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Here’s a guide to the 2014 Giro d’Italia with stage profiles and accompanying summaries plus all the technical information on race rules, time bonuses, TV schedules and more.
All sponsors get a note of thanks and travel and tour operator Holimites has been here for March. They offer travel and stays in the Dolomites, home of some of Italy’s best mountain passes.
The Dolomites are part of the Italian Alps and offer plenty of great cycling routes that are rich in race history. This month the site is sponsored by travel company Holimites and speaking to them about the best places to ride in the region I mentioned the usual suspects like the Passo Pordoi, Passo Giau and Selle Ronda but they came back with… the Passo delle Erbe.
This might not have the celebrity status of other mountain passes but it is probably the most scenic and with several routes to the top, there’s variety.
So much talk about the route and now it’s time to focus on the race. This is the longest event on the calendar and loaded with prestige, history and action. Fate means this Sunday’s edition reverting to a pre-2008 course with neither the new climb of Pompeiana nor Le Mànie. It would be a gift to the sprinters only paradoxically these late changes mean many of them might not be ready for it.
Here’s the race preview for Sunday with the route, scenarios, contenders separated from pretenders as well as TV times, the weather and more.
It’s mild in Italy and France right now and the two clashing stages races each share dreamy labels that conjur up the summer, with la course au soleil in France and now la corsa dei due mari, the race of the two seas, hence the giant Neptune trident as the trophy.
Starting today this race offers an exciting week with some wild stage finishes. As well as the immediate action it should offer some instructive moments as we see some big name riders clash. A lot of the focus is on the uphill finishes and who will win overall but the sprints will see Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel and André Greipel go elbow to elbow too.
As part of a series to explore the famous roads of cycling, here is one of the sections of the Strade Bianche or “white roads” in Italy’s central Tuscany region. The idea is to discover the road and its place in the world, whether as part of cycling’s history or to look at the route on a day without racing and it is open to all.
The white roads are unsealed roads that can be found in many parts of Italy but local geology in this region provides a greyish rock which, when ground, produces a white dust. These roads are old but have been seized in modern times for cycling, whether the retro L’Eroica ride or the Strade Bianche race.
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Davide Cassani has been named as the new Italian national coach. The appointment is always treated as a big deal in Italy and concludes a saga of public commentary via La Gazzetta Dello Sport on the contenders before incumbent Paolo Bettini had even resigned and concluded with the blessing of dapper legend Alfredo Martini, the coach for over 20 years. You almost expected white smoke to waft from the chimney on Martini’s house. Habemus selector.
Who knows what 2014 will bring? There are some signs but it’s often the unexpected events that delight and intrigue. Here are some extrapolations and wild guesses for the year ahead.
I bet you’ve never heard of the Colle del Nivolet. The Giro has not visited and soon after the pass the tarmac ends, a road to nowhere. So what’s this place got going for it? If the photo above by Flickr’s Muneaki isn’t enough it’s in the top-10 of Europe’s highest paved roads.
Amid the famous climbs of the Tour de France and Giro in this series, here is the opposite: a road without celebrity status but which is one of Europe’s best, almost road you must ride.
Much of the route has been known thanks to official promotion by RCS and leaked details. But today’s presentation is the chance to supply all the details because if we knew the start and finish towns for a stage, now we know which mountain passes will come between them. It’s also the chance to present the race as a whole and present a theme.