Can 2027 Giro time trials tempt Evenepoel into Grand Tour double attempt?
The route of the 2027 Giro d'Italia will be presented in Rome on Tuesday. Early reports indicate that it will feature two time trials, but will it be enough to dissuade Remco Evenepoel and others from focusing squarely on a Tour de France that features 71km against the watch?
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When Luca Guercilena formally took up his position as Head of Cycling at RCS Sport in September, he hinted that the Giro d’Italia would place a greater emphasis on time trialling.
“I’ve always loved time trials, and I’d like to bring them back into the spotlight,” Guercilena told La Gazzetta dello Sport in September. “I’d like to strike a better balance between time trials and climbs, so as to broaden the range of potential winners.”
His colleagues at ASO clearly had the same idea, and they beat him to the bunch by confirming it publicly. When the 2027 Tour de France route was unveiled in Paris last week, it featured some 71km of individual time trialling, the highest quota since Bradley Wiggins claimed overall victory in 2012.
There is clearly no way of designing a course to prevent Tadej Pogacar from winning, but ASO have looked to engineer some suspense by placing a long, flat time trial ahead of the first summit finish and then another, similar test at the start of the final week.
Remco Evenepoel, in particular, looks set to benefit from the configuration of the Tour route, and it seems all but certain that the world time trial champion will again make the race the centrepiece of his season.
But it remains to be seen if his head will be turned by the Giro route, which will be formally unveiled in Rome on Tuesday. As ever, some sleuths have pieced together a draft of the course based on local reports, and the version proposed by Cicloweb with its by now annual spoilerone – “big spoiler” – tallies with Guercilena’s early hint at more time trialling.
Like the Tour, the first time trial of the Giro is set to take place on stage 7, with local newspaper Il Centro reporting that the race will take in a mountain time trial of almost 20km from Sulmona to Campo di Giove.
The climb is a steady one, with a very shallow opening portion followed by 10km at an average of just under 5%. It’s not a pure mountain test in the mould of Monte Lussari in 2023 but rather a time trial on steadily rising roads more akin to past stages to San Marino.
One imagines that Evenepoel would find plenty to like about the road from Sulmona to Campo di Giove, but the reported second time trial in Monza is even more suited to specialists like the Belgian.
Il Corriere dello Sport and Tuttosport have both reported that stage 15 of the Giro will be a time trial that starts and finishes on the Formula One circuit nicknamed the Temple of Speed. The terrain will be entirely flat, and the only question mark is over the eventual distance. Initial reports suggested it would be around 30km, but after the Tour upped the ante by increasing its time trialling quota, it will be fascinating to see if RCS Sport follows suit.
In 2026, after all, the Giro’s lone time trial was the 42km test to Massa on stage 10, while the 2024 edition featured a total of 71.8km of time trialling, including a 40km stage to Perugia in week one.
According to initial reports, the 2027 Giro is set to feature around 50km of time trialling, which might not be enough to dissuade Evenepoel from focusing on the Tour.
Then again, balance is the key for Guercilena and RCS Sport, and while Pogacar’s entourage has made clear that he is unlikely to return in 2027, they will hope their route will persuade some of the other grandees of stage racing to line up in Trieste on May 8.
Defending champion Jonas Vingegaard has yet to shed any light on his 2027 plans, but there have been suggestions that Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate Isaac del Toro might return to the Giro after narrowly missing out on victory in 2025.
More surprisingly, Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) has cast doubt on his participation in the Tour, leading to speculation that the French talent could be persuaded to target the Giro before building towards the World Championships in Haute-Savoie in August.
In any case, like in 2026, the early indications are that the Giro will be designed to give riders a chance at combining the race with the Tour. The reporting from Italy, compiled by Cicloweb, suggests that there will be three mountain stages in the final week, but not consecutively.
Tuttosport has reported that stage 16 to Aprica will include two ascents of the Mortirolo either side of the mighty Gavia, while stage 18 is rumoured to finish at Madonna di Campiglio. Il Messaggero Veneto, meanwhile, has reported that the race will return to Friuli for a summit finish at Monte Zoncolan on stage 20 before the long transfer south for the grand finale in Rome.
