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TECH NEWS: TO CLIMB SO HIGH: GIRO D'ITALIA STAGE 16 TECH
Tim Maloney-European Editor
June 30, 2008
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Although the Tour De France starts later this week, there is still a lot
of interesting tech remaining from the Giro d'Italia. This years Giro
featured some extreme racing, including a brutal individual time trial
up a tough mountain ascent. It was a cool, overcast Monday when
RoadBikeAction.Com headed into the far northern reaches of Italy's
Dolomite Mountains to check out the action on the most unique stage
at the 2008 Giro d'Italia, or for that matter, in any Grand Tour this season.
Stage 16 of the 2008 Giro d'Italia was a 12.8km cronoscalata, or uphill time trial
from the tiny mountain ski town of San Vigilio di Marebbe to the summit
of the Plan de Corones / Kronenplatz, a popular ski area 30km south of Bressanone,
while the final 6km of the ascent were more adapted to mountain bikers, as the
unpaved dirt road to the top of Plan de Corones has some pitches of 20%,
requiring low gearing never before seen in professional road racing. Many riders
complained the stage was a freak show, but when RoadBikeAction.Com saw Giro
boss Angelo Zomegnan among the thousands of tifosi that had thronged atop
Plan de Corones that afternoon, the fifty something former journalist from Milano
was clearly delighted. "This is really something", chortled Zomegnan.
"We are seeing something really special here today."
Although some riders grumbled, the many tifosi at the Plan de Corones stage were
simply stoked at the spectacle. Franco Pellizotti of Liquigas rode to the win that day
on his Cannondale System Six that day, another win for an American bike in
a monument of European cycling. RoadBikeAction.Com brings you this Giro tech
report with some of the most unique bike set-ups you will ever see in the pro peloton.
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