Giro d'Italia stage 6: Reggio Calabria – Terme Luigiane 217 km

A spicy finish with hills and hairpins lend this stage an air of Milan-Sanremo but the final two kilometres are all uphill so even if there’s a sprint we’ll see some different names in the mix.

The race finally reaches mainland, with a long medium mountain stage starting from Reggio Calabria and heading north almost entirely along the coast. The first climb of the day comes after 27 km: Barritteri (GPM3, 11.3 km at 4.2%) starts with solid ramps and then flattens out towards the top. It will be a key passage for the daily breakaway. After a fast descent, some false flats will lead to another uphill section, made by short, isolated ramps that will bring the riders to the two very close intermediate sprints of the day. Once past those, the route goes back to the coast, and stays there for pretty much the rest of the stage. Roughly 100 km are totally flat and easy (beside the low risk of crosswinds), but after those the terrain starts to get tricky, with the second categorized climb of the day, Fuscaldo (GPM4, 2 km at 6.8%), that is preceded and followed by othe shorter ramps and descents. The top of Fuscaldo is at 24 km to go, and the finale is quite tricky. At 7 km to go the ramp to Acquappesa starts. It's roughly just 1 km at 6%, with some steeper ramps in the secon half, but topping at 6 km to go makes it a possible key point of the race. From there on there is no proper flat, as the peloton rolls back to Guardia Piemontese Marina to tackle the final difficulty of the day, the uphill finish of Terme Luigiane, with 2 km at 5.3% and again steeper gradient at the top, as the last 700m are at 8%.

GC standings
1 Bob Jungels (Lux) Quick-Step Floors 23:22:07
2 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky 0:00:06
3 Adam Yates (GBr) Orica-Scott 0:00:10
4 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale
5 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
6 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team
7 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb
8 Bauke Mollema (Ned) Trek-Segafredo
9 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team
10 Andrey Amador (CRc) Movistar Team