- Sep 20, 2017
- 13,654
- 25,666
- 28,180
The first week comes to a close with the least interesting mountain stage of this year’s edition.
Map and profile
Start
A longer-than-average transfer has taken the peloton into Cervia, at the southeastern tip of the Po Valley – it’s been an even quicker transfer up north than usual. The town is located between the Adriatic coastline and a system of marshes and saltpans, which were probably already exploited by the Etruscans. During the Roman era, a small town developed, which was moved into the marshes for defensive purposes during the Early Middle Ages. Gradually, this era became less marshy and more suited for salt mining, and from the 10th century onwards the industry really started to develop. By the early 14th century, the town was significant enough to earn a mention in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the town switched hands constantly, finally being part of the area ceded in 1510 by the Republic of Venice to the Papal States in exchange for the latter changing sides in the War of the League of Cambrai (which had very nearly toppled Venice the year before). With that, the political instability was over, but Cervia would not really benefit. On the one hand, it suffered from raids by North African pirates in the next two centuries, on the other hand, increasing salinisation and the development of malarial conditions was making conditions rather hostile. By the mid-17th century, the population had declined into the hundreds. At the end of the century, the decision was made to move the town away from the marshes and closer to the coast. The town centre is therefore almost uniformly late 17th/early 18th century.
In 1884, the railway arrived in Cervia, and this marked the beginning of its transformation into the upmarket beach resort town it is today. On account of its saltpans, it doubles as a spa town. The Giro has been to Cervia three times, most recently as a stage start in 2020. The municipality directly borders Cesenatico, the birthplace of Marco Pantani, which we are surprisingly not visiting on this stage – perhaps RCS have finally discovered detox…
(picture by Isotta V. at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
Now it’s already strange enough that we aren’t doing any Pantani veneration, but what is even more odd is that the first half of the stage is spent following the edge of the Apennines, without ever using the main Via Emilia. As such, we don’t have the long, straight shot through the main towns and cities of the region, instead it’s slightly smaller towns and roads with actual corners. One of the small towns we pass through is Solarolo, the hometown of Laura Pausini, eclipsed only by Andrea Bocelli when it comes to Italian singers in the past half century. This section comes to a close after 96 kilometres in the outskirts of Bologna. The remainder of the stage is inside the Apennines, but RCS have limited themselves to valley roads as much as possible. As such, the only climb in the next 60 kilometres is the uncategorised Monte della Capanna.
The descent of this climb ends in Sasso Marconi, renamed during the Fascist era after Guglielmo Marconi, more or less the inventor of the radio, who lived here. The only other point of note during the ensuing trek up the Reno valley is the intermediate sprint in Marzabotto. Of the final 28.1 kilometres, just 3.8 are not part of one of the two categorised climbs on this stage. The first of these is the climb to Querciola, which is basically 3.4k at 7.5% surrounded by almost 7 kilometres of sub-5% stuff.
Finish
A short, low-gradient descent takes the riders to the bottom of the MTF,
Corno alle Scale. It is an irregular climb, but in this case that sadly means that it’s mostly about the steep final 2.8 kilometres, at a push the final 5.2 kilometres. With no places to attack before that and the race already having tackled a much tougher MTF two days prior, it feels a little bit pointless, but then again I wrote something similar about Valdezcaray (an objectively worse climb) during the Vuelta last year and we all know how that played out. The categorised part (and with it, the official profile) is missing the first 1.9 kilometres of the climb for some reason, thankfully we have Cyclingcols. It’s the profile below from 13.1k (in Villaggio Europa) until 0.4k (just after the start of the parking area), making for 12.7k at 5.8% in total. The bonus sprint is in Vidiciatico, 1.4k after the start of the climb.
Corno alle Scale is a small ski station, its main claim to fame the place where the legendary Alberto Tomba first learned to ski. The Giro has finished here on one previous occasion, in 2004, when it was used much more suitably on stage 3 as the first MTF of the race. Defending champion Gilberto Simoni won that day, taking pink – unfortunately for him, that would be the first and last time he impressed that year.
(picture by Giovanni M. at Wikimedia Commons)
What to expect?
Arguably the easiest of the mountain stages to control, the only question is whether anyone wants to. As in 2004, GC action should only start on that really steep section between 2.6k and 1.4k to go.
Map and profile
Start
A longer-than-average transfer has taken the peloton into Cervia, at the southeastern tip of the Po Valley – it’s been an even quicker transfer up north than usual. The town is located between the Adriatic coastline and a system of marshes and saltpans, which were probably already exploited by the Etruscans. During the Roman era, a small town developed, which was moved into the marshes for defensive purposes during the Early Middle Ages. Gradually, this era became less marshy and more suited for salt mining, and from the 10th century onwards the industry really started to develop. By the early 14th century, the town was significant enough to earn a mention in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the town switched hands constantly, finally being part of the area ceded in 1510 by the Republic of Venice to the Papal States in exchange for the latter changing sides in the War of the League of Cambrai (which had very nearly toppled Venice the year before). With that, the political instability was over, but Cervia would not really benefit. On the one hand, it suffered from raids by North African pirates in the next two centuries, on the other hand, increasing salinisation and the development of malarial conditions was making conditions rather hostile. By the mid-17th century, the population had declined into the hundreds. At the end of the century, the decision was made to move the town away from the marshes and closer to the coast. The town centre is therefore almost uniformly late 17th/early 18th century.
In 1884, the railway arrived in Cervia, and this marked the beginning of its transformation into the upmarket beach resort town it is today. On account of its saltpans, it doubles as a spa town. The Giro has been to Cervia three times, most recently as a stage start in 2020. The municipality directly borders Cesenatico, the birthplace of Marco Pantani, which we are surprisingly not visiting on this stage – perhaps RCS have finally discovered detox…
(picture by Isotta V. at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
Now it’s already strange enough that we aren’t doing any Pantani veneration, but what is even more odd is that the first half of the stage is spent following the edge of the Apennines, without ever using the main Via Emilia. As such, we don’t have the long, straight shot through the main towns and cities of the region, instead it’s slightly smaller towns and roads with actual corners. One of the small towns we pass through is Solarolo, the hometown of Laura Pausini, eclipsed only by Andrea Bocelli when it comes to Italian singers in the past half century. This section comes to a close after 96 kilometres in the outskirts of Bologna. The remainder of the stage is inside the Apennines, but RCS have limited themselves to valley roads as much as possible. As such, the only climb in the next 60 kilometres is the uncategorised Monte della Capanna.
The descent of this climb ends in Sasso Marconi, renamed during the Fascist era after Guglielmo Marconi, more or less the inventor of the radio, who lived here. The only other point of note during the ensuing trek up the Reno valley is the intermediate sprint in Marzabotto. Of the final 28.1 kilometres, just 3.8 are not part of one of the two categorised climbs on this stage. The first of these is the climb to Querciola, which is basically 3.4k at 7.5% surrounded by almost 7 kilometres of sub-5% stuff.
Finish
A short, low-gradient descent takes the riders to the bottom of the MTF,
Corno alle Scale. It is an irregular climb, but in this case that sadly means that it’s mostly about the steep final 2.8 kilometres, at a push the final 5.2 kilometres. With no places to attack before that and the race already having tackled a much tougher MTF two days prior, it feels a little bit pointless, but then again I wrote something similar about Valdezcaray (an objectively worse climb) during the Vuelta last year and we all know how that played out. The categorised part (and with it, the official profile) is missing the first 1.9 kilometres of the climb for some reason, thankfully we have Cyclingcols. It’s the profile below from 13.1k (in Villaggio Europa) until 0.4k (just after the start of the parking area), making for 12.7k at 5.8% in total. The bonus sprint is in Vidiciatico, 1.4k after the start of the climb.
Corno alle Scale is a small ski station, its main claim to fame the place where the legendary Alberto Tomba first learned to ski. The Giro has finished here on one previous occasion, in 2004, when it was used much more suitably on stage 3 as the first MTF of the race. Defending champion Gilberto Simoni won that day, taking pink – unfortunately for him, that would be the first and last time he impressed that year.
(picture by Giovanni M. at Wikimedia Commons)
What to expect?
Arguably the easiest of the mountain stages to control, the only question is whether anyone wants to. As in 2004, GC action should only start on that really steep section between 2.6k and 1.4k to go.
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