The second time trial of this year's Giro d'Italia comes right at the end of the second week and is a classic looking Giro TT route.
The mid-race TTs at the Giro are often known as wine trials as they seem to repeatedly take place in famous wine areas. This year the race is going through Prosecco country on a hilly 34.1km course from Conegliano to Valdobbiadene.
There are three time checks, with the first after just 7.4km, but at the top of a category four 1.1km climb that averages a 12.3 per cent gradient, maxing out at 18 per cent, so bike changes are possible with a potential of three changes, but with the climb so early on in the day that is doubtful.
The next two splits are on flatter terrain at 17.1 and 25.1km into the ride before the route begins to climb again. Not as challenging as the first wall they had to face, this is more of a drag that will really take it out of the already screaming legs.
A swift descent takes the riders down to the finish with three sharp turns in the last kilometre before a small kick up to the line in the last 400 metres, averaging just five per cent.
The riders fighting for pink will see this as the first proper opportunity to take time out of the young Portuguese leader, João Almeida (Deceuninck - Quick-Step).
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Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) and Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-McLaren), both second and third overall, probably have the best chance of doing this as they are most likely the strongest on this style of TT.
But Almeida put in an incredible display on stage one between Monreale and Palermo to come second just behind Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), who is no doubt the favourite to win his third stage of the race.
A rider who will be hoping not to lose too much time will be high flying 37-year-old, Domenico Pozzovivo (NTT Pro Cycling), who is in the climbing form of his life, but may suffer on the TT bike.
Other stage favourites aside from world champion, Ganna, are Victor Campenaerts (NTT Pro Cycling), Rohan Dennis (Ineos Grenadiers), Alex Dowsett (Israel Start-Up Nation), Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadiers) and Jan Tratnik (Bahrain-McLaren).
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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