[1] In the 20th stage, arriving in San Pellegrino Terme, Magni and Coppi attacked Gastone Nencini (who was leading the general classification) taking advantage of a puncture he suffered in an unpaved road section.

[6] Serge Lang wrote that Coppi was the public's favorite to win, but most other riders did not him as much of an overall threat due his age.

[3] It was believed reigning champion Carlo Clerici (Faema) would be marked heavily this race after the nature of his victory the previous year when he gained significant time through a breakaway.

[9] Young Italians including the likes of Mauro Gianneschi (Arbos), Nino Defilippis (Torpado), Giuseppe Minardi (Legnano), Agostino Coletto (Fréjus) were thought to be outside contenders for the general classification and were the team's leaders.

[3][5] Atala's best chances were seent with Giancarlo Astrua and Bruno Monti, the latter of which impressed at the Tour de Romandie.

[3][9] Doniselli, the Dutch team, was thought to have great riders who could animate the race like Wout Wagtmans, Hein Van Breenen, and Gerrit Voorting.

[3][12] Notably Thijs Roks, van Breenen, and Wagtmans composed the podium for the Dutch national road race championship.

[5] The route's general structure was announced on December 29, 1954 at the Palazzo Marino in Milan in front of local dignitaries.

[3] The tenth stage utilized the route used in the 1955 UCI World Championships men's road race that were to be held in Frascati, Italy August that year in a 20.4 km (13 mi) loop that was traversed ten times.

[9] In total the route had roughly 25,000 m (82,021 ft) of elevation change of which five stages contained eight categorized climbs that awarded points for the mountains classification.

[6] Further, race organizers decided to reduce the length of the stages within the Giro d'Italia closer to 200 km (124 mi), similar to the Tour de France at the time.

[19] A writer for Nouvelliste Valaisan felt a rouler could win the general classification if they could take advantage of the course before the race hits the Dolomites.

The leader of the general classification – calculated by adding the stage finish times of each rider – wore a pink jersey.