Roads to Ride: The Poggio

At first glance the Via Duca d’Aosta looks like any normal road along the Italian coast. It sits off the Via Aurelia, the main road that hugs the coastline all the way to France which hums and buzzes with Italian traffic. A few vehicles turn off now and then to take the smaller road named after a Duke who was once Italian royalty. Rusty vans wheeze up the road ferrying supplies for the numerous greenhouses that cover the hillside, growing flowers for export. Only the Via Duca d’Aosta is no ordinary road, it is the Poggio, the final climb of Milan-Sanremo.

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Milan-Sanremo Documentary

Mark Cavendish talking about opera, Filippo Pozzato sliding his Ferrari around the bends of the Poggio, a priest discussing doping and a two-time winner of Milan-Sanremo from the 1950s riding an indoor exercise bike. All this and more in the documentary film by Wilfried de Jong.

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The Longest Race in the World

Milan Sanremo profile

Amongst the Spring classics Milan-Sanremo is the odd one out. For a start the name is genuine. Paris-Roubaix no longer starts in Paris and Liège-Basgtogne-Liège finishes in a place called Ans. The Italian race starts right in the heart of Milan, in between the Parco Sempione and the giant Gothic cathedral.

This is also the longest one-day race on the pro calendar. So long that the event has special dispensation to exceed the UCI maximum distance of 250km. Much of the route is flat but it’s fast and every pedal stroke is like a cent or penny borrowed, each one is added up with an interest rate that’s compounded over the seven hours.

Sometimes you can glance at a race profile in five seconds but this route is so long that it’s full of stories, statues, views, food and more. Let’s take a more detailed look at the route via ten photos.

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Team Victory Rankings

Team victory chart

With Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico done, an update to the team victory rankings. OPQS now lead thanks to recent wins from Sylvain Chavanel and Tony Martin, a sign that the Belgian team can win on almost every front, with the probably exception of the high mountains and the overall classification of grand tours.

Vacansoleil-DCM and Euskaltel-Euskadi are the two teams without a win. A problem? Yes and no as I’ll explain below with the story of Wout Poels.

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Was The Sant’ Elpidio Climb Too Hard?

Nibali Rodriguez Tirreno Sant Elpidio

The Tirreno-Adriatico race concludes today with a time trial and there will be some sore legs from the previous day’s racing. Stage 6 included a climb that with a modest average that hid some sections at 27%. This had riders stalling with many having to walk up and some got a push. A sizeable number of riders quit and after a 130km solo effort BMC Racing’s Taylor Phinney crossed the line but was eliminated after missing the time cut.

It created a post-stage polemic with many riders taking to the airwaves, Twitter or their blogs to say the stage was too much. Race director Michele Acquarone was moved to say sorry. Was the climb too much?

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Tirreno-Adriatico: Stage 7 Preview

Tirreno Adriatico time trial

For the fourth day in a row, we will have a new rider in the blue leader’s jersey. Vincenzo Nibali attacked exactly where everybody expected him to do so, but still no one – except for Purito and Sagan – could keep up with him. Nibali now leads overall with 34 seconds down to Chris Froome and I will be very surprised if he doesn’t win Tirreno-Adriatico for the second time in a row.

This time trial is the same as last year and I doubt even Chris Froome can take back more than half a minute on Vincenzo Nibali in just 9.2 km. Nibali has been working very hard on improving his time trial skills and with a new bike and new skinsuit he could even end up surprising quite a few on this stage.

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The Moment The Race Was Won: Paris-Nice

Richie Porte Nairo Quintana Andrew Talansky Montagne de Lure Paris Nice

Stage 5 and the lead group is on the Montagne de Lure and just two kilometres from the finish. Andrew Talansky’s already put in two bold attacks. It’s audacious racing and useful too because the accelerations have dropped several riders, you can see a second group in the background of the picture. But it’s also fatal for Talansky’s overall lead because Richie Porte is taking a good look his power meter, at Talansky and the road ahead and will soon attack to finish 32 seconds clear and take the 10 second time bonus. Porte then followed this up with a powerful stage win on the Col d’Eze, extending his overall lead and leaving nobody in doubt as to who was the strongest rider of the week.

Here’s a look back at the race, including the arithmetic to show Talansky’s attacking didn’t lose the race, plus some lessons for the rest of the year, from the classics to the Tour de France.

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The Spin: Paris-Nice Stage 7

Col d'Eze profile

A final time trial to settle the race. Can Richie Porte be beaten? As Greg Lemond said on the eve of the final stage of the 1989 Tour de France “if he has a bad day and I have a good day anything is possible”, and the American went on to beat Laurent Fignon by just eight seconds on the overall.

But that was a memorable exception. Porte is playing at home and the course is short so he should be safe. But still, who knows? What’s more certain is that the final podium places are unknown. Andrew Talansky, Lieuwe Westra, Jean-Christophe Peraud, Tejay van Garderen and more all all within reach.

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Tirreno-Adriatico Stage 5 Preview

Tirreno Adriatico Chieti climb

Team Sky are in a league of their own. Especially with a strong head wind on the climbs. They seem unbeatable this year on mountain top finishes, so if you want to get them, you need a powerful kick and some steep percentages. Luckily for the spectators, that is exactly what we will see on this stage. The steep finish in Chieti has quickly turned into a classic Tirreno finish and it will be difficult for Team Sky to control the pack with gradients up to 19%.

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Roads to Ride: The Col d’Eze

Col d'Eze

The next instalment of the Roads to Ride series is the Col d’Eze that climbs out from the city of Nice, France’s fifth biggest city.

It’s a climb that’s been made famous by the Paris-Nice race since it was included in 1969. If Sunday will see the road closed and dedicated to cycling, then on a normal day it’s busy road that links Nice to the hills above, a ramp to climb high above the rooftops and escape the noise of the city.

For the next week this climb and the roads between it and the Poggio just over the border in Italy become the centre of world cycling.

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