Guide Post – by Tom Coppock

It was early October when I got an email from Justin, my fellow DuVine guide and cycling fanatic, about one of the stages of the 2010 Giro d’Italia following the gravel roads of Siena.  The big cycling races love to keep their planned routes secret until the official unveiling ceremony (in the Giro’s case, this ceremony generally requires hundreds of supermodels).  The result of all this supposed secrecy is a pretty reliable series of leaks about the route that seem manufactured to generate fan interest.  Whether it’s which famous climbs will be featured in the Alps or a tour starting in a different country (Britain, the Netherlands, etc) fans and racers are rarely in the dark going into these unveiling ceremonies.   In fact, this year, in typical Italian style, the sports newspaper Tuttosport printed basically the entire itinerary for the 2010 Giro weeks before the race organizer, RCS sport, with its rival paper Gazetto dello Sport planned to announce it publicly.

For DuVine, this early announcement about the Giro near Siena was great news.  For years, people had been contacting us asking about a Giro trip, but we had never quite gotten around to putting one together.  Now, the Giro was planning to come right through our backyard in the hills around Siena where we run our popular Tuscany tour and where the guides live during the season.

Justin guides our trips in France, but his involvement in this whole story began a few years ago when he came down to visit me in Tuscany during Giro season.  As an avid cyclist he of course wanted to get out on these famous white (gravel) roads that make up the course of the region’s classic cycling route known as L’Eroica (the Heroic).  So we set out on our road bikes to the closest section of the route.  We were having a great time bumping along the acceptably smoothed gravel through the olive groves and wheat fields sprinkled with poppies until I decided to take us on a short cut I’d seen on the map.  Needless to say we found ourselves a half hour later at the end a muddy track consisting of two ruts, the rain pouring down, and a condemned farmhouse offering the only shelter.  Despite returning home soaked with our normally pampered bikes coated with mud, we were both elated from the experience, as basically, there isn’t any place as beautiful to cycle through as Tuscany in the spring.

So, thanks to Justin’s addiction to cycling news, he let me know immediately about the rumors surrounding the Giro’s plan to route one stage through this area.  Once this was confirmed by the supermodels at the official presentation, I began thinking about how to structure a tour around this event.  Because the riders ride so far every day, the Giro only has two stages in the Tuscany-Umbria area before heading farther south.  Instead of dragging guests all over Italy to try to watch each stage, we decided to focus on watching only these two stages (7 and 8) while spending the rest of the tour cycling through this gorgeous area.

The highly anticipated seventh stage of the Giro on the gravel roads of the Eroica corresponds with the fourth day of our trip.  We’ll have previewed a lot of the approach on the first days around Volterra and Siena and that morning we’ll ride to Montalcino to see this rocky climb for ourselves and await what should be one of the more memorable finishes of any tour.  Imagine Paris-Roubaix on steroids (not hard to do, I know), as racers will face a 1000 ft. plus climb on steep gravel after 200 km of hilly riding.  Then, the next day, we’ll head south and east, riding through Umbria on our way to Monte Terminillo, the first mountain finish of a Giro that is being hailed as a climber’s tour.  Whoever finishes strong here has a strong chance of finishing on the podium in Verona.  Inspired by seeing the pros up close, we’ll spend the last days of our trip, doing some of my favorite rides in Umbria, including an epic 3-pass loop from Cortona.

Daily mileages range from 50-70 miles, with full van support and the full range of DuVine perks, including beautiful rooms at luxury hotels, gourmet feasts, top-of-the-line Wilier racing bikes and two bilingual guides including myself and Giovanni, a semi-pro racer himself.  The DuVine Adventures Giro d’Italia bike trip will only happen this one time, May 12-19, so be sure to sign up soon.

Related articles by Zemanta

• A New Season in Italy (duvine.com)
• Biking in Italy – Guide Post (duvine.com)
• How we created the Umbria Bike Tour (duvine.com)

Bookmark It