Giro d'Italia 2025 Stage 18

May 29, 2025 Today is not a day off but it is certainly a reprieve from the relentless climbing over the past few days. At just 144KM, the race from Morbegno to Cesano Maderno should be straightforward with just 1,700M of climbing, nearly all of which comes in the first 88KM. After just 16KM, the riders will get the first sight of Lago Di Como before following the shore line South. They jump off the flat road to take on the hardest climb of the day, the Parlasco, which is 7.6KM at almost 6%. The climbs of the Colle Balisio and the Ravellino come next with the Redbull Golden Kilometer atop an uncategorized climb in Sirtori at 66KM from the finish. The remainder of the stage is flat or downhill. The finish is on a 12KM circuit that has 17 corners per lap. They will do two and a half laps and if a break still has a decent lead, they will be hard to catch. Lombardy was bathed in beautiful sunshine for the start. Another huge break of at least 40 riders went with 120KM to go that included many of the sprinters. No team had the horsepower to control all day so the tactic was to place their fast men in the break. At the start of the Parlasco climb outside of Bellano, they had 1 minute on the peloton. Alpecin-Deceuninck were setting the pace on Parlasco to try and shed as many sprinters as they could while keeping Kaden Groves in the group. They went over the top at 105KM to go to drop into the Valsassina with a gap of 1 minute 30 seconds over the UAE-XRG led peloton. UAE-XRG's pre race favorite, Juan Ayuso, abandoned the Giro at the base of Parlasco after a series of setbacks including a bee sting which swelled around his eye making it almost impossible to see out of. About 35 riders were at the front in the break as they went over the Colle Balisio into Lecco with a nice lead of 5 minutes. Mads Pedersen of Lidl-Trek led across the Intermediate Sprint point in Galbiate, halfway up the Ravellino climb with 72KM to go. Dries De Bondt of Decathlon AG2R and Davide De Pretto of Jayco AlUla got with Pedersen and tried to force a split but Alpecin-Deceuninck was quick to react and brought it back together. Martin Marcellusi and Manuele Tarozzi of VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè went on the attack with Rémy Rochas of Groupama-FDJ near the top of the uncategorized climb to Sirtori. They had about 20 seconds on the rest of the break over the top and got a gap of 41 seconds before the chase livened up. Marcellusi and Rochas dropped back but Tarozzi persisted. He was nearly caught on a number of occasions but was finally reeled in with 37KM to go. A few kilometers later, a group of 11 chipped off the front with most of the main teams represented and with 30KM to go, their lead was 30 seconds on the rest of the break. The group included Larry Warbasse of Tudor Pro Cycling, Daan Hoole of Lidl-Trek, Dylan van Baarle of Visma-Lease a Bike, Nico Denz of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Edward Planckaert of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Alex Edmondson of Picnic-PostNL, Mirco Maestri of Polti-VisitMalta, Filippo Magli of VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè, Nicola Conci of XDS-Astana ,De Pretto, and De Bondt . They built 2 minutes with 21KM to go and would fight out the stage win between them. Through a series of left and right turns at 18KM to go, Denz put the power down and held his speed through the corners. Conci couldn't follow the wheel and Denz had a gap. Denz took the bell with 12KM to go and a gap of 30 seconds. The chase did not have the firepower or the cohesion to get Denz back. With 4KM to go, the chase was abandoned and the group was scrapping for the minor places. Denz crossed the line for his third Giro stage win of his career in a brilliant show of strength and tactics. The win gives Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe something to cheer about after the departure of Primož Roglič. The race for second was won by Maestri who took the sprint 1 minute behind Denz with Planckaert taking third place. There were no changes in the top 10 in GC. In fact, the GC riders didn't arrive at the finish until nearly 14 minutes after Denz took the win.