When the Giro d’Italia route was announced earlier this year, the consensus amongst the peloton was clear: the gravel stage at the end of the opening week could be decisive. The white roads of Tuscany, synonymous with Strade Bianche, could either make or break a GC rider’s bid for victory; crashes, mechanicals and other mishaps were all seen as a certainty beforehand.
The central danger that the stage posed was its unpredictability; Pello Bilbao told Cycling Weekly that anything could happen. That prediction came to fruition with a reshuffling of the general classification in Siena, with 21-year-old Mexican Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) now top of the pile by more than a minute.
