Not actually part of the “monuments” of the sport, this is a relative newcomer – founded in 2007 as the “Monte Paschi Eroica” ( 2007 , 2008 ) and “Montepaschi Strade Bianche” ( 2009 , 2010 , 2011 ) but it’s possibly one of the most spectacularly beautiful races to imagine (given good weather of course)

It is characterized by the innovative presence on the trail of some sectors of roads, dirt roads typical of the countryside of Tuscany , which makes it a unique event in Italy and beyond.

It is no coincidence that the race combines two aspects of the famous “northern classics” – the long tiring stretches of rough/unmade roads of the Paris Roubaix and the numerous and repeated hard “walls” or short steep climbs of the Ronde van Vlaanderen. For these reasons, the riders likely to be in contention for the final victory are usually the toughest, strongest and most resilient – which is what makes this a true classic in the making.

The start is in Gaiole in Chianti and the epilogue in the famous Piazza del Campo in Siena .

http://www.gazzetta.it/Speciali/StradeBianche/en/?lang=en&t=01

Last 51km of the 2012 race video (you can speak Italian can’t you? )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhFiPffEZsM

And, as with many of the spring classics, there is an amateur event that we mere mortals can aspire to join in with – in this case it’s L’Eroica. A little more specialised than most of the modern “sportifs” – in that there are specific entry criteria – not for you, but for your bike… These are they (from the official rules and regs document):

Your vintage bicycle must have all the following characteristics:

• road racing bicycle, built before 1987 (not cyclo cross or time trial bike)
• steel frame (the only aluminum frame bikes permitted are ALAN or VITUS with either screwed or glued joints)
• gear shift levers on the down tube of the frame (exceptionally, only pre-1980 bar-end gear shifts are allowed)
• pedals with toe clips and fitted straps (quick release pedals are not allowed, except Cinelli M71 pedals)
• the passage of brake cable outside the handlebars
• New bicycles with steel frames can be used but they must be assembled with vintage components (gear levers, handlebars, pedals, etc).
• The adjustment of the rear wheel gears to suit the difficulty of the route is permitted.

You get the idea. This ride is for vintage bikes only. You can just about get away with aluminium but carbon? No chance. And if you were to show up with Di2 you’d have everyone else in town choking on their espresso and biscotti.

Scoring

Each "race" will accumulate "MFP Points" (a bit like UCI points, but nothing to do with Fat Pat and Corkscrew Hein.)

"Winner" of the race is the person who rides the furthest in the 24 hours that the race is run, in your own time-zone, in a single ride - if you ride to and from work, pick the longest of the two as I'm only accepting a single ride in a given day!

For the Overall Competition, For Each Ride, Points Will be Awarded as Follows

1st - 25 pts
2nd - 20 pts
3rd - 16 pts
4th - 12 pts
5th - 11 pts
6th - 10 pts
7th - 9 pts
8th - 8 pts
9th - 7 pts
10th - 6 pts
11th - 5 pts
12th - 4 pts
13th - 3 pts
14th - 2 pts
15th - 1 pts

A Individual and Overall Table will be maintained, and hopefully results published within a couple of days of the ride completing (time constraints and my being around to "do the math" notwithstanding).

Hopefully, this will stop the whole competition stagnating if someone goes out on the first race day, rides a 600km Brevet and is so far ahead of anyone else that they simply cannot be caught... It worked pretty well last year.

One further feature that people seemd to enjoy last year, which I'll be continuing with is the "spot prize" points themed around certain of the races...

so - For the Strade Bianche

- if you post a photo that shows your bike on a unmetalled road with proof that it was that days ride then it may just get an extra point.

- if you complete your challenge ride on a "L'Eroica" compliant bike (http://www.eroica-ciclismo.it/documents/regolamento_eng.pdf for the rules) and post a photo to prove it, you'll get another 5 points.

- and just for the hell of it - post a picture of your post-ride recovery bottle/glass of Chianti or Italian Birra and you can have yet another point!

Okay - I get to start the ball rolling then I guess...

Strade Bianche comes to Yorkshire....

A well and truly "loopy" route for todays ride, I basically plotted just about all the 'crosser navigable offroad sections within a 10 mile or so radius of my home, then just linked them up with the odd chunk of tarmac or otherwise scenic road.

61.7km - http://app.strava.com/activities/118655468

Screenshots from Video - there may be moving pictures added later







StradeBiancheYorkshireStyle

Post Ride Recovery Drink (not for points, but it was still sort of "on topic"


Espresso Biscotti & Garmin

(again, there may be further pictures after I've watched the Race and made my evening meal - if I get started on the Chianti in the afternoon, there'll be no ride tomorrow...)

ETA : Obligatory Food & Drink Porn Shot...





ETA - Video Proof now available... complete with a moving map for the "sector" - http://www.kinomap.com/watch/rtrhmh or a "deshaken" version on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9s4Rsasdso


TBY Edit - 61.7km Logged, Unmetalled road Bonus 1pt, Eroica Bike 0pt, Recovery Chianti 1pt - Total Bonuses 2pts

Roma Maxima.

Well - it pretty much couldn't have been better weather for this ride if i'd booked it beforehand... Could well go down as the nearest to a perfect March day I've had...

The day started well - breakfast of champions while checking out everyones rides from the day before...



(yes I did eat something as well, but Porridge and A Toasted Bagel aren't really all that Italian...)

I then did the final pre-flight checks on the Dolan (nipped up the pedals, ran a torque wrench over the bolts etc), dressed ("Today Jeeves, I think I'll wear the Castelli ensemble... with the Sidi's I think :laugh:), filled my bottles and got ready to hit the road.



Ride was more or less my usual Sunday loop. though blessed with far more sun, and far far less wind than we've had recently - which was borne out by the average speed going up slightly.

http://app.strava.com/activities/119044778 - 93.6km

as for "former civilization" - well, it's tenuous, but I'm sure you're aware, Romans were pretty notorious for creating straight roads. In the UK, if you see a straight road, it's a fair bet that the road is either a very modern highway, a re-purposed former railway line, or is following the line of a former Roman Road. In this case the road is now called "Ridge Road", but is always referred to by the locals in Castleford (or Lagentium as the Romans refered to it - http://www.roman-britain.org/places/lagentium.htm) as Roman Ridge. It's probably an off-shoot of Ermine Street (which ran between Londinium (london) Lindum (Lincoln) and Eboracum (York) - a kind of early version of the A1 :laugh:)



(it's straight...)



(They forgot the Roman - I Blame the Councils for Cost Cutting :laugh:)

On returning home, it was a quick shower, then a walk to the pub for a couple of jars and watching the Rugby. Just what I needed, another 6.5 miles walking on top of all the riding this weekend... Still, with the weather as it was, it didn't really feel much of a hardship.

Oh, and the recovery food/drink...

Finished off the Chianti from yesterday (I only had 2 glasses last night Harksey :laugh:), but had backup plans in place...



note the aftermath of making the pizza in the background (and the Wiggle freebie bottle-opener)



...and a nice, if somewhat rustico pizza... perhaps not quite as appetising as Kupe's but by this time I was concentrating on eating rather than Food Styling.

Managed to get nearly 4 slices down me before falling asleep in the chair, missing the re-runs of the actual Roma Maxima AND the Paris-Nice. Hopefully it'll be on again today.

As always, it's great to see everyones ride reports - and to anyone who "just rode", that's cool as well...


TBY Edit - 93.6km Logged, Pre/In-Ride Coffee 1pt, Rome Related Photo 0pt, Prior Civilization 0pt Post Ride Drink 1pt, food 1pt - Total Bonuses 3pts

(the Roman Ridge Road bit just felt a little too tenuous to claim)

23.03.2014 Milano-Sanremo

Milan – San Remo (Italian: Milano–Sanremo), "the Spring classic" ("la classica di Primavera"), is an annual cycle race between - you guessed it - Milan and Sanremo. It is the longest professional one-day race at 298 km. The first was in 1907, when Lucien Petit-Breton won. Today it is one of the 'Monuments' of European cycling, and results contribute towards the UCI World Ranking; until 2007 it was part of the UCI ProTour. From 1999 to 2005, a women's race, the Primavera Rosa was organised alongside the men's but at a shorter distance.

Milan – San Remo is often called the sprinters' classic while its sister Italian race the Giro di Lombardia held in autumn is the climbers' classic.

In the early years the main difficulty was the Passo del Turchino, but when cycling became more professional the climb was too far from the finish to be decisive. In 1960 the Poggio, a few kilometres before the finish, was introduced. In 1982 the Cipressa, near Imperia was added. The other hills are the 'capi', the Capo Mele, Capo Berta and Capo Cervo. From 2008 on the organisers added 'Le Manie' as well, between the Turchino and the 'capi'. The 'Turchino' and the 'Manie' are longer climbs, while 'capi', Cipressa and Poggio are rather short. The climbs are neither steep nor long for professional cyclists. As such, many sprinters are capable of keeping with the main peloton on these climbs, and therefore the race most often ends in a mass sprint. This year's route is the subject of some debate, as landslides have closed or rendered dangerous various passes, and as I type this, I still haven't seen a definitive route...

The most successful rider was Eddy Merckx; he won seven times (record of victories in one single classic race). In recent times, the most successful rider has been Erik Zabel who won four times and lost 2004 to Óscar Freire only because he lifted his arms to celebrate too early. It was the opening race of the UCI Road World Cup series until the series was replaced by the UCI ProTour in 2005.

Being the longest professional one-day race, Milan – San Remo is an unusual test of endurance early in the season. It is won often not by the fastest sprinter, but one best prepared early. The Cipressa and Poggio have foiled many sprinters who could not stay with the front group.

Despite its flat course and long finishing straight, sprinters teams have been foiled from time-to-time by a determined attack on the last hills. Good examples include Laurent Jalabert and Maurizio Fondriest escaping in 1995 and staying away to the finish. In 2003, Paolo Bettini attacked with several riders who all stayed away and in 2006 Filippo Pozzato and Alessandro Ballan attacked on the last hill and stayed away. The fastest Milan – San Remo over the usual course was in 1990. Gianni Bugno set 6h 25 m 06 seconds to win by 4 seconds over Rolf Gölz. This was an average of 45.8kmh (28.45 mph). In 2006, the peloton came close with a 6h 29 m 41s, won by Filippo Pozzato. At the other extreme of the race Is the 1910 edition, which was won in a time of 12h 24 m, in a snowstorm.

http://www.gazzetta.it/Speciali/MilanoSanremo/en/?lang=en&t=01

My favourite memory of this race was the absolutely MENTAL descent of the poggio by Sean Kelly to chase down Moreno Argentin - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL3jQmkj3uI

Last year's race was blighted by absoloutely dreadful weather, which saw the riders climbing off before the Turchino and scenes tweeted from the tour buses of riders looking borderline hyperthermic and frantically scrabbling for additional clothing. I spent most of the race spotting all the riders wearing "non approved" - i.e. non-team issue Castelli Gabba jackets under their team kit because it was the only thing that was keeping them alive. :laugh:

And Finally, a flavour of last years ride...

From Christophenes (now KitTheRoadie)

Ok so all last week riding today wasn't looking good, then my wife had a brain wave! Go out after spending the day with the family and putting my little man to bed, then I'm free to do as I please! Yeehaa, that's why she's my wife!

Here's the ride.... http://connect.garmin.com/activity/285724815

Well I couldn't take pics mid ride as it was dark, so I had to do my "spring has sprung" pics near the start! Hopefully they'll still count!

Spring is on the way!



Sunset with Glastonbury Tor in the background...



And again with my bike to prove I was actually riding!



And the recovery drink in my Exmoor Beast Sportive tankard! :smokin:



Well done everyone, looks everybody has had a really good day! :bigsmile:


TBY Edit : Logged and Recorded, 2 bonus points, and well done on getting out there

and my frankly rather disappointing effort...

Ride Details - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/285734257 - 110.37km

Decent enough start, stayed dry until just before ulleskelf (around km 77) - rain stayed pretty steady until just before going under the A1 at the old Great North Road Junction, where it turned to sleet pretty much all the way until Warmfield, where the precipitation stopped completely, leaving me to complete the last 2km in relatively dry conditions.

No "signs of spring" photo - i'd hoped to grab something on the last few KM's but frankly didn't dare take the phone out of its waterproof bag.

Wasn't out long enough for the "duration bonus"

but managed to score the "recovery drink" shot at least...

Good Luck everyone, and keep safe out there...