one guy, but he's never going to crack all of them in front of him. So he needs to, uh, you know, I don't know. I don't know. Uh, it's strange. Uh, you know, he got dropped and then he came back and he was hanging on and his,

his basic form is really, his endurance is really good because he never really cracks. He can keep going. Um, so I would prefer to see him save himself a little bit in these earlier climbs and and try to do it on the last time. Yeah. Like today's last climb seemed like that was perfect for Egan Bernal. I don't fully get why they're so anxious. They've got ants in their pants. They can't sit still until the final climb. And another just observation,

Derek G fourth place, 131 back. I'm obviously very biased for Derek G. I'm in, I'm in the, I'm running the G fan club in my spare time. But if he doesn't get caught behind the crashes on stage nine, he loses 222 to Del Toro and then about a minute and a half to Carapaz. He's winning this race, right? He's leading this race right now. Plus, I think he lost almost a minute on stage one. He started with Giro really bad. Like he's trying to get fair for everybody. Yeah. I mean, he's the, you know, that image yesterday, Spencer, or was it two days?

He don't remember when it was, uh, well, no, obviously not yesterday, two days ago, when this crazy fan idiot was running next to the guys with this Fox, you know, and Derek G is making fun and touching the Fox when, and then I watched it afterwards again. I mean, everybody was on the limit there. They were going crazy fast uphill and he was joking with this guy. So, um, yeah, that's, that was definitely a sign that, uh, Derek G has, uh, has really good legs. And so one more crackpot theory for you. That's it.

I'm flying high from my G prediction. Julio Pelasari. It was won't really ever be remembered because XDS Astana goes one, two, Pelasari dropped Richard Carapaz after Richard Carapaz reeled him in. And then he drops him finishes 15 seconds in front of him. Almost wins this stage. Like they started the front climb like four minutes behind these leaders. Pelasari is now 436 back, lost a good portion of that because he's been working for Primos and, and uh, polling for him. The rest of the race is climbing. He appears to be the strongest climber in the race. Well, today, today,

should we keep an eye on him? Is he going to keep moving up? And he's like just far enough back that it's like, what happens? He is going to keep moving up for sure. He's in great shape. Um, now I see him rather win a stage. Um, he's going to keep moving up, but he can't win this Giro. I mean, that would be absurd. 21 year old in the third week coming back to win the Giro. I do hope he wins the stage because I still am sad that he lost that stage last year. I still can't believe Pogacar took that from him in that fashion.

That's the guy who got the pink jersey from Pogacar. No. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And now I remember, yeah, I was on Montegrappa. Wait, wasn't it that in like, are you sure that wasn't in like St Ulrich where they went over and cause they were down in the Valley and like Selva and then they climb up to a ski resort. And it was just kind of like a stage that shouldn't have been a GC day, but Pagache pulled everything back. Could be, could be. I don't remember. Yeah. It was, yeah.

I remember being like that guy got, he's, he's never going to get over that, but clearly he's gone on to great things. I'm just trying to go through any other notes we have before we move on to tomorrow's stage. I mean, I think we should say Wout Van Aert, probably safe to say he's back. That was a pretty impressive. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he's definitely, definitely in good shape. He's, yeah, I mean, a big engine like that. Just once they get rid of all their troubles, they just keep steady, you know, so we're going to see both one art in more breaks.

Obviously he has a big task now with, with Simon Yates writing so well and being in second. So, yeah, if you, if you see today Spencer, you know, in the third week, he does 510 Watts for 10 minutes. There's not many people who can do that. Well, after being in the breakaway going over, they'd already gone over one, two, three climbs, like big climbs. Yeah. Well, I mean, we have to take into account his weight, right? So he's what? 75 kilos. No, he's more. I think he's 77 kilos or something. He's tall, you know, he's very tall. And I think what one art in the tour will probably be 75. But he's still a little bit. I mean, definitely not overweight, but you know, it's just his, you

know, his body composition. But um, huge power and, and, um, yeah, maybe I'm just going to be tomorrow in the break too. And try to win the stage. Who knows? Yeah. I was wondering about that. I mean, just to give people an idea about like how good Pagachar and Vindigard are. So Fennar, he posted on the rest day yesterday, his like training peaks from the race so far.

And I think it was the stage where he got second to Matt's Pedersen on the uphill sprint. It was his best all time, 10 minute power, 518 watts. Like, well, that's, that's pretty good. I actually think this 510 is more impressive because it comes at the end of a hard mountain stage, but that 518, his weight, he's still not going quite as, as fast from a Watts per kilo perspective as but got char was on the final climbs of like those union stages of the tour last year.

So that's why those guys are really good and no one can challenge them in the GC. Other thing before we move on XDS Astana wins. I mean, they're clearly getting promoted. This is unbelievable. Yeah. There's no stopping. There's no stopping that Astana wins. I mean, they're clearly getting promoted. This is unbelievable. There's no stopping. There's no stopping that anymore. Spencer. That's yeah. You know, today only today, what is it? Well today they got like 200 something points now to more than 200 points. The stage win is one 80. 180 seconds, 130. So that's okay. So yeah, 310. Yeah.

And yeah, three 10. And I read an interesting article. We don't have to dwell on it here. And some of it sounds silly and like common sense, but apparently they'd sat down in the off season and they just took everyone's like training files and they're like, this person's good at five minute power. Let's look at a race where they could do, we utilize that skill and do well and get results. And it's clearly worked. And yeah, but I kind of wondered if that will become normal. And I think that's a get results. And it's clearly

worked. And yeah, but I kind of wonder if that will become normal because normally you wouldn't think like we need every point possible. Probably. I mean, this is different also for them because they need to go to races where it's easier to score points, right? And they did a great job, but I do know they hired one or two people specifically for this issue. And they designed the calendar based on, I mean, you say to their, their, their power output for certain amount of time. And, but especially, you know, design the calendar to, to optimize the chances to, to take points and it works. But you know, design the calendar to, to optimize the chances to, to take points. And it works. But you know,

one thing would be that they get the majority of their points in all, like we'll say Mickey mouse races, but this is not the case there. They're up there in the big races too. Yeah. And what's weird is, cause I would have said that three months ago, two months ago, what's weird is those Mickey mouse results have almost helped them get results here. I don't fully know how to explain it, but it's just like given the team so much confidence and you think Skaroni would be fried by now because he was so strong in January and February,

but yeah, well, I think Skaroni got saved by his crash in Strada Bianche and he was out for quite a while. He was unbelievable in the first month and a half of racing. It was kind of almost unbeatable. He was the best rider in the world, actually, at some point, points wise in this season. But then he got he got a pretty bad crash.

But honestly, I have to say, Spencer, I, I thought Astana the way they started this season, I said, well, they, they won't be able to keep this up for many months. They're still there. They're still very, very strong. Okay. We're only the month of May. So, you know, we still have half of the season left, right? But still amazing job, what they're doing. And, uh, they're definitely staying in the world tour,

which I would not have wanted to bet one euro on it before the season. Yeah. I think I said it was impossible, but they're doing it. It's impressive. So let's take a quick ad break. Or before we go, do you, do you think Carapaz is going to win this race overall? Uh, the way I see the way I saw it today, I think so. I think so. Yeah. I think he's, you know, based on what we know of how he writes in the last week, usually, um, you know,

we've seen him extremely strong in the last week of ground tours when he had some trouble in the beginning of the ground tours and he's out of contention for GC. But yeah, listen, if you have these legs in stage 16, there's no slowing down anymore. He's gonna, he's gonna stay this level, at least even with the experience he has and the motivation he has and the mindset, I think he's still going to go faster. Well, I mean, I guess technically I've picked Derek G, but he's, he does have a time deficit, but if we just look at the two guys, I think are most dangerous based on form and time at Simon Yates and Richard Carapaz.

Pretty interesting that they're both grand tour winners. So most likely this race will be won by a rider who's already won a grand tour. It's like that fits with people that have won grand tours tend to win other grand tours in the future, both over 30. So like in a race that we saw, like, Oh, the kids are taken over like a 21 year old and 22 year old are going to go into, you know, I said this was a two man race too. So clearly that was a silly statement, but we're probably going to have a 30 plus a year old winner of this. Well, let's see, let's see though. We don't know with Del Toro.

If this was his bad day and yeah, I'm a bit worried though about stage 20, stage 20 for deltas. Um, that's going to be a tough one. I mean, I'm not a scientist. I'm not a training scientist. I also believe that if you're fatigued and you go to higher altitude, not good for you. And that's what we're doing, which is, yeah, it could just get more complicated, but let's take a quick break and then we'll predict tomorrow's stage.

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Link in the show notes. All right, back to the show. All right, so tomorrow, stage 17 is 100. I've lost it, back to the show. All right. So tomorrow stage 17 is 100. I've lost it. A 155 kilometers long. We start to get into what kind of resembles more traditional high mountains. It is only three categorized climbs, but it's a lot of elevation gain. It is a total of 3,800 meters. That is a lot of feet fifth Fifth hardest stage in this race by

meters gained and this is one of the easier stages of the third week. That's how hard this third week is. The big highlight is we go over the the Motorola 12.7 kilometers long, 7.6% average. The easy side of it, that's still pretty hard climb. Then we descend down into a valley and we kind of climb up and over a little. It's still a tough climb, three kilometers long, 8%. And then we have a stair step descent down into Borneo to finish the stage, which is at the base of the Stelvio. It's going to be tough to actually predict this one. I'll list off the odds on Unibet and we'll get Johan's take on how it's going to

play out. Richard Carapaz is the favorite now plus 1100, Giulio Pelasari plus 1200, Isaac del Toro plus 1400, Wout Polz was 1400, Tom Pitcock was 1600, Roman Duarte plus 2000, Wout Van Aert plus 2000, Christian Scaroni plus 2500, Derek Gee plus 2500, Marco Frigo plus 2500, Nicolas Prudhomme plus 2500, Pelo Bilbao plus 2800. It goes on and on, but the markets think GC day. What do you think Yohan and who's going to win? I think breakaway day. You know, we have Paso del Tonale, who is, which is a long climb, not very steep.

And then the backside of the more Tirolo, which is, as you say, even if it's considered the easier side is still very hard. And then the terrain afterwards is very lumpy, you know. But I think after today's battle, it's, I don't know. I mean, UAE is in pink. They are going to control the GC, but not necessarily the whole race. I don't think so. So I can see a breakaway, a big breakaway. Obviously it's going to be with climbers. I have to be a climber to win tomorrow's stage. After what I've seen in a few breakaways and he's been trying a few times,

I'm going to pick Pio Bilbao to win the stage. Plus 2800, he was in the break today. He's going to keep trying. And this is a guy he's so experienced. He's a veteran and knows how to race and go from breakaways and win from breakaways. So Pio Bilbao plus 2800 is my pick to win the stage tomorrow from the break. Yeah, it's good pick. I mean, it's hard. If you're, if you're predicting breakaway, it's, it's hard to zero in on the specific rider. I mean,

but just looking at this profile, first thing I thought when I saw this two weeks ago breakaway day, it's going to be hard to control. I don't really know who would want to control it or like if EF would have the firepower to do so. Pillow Bobal is a good pick. I'm going to go back to the well though, the Roman Bardet well plus 2000. He was, he, I picked him on stage 15. He was actually pretty good on that stage and I'm just trusting that a rider

like that, it's just going to get better and better, better, maybe not get better. Everyone else would get worse. The terrain is actually getting better for him. That wasn't a perfect day for him on stage 15. So I'm going to go Bardet from the breakaway. Okay. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's in there, uh, a lot of times.

So I think, um, yeah, but that is one of those guys who I think he's in good enough shape to still win one of these stages. Smart rider. So yeah, I like that. My second pick is also going to be a breakaway rider, Spencer, because I think it's fairly the I mean, if it's GC, it's still going to be difficult because they're going to there's going to be attacks amongst each other. It's difficult. So I'm going to go for the

second way, breakaway rider Marco Frigo. Israel Premier Tech. He's been a few times close already to a stage win. He's plus 2,500. I think he's in good shape. He was, he tried two days ago, which was his home region to go in the break. And he tried for a while and finally didn't make it, but he's going to try again. So he's my second choice to win the stage tomorrow. I liked that pick a lot plus 2,500. I don't know if he noticed on that stage, but he saw the breakaway like was going to get reshuffled. So he, he had the strength to like just rip off the front and then could be part of the

second version of the breakaway. Very hard to do that. So you know he's in incredibly good shape. My hedge, my wild card, Richard Carapaz plus 1100. Just, we think this is going to be breakaway, which means probably something goofy will happen and it won't be. I it's just, it's anytime you're like, it's impossible for it to be GC day. Like you have to be prepared to the, for the fact that it will be. And I think he's so good at this type of finish.

I think part of the reason it won't be GC is because it is so good for Richard Carapaz and the finish that if you're Simon Yates, like why you don't want to bring him to the line with time bonuses. And this could be a tight race. These time bonuses can matter. So I'm going to go Carapaz just in case it happens at plus 1100. Okay. That's also just been the zero of massive odds for the favorite,

like multiple days where the favorites been over plus a thousand, which is interesting. Yeah. Well, I mean plus, plus 1100 for one of the favorites. That's a, that's a good price. So for her rider that we know is probably the strongest rider in the race in the mountains. Yeah, right now. Yeah. Well, anything else? You know, I w how do you, what do you think is going to happen to del Toro? So stay with the group tomorrow?

Yeah, I think tomorrow he's not going to know the more it's not, it's not going to happen. It's's it's too far from the finish. Um, and I think how far is the more Tirolo from the finish? Um, a problem cause it's 50 kilometers from the finish. Yeah. 50 K. Uh, he's going to have teammates if he gets in trouble. So I think he'll make it back. If that was, that was to happen. Will they all be working for their top twenties though?

Actually is like, it's been a great example of why having four riders in the top 10 actually cannot, can be not useful because it's like, think of, think of Carapaz, think of Yates, like everyone's, there's just no ambiguity in the team. They're the clear GC leaders. Everyone is kind of bought in. Like think of Wout Van Aert, takes a lot of buy-in to do what he did today. Well, I think, I think UAE, they should have, you know, they should have always,

I think it was right to have Ayuso keep going, even with, with, with Del Toro in pink, but the others, like Adam Yates and Brandon McNulty, they shouldn't have been. I mean, I haven't checked where they are now, but they shouldn't have been so close in GC. Once you see that you don't have the legs to podium, then you need to make a choice in a team.

And having two guys for GC is a plenty. It's already creates problems sometimes. So it makes things easier also with breakaways, because if you have a guy in the breakaway, you can always decide then at the end whether he tries to hang on and try to go for the stage or ultimately you call him back because you need him in the group of favorites.

Yeah. I mean, let's, let's say del Toro does hang on to win this. Presumably it will be close because he's what 30, 26 and 31 seconds in front of the rest of the podium. If you go back to stage 11, they're chasing Carapaz, one of the guys that might end up beating them by a few seconds. Brandon McNulty and Adam Yates are doing that chasing, but they don't chase so hard that they blow up. Like they are preserving their GC positions. That would be,

if he does end up losing this by a little bit, you'd point to that and say that would, that's where it would be helpful to have guys that are just totally bought in. Like let's pull this back because we don't want to give this guy time. Yeah, for sure. I, you know, I'm looking at the Motorola. It is very steep at the top. They say it's the easy side. The last three K are all over 10% average and it's very high. You know what? It's like six, over 6,000 feet,

1800 meters. But even if you get dropped there six over 6,000 feet, 1800 meters. But even if you get dropped there, I mean, it would take such an effort to hold someone off to, to Borneo. I don't see it happening. I think he stays in the group. Yeah, me too. All right, Johan, thanks. And we will be back tomorrow to break this stage down and then predict stage 18. Okay, Spencer, speak soon. Alright, bye.