- Feb 9, 2013
- 6,245
- 6,961
- 23,180
Stage 8 was fun, so let's get this party started before another rest day. And, as per usual, many thanks to Devil's Elbow for the excellent write-ups!
Il giorno della gloria è arrivato!
Okay, that really doesn’t have the ring it does in French, but the point stands. After last year’s joke of a sterrato stage, this time RCS have made up for it by fulfilling fans’ eighteen-year dream of bringing the actual Strade Bianche finale to the Giro. If the riders do what they should do, this will be one of the best days of not just the race, but the season as a whole.
Map and profile
Start
We’ve had two full stages without any stage hosts dating back at the very least to Roman times, an unacceptably large amount for any race in Central or Southern Italy. Thankfully, RCS have treated my detouring into Roman history withdrawal symptoms by sending the riders to Gubbio. The town was founded by the Umbri, one of the main central Italian tribes whose name lives on in the present-day name for the region millennia after mostly being assimilated by the Romans. It was already important enough to be minting its own coins prior to the Roman era, and while the Via Flaminia (the main route north from Rome) bypassed it, the remains of a theatre seating 6000 show that it was quite a large town in this era regardless. After being destroyed multiple times in the first half of the Middle Ages, it rose again during the second half of this period as an independent, regionally powerful city-state. Following an outbreak of the plague that halved its population in the mid-14th century, the Papal States moved in. Gubbio resisted, but did not have the strength to sustain independence and eventually chose annexation by the Duchy of Urbino in 1384 as the only way of retaining most of its rights and privileges. The town prospered once more, but after the Duchy itself was annexed by the Papal States in 1631, it went into decline and never really recovered. However, its medieval/renaissance-era centre has been preserved fairly well. It has hosted the Giro only once, in 1989, when a then-unheralded Bjarne Riis took his first pro victory from the breakaway. As I can only cover about 60% of his career outside of the clinic, I’ll leave it there.
(picture by Labicanense at Wikimedia Commons)
Route
It’s a very fast start to the stage, with the first 22 kilometres being a downhill false flat before a similar distance on the actual flat takes the riders to the first intermediate sprint in Mercatale. On the other side of town, the road starts to rise, and continues to do so until the creatively-named KOM at La Cima.
By this point, we are only just inside Tuscany, and therefore there is some ground to cover until we get to the sterrati. Most of the interlying area is the wide Val di Chiana, not the most interesting terrain from a cycling perspective. The valley ends in Sinalunga, at the second intermediate sprint. Then, it’s time to enter the Crete Senesi, synonymous in our circles with the Strade Bianche. Initially the roads are still paved, taking in the Poggio del Castagnolo (3.6k at 4.7%), but then a right-hand turn takes us onto the first sector, Pieve a Salti. Like all sectors today, it features in Strade Bianche. The Giro have once again done the annoying thing of putting profiles in the roadbook but not on the site here: the other four sectors have profiles on the site of the Granfondo too, but this is the only one not used there. So enjoy another grainly screenshot.
The greatest beauty of this stage is that we have 26.6 kilometres of sterrato in 33.7 kilometres of racing, easily enough to shatter the peloton. As such, there is barely any respite before the next sector, Serravalle. This one is the flattest of the day.
Then, we get to the famous sectors, also known as the ones they actually show on TV when it isn’t the Giro. And San Martino in Grania isn’t just well-known, it’s also really, really hard, something that is reflected by the KOM at its end.
Now Strade Bianche always keeps heading northeast from here onto Monte Sante Marie, but both Siena and the short sectors closer to it are actually to the northeast. So yes, we are missing the greatest sector of them all here, but this does have the benefit of eliminating any and all long tarmacked sections. In fact, it’s only 13.3 kilometres until the start of the next sector, the short and steep Monteaperti.
And as anyone who has ever seen the Strade knows, Monteaperti is always followed by Colle Pinzuto, which doubles as the bonification sprint here.
Finish
And as anyone who has ever seen the Strade knows, Colle Pinzuto is always followed by… not Le Tolfe? Nope, we are skipping another sector in favour of a more direct route into Siena. Colle Pinzuto is therefore at 13.9 rather than 16.7 kilometres from the finish, which is actually slightly further than Le Tolfe normally is. I’m not really sure why they went for this option, but at the end of the day whether this is a great stage or not will be decided on San Martino in Grania, not after it. In any case, we rejoin the Strade Bianche route at 8.4 kilometres to go, just in time to take in the short digs to Vico Alto and Via Fiorentina.
And then it’s time for one of the most beautiful finishes in cycling, the short, but gruellingly steep stone slabs of Via Santa Caterina into the walled city centre before the gently downhill final half-kilometre onto the Piazza del Campo.
Siena is up there with the most widely known stage hosts in this edition, and I’m not just talking about Strade Bianche here. It is unclear when and by whom the city was founded: there is archaeological evidence of Etruscan settlement, but it is questionable whether there was anything resembling a town prior to the establishment of a Roman military colony. It remained a small town for centuries, but when trade started to re-emerge from the 10th century onwards, it became a significant trading centre. In 1125, Siena became an independent republic, which soon developed into the kind of oligarchic democracy typical of this part of Italy, and then things really started to take off. Both the thriving trade and the reopening of the nearby silver mines played a major role, but the most important and famous contributor to its wealth and power was its banking sector. The city reached its zenith in the late 13th century, when it was probably the most important banking centre in Europe. This golden age lasted until a plague outbreak killed half the population in 1348. This paved the way for the overthrow of the noveschi (‘Government of Nine’), the ruling class of wealthy merchants who had presided over seventy years of stability and prosperity but also grown corrupt. Independent Siena would never return to those levels of political stability, which coupled with the decline of both its banks and its mines meant that the apex was now in the past. However, it remained fairly prosperous, with its university (the eleventh-oldest in continuous operation in the world) and the fabled Banca Monte dei Paschi, the oldest surviving bank in the world (albeit only still intact thanks to government bailouts in recent years) both founded in the remaining two centuries of independence. The latter might also ring a bell as the titular sponsor of the first editions of Strade Bianche.
The end came in the mid-16th century. Italy had been engulfed in off-and-on wars since 1494, as France and the Habsburgs (who had split into their Spanish and Austrian branches by the end of the war) vied for control over the peninsula. Siena nearly survived intact until the end of these Italian Wars in 1559, but during the final round of hostilities, an alliance of Spain and Firenze (which had by then taken control over most of Tuscany) forced the Republic to its knees. As Habsburg Spain was chronically in debt, it should not come as a surprise that it also owed a lot of money to Firenze, and for this reason Siena was annexed by its historic rival, which was shortly thereafter transformed into the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The Florentines had no intention of leaving their subdued rival in a position to rise once more, and thus this was the end of Siena’s prosperity. It is telling that, over 300 years after the annexation, Siena was (in 1859) the first town in Tuscany to come out in favour of Italian unification.
Modern Siena is largely driven by tourism, its exceptionally well-preserved medieval centre having achieved UNESCO World Heritage status thirty years ago. Built environment aside, it is impossible not to discuss a certain sporting event centred around the Piazza del Campo here. No, I’m not talking about Strade Bianche this time, but about something both more famous (away from our bubble) and more controversial: the Palio di Siena, the world’s oldest still-running horse race, dating back to the 17th century in its current form. The controversy stems from the amount of horses that have been killed on the dangerous circuit over the centuries (although safety measures have been implemented in recent decades), but the event’s cultural significance – also to the Sienese themselves – continues to outweigh these concerns. The Giro has not finished here since 1986, although it did host the start of the 2021 sterrato stage to Montalcino.
(picture by Massimo Catarinella at Wikimedia Commons)
What to expect?
The modal outcome is carnage by the end of San Martino in Grania at the latest and minutes separating the first ten GC riders. If we somehow get a breakaway winning ahead of a peloton that does nothing until the final kilometre instead, then I would not be opposed to replacing the horses with the GC riders at this summer’s Palio.
Il giorno della gloria è arrivato!
Okay, that really doesn’t have the ring it does in French, but the point stands. After last year’s joke of a sterrato stage, this time RCS have made up for it by fulfilling fans’ eighteen-year dream of bringing the actual Strade Bianche finale to the Giro. If the riders do what they should do, this will be one of the best days of not just the race, but the season as a whole.
Map and profile
Start
We’ve had two full stages without any stage hosts dating back at the very least to Roman times, an unacceptably large amount for any race in Central or Southern Italy. Thankfully, RCS have treated my detouring into Roman history withdrawal symptoms by sending the riders to Gubbio. The town was founded by the Umbri, one of the main central Italian tribes whose name lives on in the present-day name for the region millennia after mostly being assimilated by the Romans. It was already important enough to be minting its own coins prior to the Roman era, and while the Via Flaminia (the main route north from Rome) bypassed it, the remains of a theatre seating 6000 show that it was quite a large town in this era regardless. After being destroyed multiple times in the first half of the Middle Ages, it rose again during the second half of this period as an independent, regionally powerful city-state. Following an outbreak of the plague that halved its population in the mid-14th century, the Papal States moved in. Gubbio resisted, but did not have the strength to sustain independence and eventually chose annexation by the Duchy of Urbino in 1384 as the only way of retaining most of its rights and privileges. The town prospered once more, but after the Duchy itself was annexed by the Papal States in 1631, it went into decline and never really recovered. However, its medieval/renaissance-era centre has been preserved fairly well. It has hosted the Giro only once, in 1989, when a then-unheralded Bjarne Riis took his first pro victory from the breakaway. As I can only cover about 60% of his career outside of the clinic, I’ll leave it there.
(picture by Labicanense at Wikimedia Commons)
Route
It’s a very fast start to the stage, with the first 22 kilometres being a downhill false flat before a similar distance on the actual flat takes the riders to the first intermediate sprint in Mercatale. On the other side of town, the road starts to rise, and continues to do so until the creatively-named KOM at La Cima.
By this point, we are only just inside Tuscany, and therefore there is some ground to cover until we get to the sterrati. Most of the interlying area is the wide Val di Chiana, not the most interesting terrain from a cycling perspective. The valley ends in Sinalunga, at the second intermediate sprint. Then, it’s time to enter the Crete Senesi, synonymous in our circles with the Strade Bianche. Initially the roads are still paved, taking in the Poggio del Castagnolo (3.6k at 4.7%), but then a right-hand turn takes us onto the first sector, Pieve a Salti. Like all sectors today, it features in Strade Bianche. The Giro have once again done the annoying thing of putting profiles in the roadbook but not on the site here: the other four sectors have profiles on the site of the Granfondo too, but this is the only one not used there. So enjoy another grainly screenshot.
The greatest beauty of this stage is that we have 26.6 kilometres of sterrato in 33.7 kilometres of racing, easily enough to shatter the peloton. As such, there is barely any respite before the next sector, Serravalle. This one is the flattest of the day.
Then, we get to the famous sectors, also known as the ones they actually show on TV when it isn’t the Giro. And San Martino in Grania isn’t just well-known, it’s also really, really hard, something that is reflected by the KOM at its end.
Now Strade Bianche always keeps heading northeast from here onto Monte Sante Marie, but both Siena and the short sectors closer to it are actually to the northeast. So yes, we are missing the greatest sector of them all here, but this does have the benefit of eliminating any and all long tarmacked sections. In fact, it’s only 13.3 kilometres until the start of the next sector, the short and steep Monteaperti.
And as anyone who has ever seen the Strade knows, Monteaperti is always followed by Colle Pinzuto, which doubles as the bonification sprint here.
Finish
And as anyone who has ever seen the Strade knows, Colle Pinzuto is always followed by… not Le Tolfe? Nope, we are skipping another sector in favour of a more direct route into Siena. Colle Pinzuto is therefore at 13.9 rather than 16.7 kilometres from the finish, which is actually slightly further than Le Tolfe normally is. I’m not really sure why they went for this option, but at the end of the day whether this is a great stage or not will be decided on San Martino in Grania, not after it. In any case, we rejoin the Strade Bianche route at 8.4 kilometres to go, just in time to take in the short digs to Vico Alto and Via Fiorentina.
And then it’s time for one of the most beautiful finishes in cycling, the short, but gruellingly steep stone slabs of Via Santa Caterina into the walled city centre before the gently downhill final half-kilometre onto the Piazza del Campo.
Siena is up there with the most widely known stage hosts in this edition, and I’m not just talking about Strade Bianche here. It is unclear when and by whom the city was founded: there is archaeological evidence of Etruscan settlement, but it is questionable whether there was anything resembling a town prior to the establishment of a Roman military colony. It remained a small town for centuries, but when trade started to re-emerge from the 10th century onwards, it became a significant trading centre. In 1125, Siena became an independent republic, which soon developed into the kind of oligarchic democracy typical of this part of Italy, and then things really started to take off. Both the thriving trade and the reopening of the nearby silver mines played a major role, but the most important and famous contributor to its wealth and power was its banking sector. The city reached its zenith in the late 13th century, when it was probably the most important banking centre in Europe. This golden age lasted until a plague outbreak killed half the population in 1348. This paved the way for the overthrow of the noveschi (‘Government of Nine’), the ruling class of wealthy merchants who had presided over seventy years of stability and prosperity but also grown corrupt. Independent Siena would never return to those levels of political stability, which coupled with the decline of both its banks and its mines meant that the apex was now in the past. However, it remained fairly prosperous, with its university (the eleventh-oldest in continuous operation in the world) and the fabled Banca Monte dei Paschi, the oldest surviving bank in the world (albeit only still intact thanks to government bailouts in recent years) both founded in the remaining two centuries of independence. The latter might also ring a bell as the titular sponsor of the first editions of Strade Bianche.
The end came in the mid-16th century. Italy had been engulfed in off-and-on wars since 1494, as France and the Habsburgs (who had split into their Spanish and Austrian branches by the end of the war) vied for control over the peninsula. Siena nearly survived intact until the end of these Italian Wars in 1559, but during the final round of hostilities, an alliance of Spain and Firenze (which had by then taken control over most of Tuscany) forced the Republic to its knees. As Habsburg Spain was chronically in debt, it should not come as a surprise that it also owed a lot of money to Firenze, and for this reason Siena was annexed by its historic rival, which was shortly thereafter transformed into the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The Florentines had no intention of leaving their subdued rival in a position to rise once more, and thus this was the end of Siena’s prosperity. It is telling that, over 300 years after the annexation, Siena was (in 1859) the first town in Tuscany to come out in favour of Italian unification.
Modern Siena is largely driven by tourism, its exceptionally well-preserved medieval centre having achieved UNESCO World Heritage status thirty years ago. Built environment aside, it is impossible not to discuss a certain sporting event centred around the Piazza del Campo here. No, I’m not talking about Strade Bianche this time, but about something both more famous (away from our bubble) and more controversial: the Palio di Siena, the world’s oldest still-running horse race, dating back to the 17th century in its current form. The controversy stems from the amount of horses that have been killed on the dangerous circuit over the centuries (although safety measures have been implemented in recent decades), but the event’s cultural significance – also to the Sienese themselves – continues to outweigh these concerns. The Giro has not finished here since 1986, although it did host the start of the 2021 sterrato stage to Montalcino.
(picture by Massimo Catarinella at Wikimedia Commons)
What to expect?
The modal outcome is carnage by the end of San Martino in Grania at the latest and minutes separating the first ten GC riders. If we somehow get a breakaway winning ahead of a peloton that does nothing until the final kilometre instead, then I would not be opposed to replacing the horses with the GC riders at this summer’s Palio.
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