Ups and downs at Lidl-Trek as Gee-West and Ciccone ride the Giro rollercoaster

With two mountain stages still to come, the general classification of the Giro d'Italia has taken considerable shape. Jonas Vingegaard leads by a street, and the fight for the podium places is incredibly tense. But quietly riding a superb GC campaign behind all that is Derek Gee-West, after a tough start to the race. His team-mate Giulio Ciccone, however, is less happy with how things are going.

After a crash in stage two and some difficult early days, Gee-West had a significant deficit to make up. But on the road to Carì, the Canadian from Lidl-Trek climbed with the best in the race. His fifth place on the day has taken him up to sixth overall. "It is really good for the confidence to feel the legs starting to do what they need to do," he tells Cyclingnews.

Against the more explosive climbers, Gee-West initially found it harder. "They are good at those accelerations, I'm not. But with a kilometre to go I came back to them when they slowed a little. I knew that if I held that pace I would just be dropped again at the next acceleration. So I tried myself. It came to nothing, and they sprinted away from me afterwards. But I was good today. I held on longer than a few of the other guys".

So Gee-West rode his own pace to a strong overall position, and he looks to be getting better and better as the race goes on. "You can feel better every day, perhaps relative to the other riders. But at the same time you feel worse every day because you go deeper into a Grand Tour. It is hard to know exactly how you feel. It is a surprise on every climb where I will end up".

Last year, Gee-West finished fourth at the Giro. He still needs to find around two minutes somewhere if he wants to match or improve on that result — which looks difficult. But the Canadian champion is ready for the fight. "There are good signs, but stages 19 and 20 are still to come, and they are going to be massive, absolutely massive. There is a lot of suffering still ahead".

Meanwhile, team-mate Ciccone is enduring a run of bad luck. The Italian was again in the lead group, but was again given no room by Visma | Lease a Bike. "It's just that kind of Giro, there is not much to say about it," he sighs to Bici.pro. "But the important thing is that I feel good and keep trying. I am a bit disappointed, because on the exact stages where you need to escape with your legs, you get no chance" .

The Italian was visibly frustrated in the lead group, but he does not expect to be in that position in the next few days. "I don't find the next two stages that exciting. They don't suit me that well, and I might even consider resting as much as possible ahead of the Giro finale. I also have the blue jersey firmly in my sights, even if someone like Vingegaard — who wins every summit finish — makes a comeback difficult".

That could make life harder for Ciccone later this week. "If they decide to go for the stage win from the peloton, you have no chance of beating them. The only opportunities arise when Visma or the GC riders are less motivated. For now, these are the stages I do not like the look of, but we may have to make some compromises".