Giro d’Italia Virtuale 2021 had not given much thought to a 2021 Giro d’Italia Virtuale until I was contacted out of the blue via LinkedIn the week before the real Giro I started. “Are you the Pike Talbert who created the Fulgaz Giro d'Italia Virtuale last year at https://fulgaz.com/my-giro-ditalia-virtuale-pike- talbert?” his note began. “If so, I'm wondering if you were going to curate a version 2.0 for the 2021 Giro?” That was all the inspiration I needed! A week later: Tahdah! An initial draft was complete: 21 stages utilising 20 FulGaz rides, 14 of which were new this year—either recently released by FulGaz, or recently discovered by moi. Several iterations later the final version was complete. The Table below provides a comparative Summary. A couple of background comments are worth highlighting: • My Giro last year was mostly about climbing as many of the famous and iconic mountain passes as possible. I have discovered the hard way that this is actually boring (not to mention painful). It turns out that flatter, rolling stages usually contain better scenery—a “smell the roses” approach that favours vistas and seeing more of Italy’s natural beauty over elevation gain and degree of difficulty. Thus, I have inserted more flatter and rolling stages. • Most of the rides I have eliminated in favour of the new ones are longer climbs (i.e., greater than 90 minutes based on videographer time and 3 of the 4 Stelvio-related ascents). It is for this reason that the total time is nearly an hour less than last year. Therefore this year’s Giro Vituale (GV21) is shorter timewise and somewhat easier by design. • Three of my GV21’s climbs—Monte Zoncolan, Passo Pordoi and Passo Giau—feature prominently in the real Giro. I have tried where possible to insert them so that they coincide virtually with the real Giro. 1 Giro d’Italia Virtuale 2021 • Finally, many of last year’s stages were “geographically out of order”. This year I have tried to link them together in a more logical and sequential route. I have been able to do this with 13 stages, which link to form 4 geographical sequences: 1. Stages 2 and 3 in the Dolomites, 2. Stages 5 and 6 also in the Dolomites, 3. Stages 8 and 9, which is the Sella Ronda in the Dolomites, and 4. Stages14 through 20 that transition from the Dolomites to the SudTyrol.1 A Summary of this year’s Giro, and a comparison to last year’s is provided below: 2020 2021 Km/m No. Km/m No. Change No. Stages 20 21 1 Distance (km) 416.2 441.7 25.5 El. Gain (m) 19,518 18,068 -1,450 Time (hh:mm:ss) 33:05:53 30:01:54 -3:03:59 Flat 54.7 2 90.5 3 35.9 Hilly 72.6 4 73.4 4 0.9 Mountain 289.0 14 277.8 14 -11.2 Dolomites 123.3 7 178.9 8 55.6 1 SudTyrol 183.9 8 149.4 6 -34.5 -2 Other 109.0 5 113.5 7 4.5 2 New Rides this Year (1) 14 Flat Hilly Mountain Total Dolomites 1 2 3 SudTyrol 3 3 6 Other 1 4 5 4 4 6 14 2021 Giro Virtuale Elev. Rides Ave Ave. Grade WeeK Distance Gain (New) Dist Gain % (2) First 210.2 9,198 9 (3) 21.0 920 4.4% Second 100.0 4,473 6 (5) 16.7 746 5.3% Third 131.5 4,397 6 (4) 26.3 879 6.2% Notes: (1) New Rides incorporated this year (2) Excludes flat stages This Ride Report will focus on the Tour as a whole with an emphasis on the new rides (Stages in Red). As a practical matter the only thing different about the 7 rides retained from last year is my view: I traded my garage (and a street view) for a terrace (with a view of Sydney Harbour and a Large Screen TV). 1 I discovered a great FulGaz tool for facilitating this: FulGaz’s World Map. 2 Giro d’Italia Virtuale 2021 Overview: The first 2 Stages of this 2021 Giro Virtuale are located in the Piedmont Region in Italy’s northwest. The next 8 Stages before the first Rest Day are in the Dolomites and concentrate on the 7 climbs that make up the Maratona dles Dolomites. The 6 Stages that comprise the week between the two Rest days are predominately in the Southern Tyrol region. The climb of Monte Zoncolan is the exception. Located in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, it is inserted in the middle of this sequence so as to coincide with the real Giro’s ascent of the same climb. That is the beauty of virtuality: transportation is not an issue.! Selected Regions of Northern Italy Stages 18 – 20 Dolomites: Stages 3 – 10 SudTyrol: Stages 13 – 21 Stages 11, 12, 14 – 17 Stages 1 – 2 The final week contains only 5 Stages, although Stage 17 has an A and a B segment. This Stage serves as a transition from the SudTyrol west to the Lombardia region where a tryptic of neighbouring climbs capstone the week: the Passo Foscagno (el. 22291m), the Passo Gavia (2621m) and the Passo Stelvio (2757m). In contrast to the real Giro’s conclusion in Milan, I will finish in the beautiful town of Trieste in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of Italy’s east. Stage 1: Col du Mont Cenis—My Grande Partenza reprised the Col du Mont Cenis from last year. This is a scenic ride that starts in the Piedmont region of Italy and climbs into France. Beginning with an ascent of La Grande Croix, most of the ride is alongside a damned lake until the Col du Mont Cenis is reached at the very end. Mont Cenis is a massif and a pass in the Savoie region of France. It was once again a very attractive and not too demanding parcours on which to start. Stage 2: Colle delle Finestre—The first new ride of the Tour and it was a completely different experience from the preceding Stage. There was nothing benign about this parcours. Tucked away in the top-left-hand corner of Italy, just over the border from France in the region of Piedmont, Colle delle Finestre is in the Cottian Alps. About 50km west of Turin, it’s an area of 3 Giro d’Italia Virtuale 2021 lush greenery and orderly vineyards, peppered with pretty farms and elegant towns. The Giro has visited these slopes on three occasions. The first time was in 2005 on Stage 10 when the first man over the summit was the Italian, Danilo Di Luca. Six years later, in 2011, the summit leader was the Belarusian rider Vasil Kiryienka. The latest inclusion was in 2015 when Spain’s Mikel Landa managed to drop Alberto Contador on the climb to cross the summit at the head of the field. The Finestre is often paired with the ascent to the ski resort of Sestriere. The gradient on the Finestre barely wavered during its 18.2 kms, hovering between 9% and 10% all the way. The first section of the climb wandered past fields and stone farmhouses, winding its way through Meana di Susa where a large billboard celebrates the occasions that the Giro d’Italia has blasted through the village. Farther along, the road was hemmed in by the dense forest. These woods cover the lower slopes, which made it difficult to get any sense of the progress I was making or where the road was heading. Every corner simply revealed another short stretch of tarmac leading inexorably upwards to another, strikingly similar corner. The most visible feature differentiating Finestre from rides last year is the road surface. Although the first 11km of the climb take place on pristine tarmac, the final 8ks are on rough gravel. Therefore, it is the closest I will get to experiencing the real Giro’s strade sterrate sections in Tuscany. 4 Giro d’Italia Virtuale 2021 Eventually I emerged from the tree line and was greeted with expansive views back towards the snow-brushed mountains on the other side of the Susa Valley and across to a towering peak, the Roche Melon that guards the border with France. As rewarding as this view was, the summit was an interminably 10 long minutes away. The scene above greeted me at the summit. The surreal yet ethereal beauty of the clouds shrouding the top of Finestre and the lone cyclist waiting by the summit’s monument was an amazing conclusion to an awesome climb. Preview of The Dolomites: The remainder of this first section of the GV21—Stages 3 through 10—take place in the Dolomites, one of the world’s iconic sporting playgrounds. 5 Giro d’Italia Virtuale 2021 Located in the northeastern part of Italy (in the Trentino Alto Adige Region north of Veneto, Venice), the Dolomites, like many ski resorts around the world, are a year-round mecca featuring skiing in the winter months and cycling of many descriptions during the warmer weather. The Dolomites are home to two major amateur cycling events held every summer: the shorter Sella Ronda (comprised of 4 climbs which are also skied in winter: Pordoi, Sella, Gardena and Campolongo), and the longer, all-encompassing Maratona dles Dolomites, comprised of the Sella Ronda plus 3 additional climbs—Giau, Valparolo and Falzarego) and a sting in the tail: the Mur dl Giat, the profile of which is shown below.