Tadej Pogacar looks differently at gravel ride in Giro: “This is not Strade Bianche”

Tadej Pogačar tempers expectations for the sixth stage of the Giro d’Italia, which is all about three gravel sections. According to the Giro classification leader, the ride cannot be compared to Strade Bianche, the famous spring classic on Tuscan gravel roads. “I have to stay focused so that I can survive until the finish,” said Pogačar.

The new edition of RIDE Magazine is now available! Our new 188-page spring edition is full of wonderful cycling stories about Mathieu van der Poel, Lotte Kopecky, Demi Vollering, Sepp Kuss and Matej Mohoric. Insure your copy and order it online now for only €9.95. Would you like to receive RIDE extra cheaply? Then take out a subscription now and receive a 20% discount!

“This is not Strade Bianche, to be honest,” the UAE Emirates leader looked ahead in the mixed zone after the stage to Lucca. “It’s not a fun stage, but I mean well. It is a stage in which we have to be very concentrated, just like in the stage to Lucca. We have to stay together as a team and attack the gravel sectors together.”

Pogačar knows that every stage is an obstacle on the way to final victory. “The gravel ride will also be a completely different story,” he says. As a two-time winner of Strade Bianche, a lot is expected of him Pogi in the gravel ride. Yet he warns himself and the viewers. “You think in advance ‘gravel, gravel, gravel’, but you can also drive on bad roads in the lead-out to the gravel strip.”

“A crash can always happen, as happened to Christophe Laporte. Then you can lie on the ground before you even get to the gravel. We have to pay very close attention to this,” says Pogačar, who will not use a special bicycle. “I’m not going to change anything. In Strade Bianche we only drive with slightly wider tires and slightly less tire pressure, but in Strade there are many more gravel kilometers. I’m not going to change much on my bike for this ride.”