Stage #3: Goat roads

Time bonuses (sec): /

The one for climbers. The one only true goats will love. Everybody else will hate it. Simply can’t be otherwise, since it’s a terrible stage. The climb aren’t particulary long, but they are stereotypical Haloze climb. Actually both big climbs of the day, Boč and Donačka gora, are the longest climbs you can find in wider Haloze region. They are both steep and incredibly irregular. Especially the last one, Donačka gora, which is like 10-15min of climbing steep steps, where 12% average gradient for almost 3km means gradient change for almost every 50meters. The fastest times for full Boč climb (4.8km/430vm) @6w/kg is around 15min, @5w/kg is 18min and @4wkg is around 22minutes. Just for the record, the fastest time on the main segment from Poljčane to the mountain hut (4.0km, 9.4%) was set by none else then a Tour de France 2020 winner Tadej Pogačar, with a time of 13:05. That was done with a stratosperic power ratio of around 6.4w/kg!

Because the stage has two very hard and steep climbs, where any kind of a group will explode after a minute into the climb, this stage does not offer any time bonuses. The differences in finishing time will be big between riders and it’s on climbers to gain as much as possible on this stage if they want to contest for general competition.