Three Quick Takeaways: Giro d'Italia 2025 Route Reveal

A few initial thoughts on the 2025 Giro d'Italia route

After a significant delay, the route for the 2025 Giro d’Italia route was finally released this past week, with the big takeaway being that the race organizer, RCS, was able to salvage its Albanian Grande Partenza, which will see the first three stages take place across the Adriatic (with Albania reportedly paying €7 million for the privilege), before coming back home for three stages that will serve up a route with a typically Italian traditional rhythm, including a brutal third week in the northern Alpine region.

Part of the reason for the Giro’s return to an overly hard mountainous route, which sees a 20% increase in vertical meters climbed from the 2024 edition, is that they no longer are attempting to court Tadej Pogačar, who easily won last year after being heavily courted (by both cash and a favorable route) by race organizer RCS. Instead, the sport’s sub-lightspeed GC contenders, like Primož Roglič, Dani Martínez, Mikel Landa, Adam, and Simon Yates, as well as a crop of extremely high-upside young talents, like Juan Ayuso and Isaac del Toro, will contest overall victory. And, even if Primož Roglič cruises to his sixth career GC victory, the battle for stage wins should be incredible, with Wout van Aert and Mads Pedersen already confirmed as attending and chasing the Points Classification.

Check out my course breakdown and three initial thoughts below: