Stage 4: Città della Pieve - Roma, 168km
As a brief recap; thus far my Giro has consisted of a 2km mountain prologue, an intermediate stage featuring four laps of the 2013 Worlds circuit in Firenze, and a throwback strade bianche stage. While the competition may be set up in such a way that each individual stage is rated and therefore I'm throwing a lot of points away here, in a real life Giro the riders would surely complain if there were 21 difficult GC challenging stages back to back, and therefore at times I'm cutting back to create something a little more realistic and look to back things up using the Cultural points instead.
And so we come to this: our first flat stage, into the Italian capital and the next of our original Giro hosts to see race action. While it may be tempting to attempt a Roma Maxima type stage, the direction of approach made it rather unreasonable, so we have what is likely to be a pure sprinters' stage. The only climb of the day is unthreatening, averaging just around 5%, and is unlikely to give anything other than an incentive for some week 1 breakaway riders to duel over the potential jersey if anything.
The stage starts in a historic and scenic hilltop city in the easternmost tip of Umbria, Città della Pieve, which until recently was its own diocese and whose history dates back to pre-Roman antiquity, with ancient Etruscan sites surrounding it. Renowned for its multitude of churches and historic architecture it will serve as a nice base to start the stage from.
The stage heads through Umbria and into Lazio, but before that the riders will pass past Orvieto with its scenic cathedral and former papal residence and upon which an ancient Etruscan acropolis was once sited, along with the labyrinthine network of underground tunnels that exist to the present day. The next major stop-off point is another pre-Roman site, Civita Castellana, which lay abandoned for centuries after the pre-Roman settlers were defeated by the Romans themselves, before becoming rebuilt in the middle ages. After this the riders pass through the Parco di Veio, with its dramatic features and scenic backdrop behind which lay the archaeological remains of what had been one of the most important Etruscan cities, eventually falling to the Romans.
Speaking of the Romans, of course, we come to finish in the city they built today, via Prima Porta and the Cimitero Flaminio, Rome's largest cemetery inside which a number of key figures of Italian history are interred. We pass the http://www.thewantedinromecard.com/i/3/800/upload/images/27/auditorium_4.jpg]Auditorium, a symbol of modernist Rome, around the area set up for the 1960 Summer Olympics (indeed the next thing we pass is the Stadio Flaminio); the road race back then was of course for amateurs only, which meant that the Soviet bloc tended to have a lot of successes with cyclists unable to turn pro there; Viktor Kapitonov won the gold, but Italy's Livio Trapè took home silver, which he used as a fulcrum to turn pro, although apart from a 2nd place in Lombardia and an edition of the Giro di Campania he did not develop into the rider the Italians had hoped.
After that we enter Rome proper, for a brief detour around the legendary Castel Sant'Angelo and heading down as far as the Porta San Paolo before we turn back to the north for a sprint finish, just as many others have placed a finish in their Giri, outside the legendary Colosseum which has become more than anything else the icon of Italy for the outside world. It would be wrong not to have Rome on the itinerary even if you hadn't set up the course to include all the original cities like I have and so here we are: the first straightforward stage for the sprinters' teams, but an incredibly iconic finale.
As a brief recap; thus far my Giro has consisted of a 2km mountain prologue, an intermediate stage featuring four laps of the 2013 Worlds circuit in Firenze, and a throwback strade bianche stage. While the competition may be set up in such a way that each individual stage is rated and therefore I'm throwing a lot of points away here, in a real life Giro the riders would surely complain if there were 21 difficult GC challenging stages back to back, and therefore at times I'm cutting back to create something a little more realistic and look to back things up using the Cultural points instead.
And so we come to this: our first flat stage, into the Italian capital and the next of our original Giro hosts to see race action. While it may be tempting to attempt a Roma Maxima type stage, the direction of approach made it rather unreasonable, so we have what is likely to be a pure sprinters' stage. The only climb of the day is unthreatening, averaging just around 5%, and is unlikely to give anything other than an incentive for some week 1 breakaway riders to duel over the potential jersey if anything.
The stage starts in a historic and scenic hilltop city in the easternmost tip of Umbria, Città della Pieve, which until recently was its own diocese and whose history dates back to pre-Roman antiquity, with ancient Etruscan sites surrounding it. Renowned for its multitude of churches and historic architecture it will serve as a nice base to start the stage from.
The stage heads through Umbria and into Lazio, but before that the riders will pass past Orvieto with its scenic cathedral and former papal residence and upon which an ancient Etruscan acropolis was once sited, along with the labyrinthine network of underground tunnels that exist to the present day. The next major stop-off point is another pre-Roman site, Civita Castellana, which lay abandoned for centuries after the pre-Roman settlers were defeated by the Romans themselves, before becoming rebuilt in the middle ages. After this the riders pass through the Parco di Veio, with its dramatic features and scenic backdrop behind which lay the archaeological remains of what had been one of the most important Etruscan cities, eventually falling to the Romans.
Speaking of the Romans, of course, we come to finish in the city they built today, via Prima Porta and the Cimitero Flaminio, Rome's largest cemetery inside which a number of key figures of Italian history are interred. We pass the http://www.thewantedinromecard.com/i/3/800/upload/images/27/auditorium_4.jpg]Auditorium, a symbol of modernist Rome, around the area set up for the 1960 Summer Olympics (indeed the next thing we pass is the Stadio Flaminio); the road race back then was of course for amateurs only, which meant that the Soviet bloc tended to have a lot of successes with cyclists unable to turn pro there; Viktor Kapitonov won the gold, but Italy's Livio Trapè took home silver, which he used as a fulcrum to turn pro, although apart from a 2nd place in Lombardia and an edition of the Giro di Campania he did not develop into the rider the Italians had hoped.
After that we enter Rome proper, for a brief detour around the legendary Castel Sant'Angelo and heading down as far as the Porta San Paolo before we turn back to the north for a sprint finish, just as many others have placed a finish in their Giri, outside the legendary Colosseum which has become more than anything else the icon of Italy for the outside world. It would be wrong not to have Rome on the itinerary even if you hadn't set up the course to include all the original cities like I have and so here we are: the first straightforward stage for the sprinters' teams, but an incredibly iconic finale.
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