Premondiale Giro Toscana Int. Femminile-Memorial Michela Fanini 2013

11-15.09.2013 Official Site
Italy, 4-stage (+ prologue) Road Race, 461.22km
UCI 2.HC

Michela Fanini, born in Lucca on the 23rd of March in 1973, became National Road Race Champion of Italy in 1992 and won the Giro Donne in 1994. She was a rider with enormous potential, one who gave all the signs of becoming one of cycling's greatest stars had she not have been tragically killed when her Peugeot 205 hit a wall and rolled over on the 16th of October 1994. Her memory lives on, in the team S.C. Michela Fanini-Rox and in the name of this race.

The race consists of a prologue and four stages. In the case if Stages 2 and 4 the organisers have, for some reason, decided not to employ the standard technique of naming stages after the towns in which they start and end, using the names of the : Stage 1, Bottegone - Massa e Cozzile, actually ends in Montecatini Terme; Stage 3, Segromigno in Piano - Capannori, starts and finishes in Capannori. It's their race, I suppose.

The 2.HC classification designates this as being one of three Hors Categorie races, intended by the UCI to promote races awarded the status as being especially prestigious (the organisers of the Thuringen Rundfahrt declined the designation in favour of the standard 2.1, while the other 2.HC race, the Exergy Tour, is no longer held following sponsorship problems). As such, the points awarded to the winning riders are greater than in other races - first place in the General Classification receives 80 points, equal to two standard 2.2 events, second place receives 60 points, third place 45 points.

Please note: the official road book for the race appears to have several inaccuracies, both in the text and the diagrams. Routes and other features may therefore be different to those included here; please refer to the official site if in doubt.

Finally, whatever you do, make the most of and try to enjoy this race - it's the last Elite Women's stage race of 2013.

The Parcours

Prologue (11.09.2013; Campi Bisenzio, 2.22km)
With a short and flat parcours that, apart from the two turning points, is largely straight, the Prologue Individual Time Trial ought to see some blisteringly fast times. Look out for the TT specialists, who are going to be the ones to beat; but keep an eye on some of the climbers and sprinters too - there have been many climbers who were also good against the clock, and on a parcours like this a strong sprinter with good endurance could create surprise.

The climb on the Via Roma looks considerably bigger on the altitude profile supplied by the organisers than it actually is - if the profile was accurate, the climb would gain 25m in 0.15km at an average gradient of 16%. In fact, it gains only 5m in 1km; the average gradient is therefore 0.5% and the maximum, at the point where riders arrive at the bridge on the return journey, is only 3.2%.

Campi Bisenzio was the birthplace of Franco Ballerini, winner of the 1995 and 1998 editions of Paris-Roubaix.

Stage 1 (12.09.2013; Bottegone - Massa e Cozzile, 126.15km)

After yesterday's flat time trial, the Giro heads through rolling terrain for 33km to the hilly landscape around Montecatini Terme, where the riders face four laps of a local circuit featuring an ascent of the Piazza della Chiesa leading into the beautiful medieval village Massa e Cozzile, birthplace of Bruni Pasquini who won the Giro's brother race, the Giro di Toscana, in 1947.

While the climb is far from alpine with a maximum altitude of 223m, it gains the majority of that altitude in 3km; its average gradient of around 7.4% is sufficiently steep to earn it Category 2 status. The hill is climbed at 33.1km, 58.15km, 83.2km and 108.25km with GPM points being awarded each time. While there is plenty of opportunity for non-climbers to catch up in the last 14km from the final ascent to the finish, four ascents will have taken their toll and those riders that suffer on the climbs will be at a serious disadvantage to the climbers, making this a good stage for a small group of climbers - perhaps neo-pros and domestiques at this early point, before the GC contenders stamp their authority on the race - to form a break and go after a stage victory. Nevertheless, unless the climbers have managed to build up a big lead, they might find the sprinters get the last laugh after all - the final 3km are very flat and feature a couple of corners leading into a straight 500m to the finish.

In addition to GPM points, intermediate sprint points will be awarded at two points - the first is at the Palazzo Comunale in Montecatini Terme, 26.2km from the start; the second is at the second passage of the finish line on Centro Commerciale also in Montecatini Terme, 75.45km from the start. There is also a sprint prime named the Traguardo Volante Michela, located on the first passage of the finish line 50.4km from the start.

Stage 2 (13.09.2013, Porcari - Pontedera, 110.5km)

The first half of Stage 2 takes place on a parcours best described as rolling rather than hilly (though a couple of short ramps at 18km and 43km look steep enough to get knees aching, if only for a short time) while the second half, consisting of five laps of a 10.6km circuit at Pontedera is flat. There are no GPM points on offer for that reason, and so the climbers will probably sit back and conserve energy for Stage 3 (which has four Category 2 and two Category 1 ascents with GPM points aplenty) while the sprinters do their stuff and battle it out among themselves in the final 3km which, being flat with a corner  to mark the start of the last 200m, might have been laid out for no reason other than to encourage tactical bunch sprint finishes.

Once again, there are two intermediate sprints. The first, on the Via delle Colline in Cenaia, is 46.15km from the start; the second, at the fourth passage of the finish line on the Via Veneto in Pontedera, is 100.65km from the start. There is another Traguardo Volante Michela sprint prime, located at the second passage of the finish line 81.85km from the start.

Pontedera is the birthplace of several professional cyclists including Fabiana Luperini, born there on the 14th of January 1974. Luperini, who turned professional in 1997, would become one of the most successful female cyclists of all time with victories in the Giro Donne and the now-defunct women's Tour de France - she won both in 1995, 1996 and 1997 - and is still racing, with the Faren-Kuota team, to this day.

Stage 3 (14.09.2013; Segromigno in Piano - Capannori, 124km)

Yesterday's stage was one for the sprinters, today brings a route made for the climbers with no fewer than six categorised climbs - four rated Cat. 2 and two rated Cat. 1, making this an essential stage for any riders hoping to do well in the Mountains competition and a very important one for anyone hoping to win the General Classification.

The first 9km are flat (apart from a small climb 2km in), then the riders arrive at the first climb, Cat. 2 Segromigno in Monte. It's not a big climb, topping out at 100m above sea level, but the fact that it gains almost all of its height in a kilometre reveals why it's been given a high classification. What's more, the riders are going to climb it four times (11.3km, 28.2km, 45.1km, 62km) before turning off onto the second part of the parcours, where they face two ascents (84.2km, 112.4km) of the much higher and tougher Cat. 1 Valgiano climb - which rises to almost 400m in 9km with a very steep 2km section along the way.

The last 3km are flat with two corners in the last 1000m, making it ideal ground for a bunch sprint - though unless any one rider manages a solo break on Valgiano and stays away over the last 11.6km (which is exactly the sort of thing Marianne Vos does),  it's likely to be one fought by climbers and GC contenders rather than pure sprinters.

The two intermediate sprints and the Traguardo Volante Michela sprint prime take place in Lunata at the premises of Mercatino Fanini, the company owned by Michela's family. The sprints are at 38km and 71.8km, the prime is at 54.9km. Capannori is the birthplace of Mario Cipollini, who was often listed as the most successful sprinter in cycling history until the rise of Mark Cavendish.

Stage 4 (15.09.2013; Lucca - Firenza, 98.8km)

With two Cat. 3 climbs offering the only GPM points today, we'll see either a hotly-contested battle for the Mountains classification or a total lack of interest among the classification contenders - if there are only a few points between the riders at the top of the classification it'll be the former, if one rider led over the bigger climbs on yesterday's parcours then she'll have found an insurmountable lead and it'll be the latter.

The competition between the General Classification leaders is almost certain to be far stiffer - those categorised climbs, along with the uncategorised ones around 30km from the start, are just enough to give a breakaway plenty of scope to steal victory from right under the noses of the race leaders, or for the race leader (or someone near to her in the GC) to get into a break and turn a victory into a definitive, glorious one. There's still plenty of room for the climbers and sprinters to duke it out, too: while the climbs will give the climbers an advantage up until the summit of the second Cat. 2, the long and steep descent on the other side, with only 5.1km left to the finish line, puts them at a disadvantage and favours the bigger, heavier riders who can retain more effective control over their bikes at high speed. Then there's the finish itself: flat throughout the last 3km with a corner approximately 100m from the line, there'll be a fast and furious sprint if nobody's stayed away and the riders approach in a bunch.

Lucca was the birthplace of Michela Fanini, in whose memory this race and the S.C. Michela Fanini-Rox team are both named. Firenze was the birthplace of 2000 Giro d'Italia King of the Mountains Franco Casagrande (and of the Renaissance, which even cycling fans will admit is an even greater claim to fame).

Jerseys
The Memorial Michela Fanini has an unusually high number of classification leader jerseys, including two - awarded to the "most generous" rider (usually the most hard-working domestique) and the "most elegant" rider (awarded to the rider judged to have the best bike-handling skills) - that are unique to this race and were presumably invented to make more places to put sponsor's names, which is a practical enough reason.



Starters
A definitive starters and team roster list has not yet been published and it's probably safe to assume that this one is very provisional. Check Women Cycling Fever for regular updates.

S.C. MICHELA FANINI-ROX

CHIRIO FORNO D'ASOLO

COLOMBIA NT

FAREN-KUOTA

LOTTO-BELISOL

OPTUM P/B KELLY BENEFIT STRATEGIES

PASTA ZARA-COGEAS

SERVETTO-FOOTON

SLOVENIA NT

MAXX SOLAR

TOP GIRLS-FASSA BORTOLO

VAIANO-FONDRIEST

WIGGLE-HONDA

BEPINK
ARZUFFI Alice Maria
CANTELE Noemi
FRAPPORTI Simona
MUCCIOLI Dahlia
VALSECCHI Silvia
ZRIMSEK Petra

BOELS-DOLMANS
DAAMS Jessie
KESSLER Nina

HITEC PRODUCTS-UCK
BJORNSRUD Miriam
FAHLIN Emilia
HOSKING Chloe
LONGO BORGHINI Elisa
NEYLAN Rachel
RATTO Rossella

MCIPOLLINI-GIORDANA
ANTOSHINA Tatiana
CARRETTA Valentina
GUDERZO Tatiana
JASINSKA Malgorzta
SCANDOLARA Valentina
TAGLIAFERRO Marta

ORICA-AIS
CROMWELL Tiffany
CURE Amy
EDMONDSON Annette
JOHANSSON Emma
SUNG EUN Gu

RABOBANK-LIV/GIANT
BRAND Lucinda
VAN VLEUTEN Annemiek
VOS Marianne

SENGERS
VAN DER BREGGEN Anna

ARGOS-SHIMANO
GARNER Lucy
WILD Kirsten

SPECIALIZED-LULULEMON
WORRACK Trixi Germany

TIBCO-TO THE TOP
BLAAK Chantal

FRANCE NT

GERMANY NT

ITALY NT

USA NT

Following the race
It has to be said that the Giro's organisers haven't got the greatest website ever seen on the Internet. That's not entirely their fault - few women's races have the budget to employ hotshot web developers, as seen with races like the Tour de France - but in this case it really wouldn't be a bad idea to try to improve matters (how about offering a VIP, access-all-areas pass for next year's race to anyone willing to tidy things up for free? There must be a few fans out there capable of doing it), because while the determined fact-hound will eventually get the information they're after, more casual visitors will quickly give up.

Hitec Products-UCK and Boels-Dolmans are both racing, which means one of the best ways to follow the race is by following Karl Lima and Richie Steege on Twitter. Lima is the manager of Hitec, Steege is the mechanic of Boels-Dolmans; both of them know the sport inside-out and provide regular updates on the progress of their own teams and their rivals in all the races they attend.

8th Memorial Davide Fardelli

The 7.85km circuit - the Elite Women will complete
three laps (click for enlargement)

02.09 Official site
Italy, 23.55km Individual Time Trial, UCI 1.2

Be Pink are Tweeting from the race

↓↓↓Parcours, starters (when available), weather↓↓↓

Davide Fardelli, born on the 6th of January 1972, discovered his love of cycling aboard a mountain bike when he was 28 years old - older than most, so he made sure that he made up for lost time by riding as much as possible. "The bike, you know, is a love that often has no limits" says the official race website; in 2002 he decided to give road cycling a go. While he continued mountain biking, road cycling became his passion and, before long, he began to do well in amateur races. Then, on the 26th of August in 2004, he was badly injured in a crash. Four days later, having experienced a great deal of pain, he died. This race is a celebration of his life and of the sport he loved, now in its eighth edition and bigger than ever before.

It consists of six events in total, all of them individual time trials. The Elite Professional men and women race on an identical 23.55km parcours consisting of three laps of a 7.85km circuit with a small hill (17m in 0.86km, average gradient a little over 1.5%, maximum 4% near the top) beginning just after 1km from the start line. The rest is either slightly descending or flat, making it a parcours likely to generate very high speeds. It's very much a race for the strong time trial specialists who are able to produce a lot of power for a long time through the several straight sections, then do the same again on the next - and keep it up for all three laps. There are one or two points where riders might need to exercise caution, but overall this is not a technical parcours: it's more about power than finesse and even the predicted bad weather is unlikely to create many problems.

The Parcours
The race takes place in a glacial valley just north-east of Lago d'Iseo, Lombardy's fourth-largest lake, beginning at a car park on the SS42 road at Rondinera in Bergamo. Mountains rear up immediately to the north and the fortified village of Castelfranco, atop a rocky outcrop, can just be seen from the road. To the south, more mountains can be seen above the roof line of a building bearing the name Fardelli Ernesto & C. - the headquarters of the Global Radiators company created by Davide Fardelli's father, and where he worked before his death. Having turned right out of the car park and onto the SS42, riders will want to make use of the smooth, modern road surface to get up to a reasonable speed immediately but not risk using up too much energy that might be put to a better use later on. There has been a lot of construction work taking place on the far side of Rondinera, around 0.75km from the start; riders will need to take care on their first passage in case there is sand or mud on the road. This is especially likely with the heavy rain forecast for the end of the week and lighter rain through the weekend as the houses to the left of the road are built right up against the lower slopes of the mountains, giving ample opportunity for soil and stones to be washed down onto the road. If the rain keeps up throughout the race, there's no guarantee that because the road surface was free of mud on one passage it will be on the next, either.

Click for enlargement

After passing a field on the right, the riders arrive at Rogno - three houses (one pale green, two terracotta) on the right mark the beginning of the climb which shouldn't give anyone any problems provided they pace themselves properly through to the last lap. Rogno will never win any "most beautiful village in Italy" competitions: it's an industrialised place where people live and work rather than a tourist trap (and let's face it - it would have some very stiff competition), but it does have its charms. One of the most attractive is the old stone house on the right of the road some 1.56km from the start with a football pitch next door - it not only looks nice, it also provides a handy landmark to let the riders know they've reached the steepest part of the climb. A little further ahead, having passed by the town hall on the left, they pass into a narrower section with buildings right up against the road on both sides, then it opens up again as the riders leave Rogno and head into Bessimo - the two villages are all but contiguous, with only a field separating them.

2011 winner Judith Arndt, seen here at
the 2012 Olympics

Bessimo is more industrialised that Rondinera and Rogno, the grey factories next to road don't give a good first impression when the village is approached from this angle, though the mountains - like most mountains - are breathtaking. The road passes straight through with the riders negotiating a roundabout at 2.85km; to the right is what must be one the most intriguing provincial superstore units anywhere in Europe: an Iperfamily with an entrance that looks like a huge, glass orchid. 0.33km later, they turn right onto the Via Nazionale. It's a wide corner, but taking the fastest and tightest line around it leads straight over two drain covers that could prove perilously slippery (there's a third in the middle of the left-hand lane too, where it could catch out a rider taking a wide line). The road descends past a field to the left and industrial units to the right but is straight enough for fuel spillages left by trucks and tractors to be unlikely to cause problems and so the road can be negotiated at high speed; after rounding a sweeping right-hand bend it narrows considerably and passes under overhanging trees - a spot where some riders might experience punctures. After 0.75km from the right turn, the River Oglio comes into view on the left of the road, a short way further ahead the Lago di Rogno appears on the right before the race enters the most attractive part of the parcours with superb views over Rogno to the mountains on the right and across the river to more mountains on the left, then the road bends right, left and right again before reaching 4.95km from the start and the next corner, where the riders turn left.

It seems almost impossible that the riders were passing industrial units only minutes before at this point on the parcours - there is an old and very beautiful house right by the corner, and the narrow road they turn onto looks as though it runs over an Alpine meadow. Cows are grazed along here but, kept off the road by electric fencing, shouldn't have left any slippery surprises; if the weather forecast turns out to be completely wrong, the main issue on this stretch is likely to be wind - there's little cover and riding into a wind blowing north-east off the lake would be hard work, while riding with a tail wind blowing down through the valley from the high mountains (which top 3,100m only 40km away) would make it more like land-yachting than cycling. The road is narrow but it's flat, smooth, mostly straight and likely to be very fast indeed, any rider who feels she had the strength in her legs when she approaches the finish line for the final time, knowing her race is almost over and that she has no need to conserve energy for layer, could put it to very good use and steal a big lead over her rivals by switching up to full power and then hammering through the 1km section between the left turn at the start and the right turn at the end - and could just as easily lose it in the last 200m, where overhanging trees make punctures more likely than anywhere else on the parcours.

Final kilometre

After the right turn, riders head north along a slightly wider road, passing a cottage on the left before entering a right-left-right S-bend leading into Rondinera 0.21km from the corner and marking 1km to go. 0.3km later (this section apparently has some drainage problems, hopefully not an issue on race day), they come to a crossroads where they turn left. Vehicles are prevented from reaching the crossroads by a line of low concrete bollards just around the corner - they will have to pass between these. The road is straight and extends for 0.2km; at the end - having passed through an alleyway between the buildings at the far end - they turn left back onto the SS42, ride back past Global Radiators and return to the start line.

Results

1. Edwige PITEL 33'29"
2. Martina RITTER +15"
3. Pascale SCHNIDER +21"
4. Patricia SCHWAGER +25"
5. Katarína HRANAIOVÁ +53"
6. Oxana KOZONCHUK +54"
7. Thrude KARLSEN +57"
8. Doris SCHWEIZER +1'18"
9. Jacqueline HAHN +1'19"
10. Susanna ZORZI +1'20"
Full results


Weather
Not looking good at all. Thunderstorms and 47mm of rain are predicted for Thursday, which is more than enough to bring mud onto the roads as described above. Sporadic heavy rain is also predicted for Friday, then heavy showers on Saturday. Race day morning should be dry with the wind blowing up the valley from the south west, more showers are expected in the afternoon when the wind will reverse direction - however, it'll be no stronger than around 5kph. Maximum temperature is expected to be around 27C.