• Identify at least a couple of stages or events that are in the same area. In this way staying in the same place and accommodation, you can enjoy watching more stages or events.
• Variety. Choose to watch an arrival on top of a hill, one sprint finish and maybe one start.
• Look for decisive stages. Those are usually during the last 7-10 days of the race, they have many “category one” climbs, with high elevation gain, they have 4 or 5 stars of difficulty and come after other mountain stages where racers have cumulative fatigue in their legs. 
• It is a Queen Stage “Tappone Dolomitico”. The Queen stage is  designed to be the hardest, most demanding stage of the race; the stage that will have the biggest effect on the overall results. 
• Choose the ones in scenic surroundings of your own interest, or they are in an area that you have not visited yet. 
• Include one or more events or Stages of the Giro d’Italia into your trip to Italy. If your trip to Italy is not a pure bike trip, look for cycling events or Giro Stages in the areas you are planning to visit. You can rent a bike just for the day/s of the event/s.

• Regardless of whether it is a mountain or flat stage, your goal is to ride part of the route when it is closed to the traffic, full of fans, following all the “Giro” directions decorated in pink. To do this, timing is the key factor.  
• Timing is a very critical aspect. You want to ride with no traffic on the roads of the Giro, but you also want to arrive at the finish line before they close the roads even to cyclists. For this reason, check the road closures for this stage a few days before, on the local news to plan correctly. 
• Which part of the stage you decide to ride also depends on where you will be watching the race. If you decided to wait at the finish line, depending on your level of training, you want to ride the last part of the route that will allow you to arrive at the finish line at least 1 hour before the estimated arrival of the pros.
• If you have chosen a mountain stage with a hilltop finish, ride the last one or two climbs, depending on your level of training. For sure you want to ride the last climb.
• If you have chosen a mountain stage without a hilltop finish, you may still want to ride the last 1-2 climbs and watch the race from the last climb before the last downhill before the straightway to the finish line. In any case, you want to choose the steepest and longer climb of the stage. 

• In case of mountain stages, it is crucial to consider how far away you will be at the end of the race from your car or accommodation. 
• Strategically, choose your accommodation, or where to leave your car/van, in a such way that you can go back to them within 1-2 hours after watching the end of the race. 
• Consider, for the way back home, distance, weather, hours of day light left, colder temperature and fatigue. 
• Have always plan B. For mountain stages for the Giro d’Italia in May, the weather is always a big unpredictable variable, so it is a good idea to always have an alternative plan B ready. Plan B can include to drive closer to the finish line and shorten the ride to be closer to home after the end of the race or pick a closer spot form where to watch the race. 
• If it is a flat stage with a likely final sprint finish and it has a scenic route, like stage 4 of this year Giro, then ride the part of the route with roads closed to traffic. If the route is not interesting, then use that day for an alternative route in the area and just go to the finish line to watch the final sprint. 

• Timing is a very critical aspect. You want to arrive at the finish line before they close the roads even to cyclists. For this reason, check the road closures for this stage a few days before, on the local news to plan correctly.
• Get around the Cellular era. If you stand on the side of the road, trying to get a photo with your cellular, you will have all the people next to you extending their arms holding their cellular just in front of your camera. So, stand on a switch back, on a curve, where you can see the peloton arriving almost in front of you, rather than from the side, so everyone will extend their arms outside away from you. Another option is to climb to a higher spot, or a small rock, or driveway, where you can see the road from above. 

Where to Watch the Pros

• For Mountain Stages with a hilltop finish, watch from the top of the last climb a few hundred meters from the finish line. You may want to ride up until you cross the finish line as your own accomplish, then slowly ride back a few switchbacks down until you see the steepest spot, stop there, and wait for the peloton. 
• For Mountain Stages without a hilltop finish, stop and watch from the top of the last climb before the last descent, if the last climb is the steepest and/or longer of that day stage. Otherwise, for watching spot, pick the intermediate climb that is the most challenging, the most scenic or legendary for the cycling history, like I chose the Stelvio for Stage 16 of this year Giro.
• For flat stages, do not watch the race from the side of a flat road where they will zip by at 50 km/h. You won’t have time to see that they are coming that you will just see their backs. Watch the sprint at the finish line but arrive 1.5-2 hours before the expected arrival time of the peloton, to get a prime front view.