The Stage

Today’s stage was an exciting one, with 3,850 meters of climbing across 186 km today had the most climbing we’ve seen yet and will only be exceeded by the mountain stages in the last week.

Notably, today’s stage also had one of the more challenging climbs in the whole tour: Alpe San Pellegrino. That particular climb was 13.7 km long, and had an average gradient of 8.8 percent with a maximum gradient of 19 percent — that’s about as steep as it gets.

However challenging the climb was, it was in the middle of the stage, making the tactics more complicated than if the climb were at the end of the stage. Lorenzo Fortunato got in the breakaway and took the maximum points available on San Pellegrino, furthering his lead in the King of the Mountains competition.

Most notable though was Richard Carapaz, a previous Giro winner, and Ecuadorian rider on the U.S.-based team: EF Education-EasyPost. He managed to take the stage win after an attack on the final climb. Although it was a much shallower and shorter climb than San Pellegrino, Carapaz’s attack was enough to take the stage and gain time on the GC, moving up 3 positions.

Del Toro keeps the pink leader’s jersey for now, and will likely keep it until the weekend when we start seeing mountains again. But his teammate and team leader, Juan Ayuso, is trailing him by only half a minute, so it will be interesting to see how UAE plays it and how long del Toro is allowed to stay pretty in pink.

The Dish

I had a busy evening today so I woke up early to make my dish of the day. Originally I had planned to make an almond cake, but I discovered I did not have enough butter for a cake so I made a last-minute decision to make to a dozen almond shortbread cookies instead.

These were really delicious. It was my first time making shortbread, but I loved how almond-y they taste even without almond extract, and the tiny bit of lemon zest really lifted them. I had one with my morning coffee, but they would have gone really nicely with a cup of tea as well.

The only thing I would have done differently is shape them a little more carefully. I didn’t realize how little they would change as they baked. In the past I’ve only really made chocolate chip cookies which melt a lot as they bake, which erases most imperfections. Not so with shortbread.

Ciao!