The Strade Bianche, the test of the white roads of ‘Sterrato’, is not the oldest in the calendar. Neither the toughest nor the most prestigious. But it is most likely the most beautiful race of how many are played in spring. This Saturday, the race opens the season of great classics.
The recipe is easy and the accounts fit: to put in the hat the season ingredients and just blow a little … voilà! The sinuous landscapes of the Tuscany, the exit in the fort of the beautiful Siena and the arrival in the precious Piazza del Campo, capable of hosting a world repercussion test in that historian shell without losing an apex of its majestic respectability. It is a tremendously fun, demanding and beautiful tour. In addition, the aroma of classic cycling of l’Oroica that is breathed in each plane, each pedal and each motorcycle of ‘sterrato’ that filters through the nose or the chain of 450 professional cyclists premiering season.
The Strade Bianche anticipates spring with a smile from ear to ear to the cycling community. And the atmosphere of happiness is transmitted between organizers, participants and public. The secret satisfaction of having found the formula of a total success event is palpated in the atmosphere. Of a product that can be code with the great historical tests of the world calendar. It matters little to invite you to sit in the G5 of the great classics, the monuments. The Tuscan recipe has enough pedigree to patient with the best. And does it in good fight and without attributing any imposed merit.
In addition to an excellent home organization. “Organizing bike races is one of the best things we know how to do the Italians,” he excited with euphoria among journalists knowing that things are doing well. And Súmenle 7,500 amateur cyclists eager to libar from the legend that they normally watch on television. Seeing their idols on a Saturday and emulating them only a few hours later and for the same landscapes. Playing in the same stadium with still hot blood by percuting in the temples. Pedaladas excited by what was lived in the previous one and the Polvarda that has barely had time to dissipate. The great Strade Bianche fund is a categorical climax that raises the cycling event of the weekend to the Etruscan Olympus of Cycling with capital letters.
Calling spring doors
The Strade Bianche has managed to institute itself as the spring door of the world squad with such a self -confidence that we almost no longer remember its bisoñez. Since he began his career just 15 years ago, but he has had a meteoric progression at the media and reputational level with few precedents in the organization of sporting events. The resounding combination of classic and modern cycling, its unbeatable journey and the cast of champions and champions in their short history also does not demand more credentials. Take note: Cancellara, Longo, Alaphilippe, Van Vleuten, van Aert, Kopecki, Van der Poel, Vollering, Pidcock or Pugaçar.
Powdered ride for legend and final escalation by Santa Caterina. Where if not because of the epic ramp that gives access to the historical city. With the name of the philosopher and mystique of the Church that has taken that of its city through the world (and whose head is exposed in the basil of Santo Domingo, a few meters from the place). As if this was not enough, the snail between the narrow streets and the triumphal entry of the cyclists in the Piazza del Campo, emulating the riders of the Siena Pallium on their carbon mounts that are beaten twice a year in the same place. Galloping and among the popular ecstasy formed by the “contras” of the Tifosi who crowd the square defending the colors of their horse. That each judges the relevant analogies.
They and them, together and together
Siena’s adorned city, of just 50,000 inhabitants, is an example of good practices in gender equalization in professionalism and between this and amateur cycling. Women and men dispute the scepter of L’Oroica with just a few hours apart, in the same scenario and with an exemplary imbrication. If on Saturday afternoon vibrates with the great cycling of new wedge of the male squad by dusty roads of the huge toscanous slopes and the apotheosic end against the pubboblico palazzo. The morning is no less. The female squad enjoys excellent media coverage and high standing organization. At the same level as its male counterparts. With the advantage for the spectator to be able to approach the preparations and deeds of the huge vollering, Longo or Kopecky with a privileged ease. Something that will seem chimeric in a short time.
In gender matters, you can discuss the ideal format of a test so that both categories reverberate without shadow, but it is an evidence that the Tuscan method works. Due to efficiency, results, quality and media coverage.
A great background of 140 km
The next morning, among the fans, nervousness about the state of the white paths. In addition to suspicion to a launched exit and electrifying speed during the first 40 km of favorable terrain, with chilling falls and cnotes crowded with mechanical failures in each pavement change. Once the test is based, those who choose 28 mm wheels are grouped in the asphalt and impose their law of vertiginous rhythms. But they are diluted in the ‘sterrato’, where the serious wheels 32, 35 or even 38 mm resurface and pride, especially in declines and more rugged sections, as in the passage of some stream or the reguerones in the areas most punished by rain and mud. Quid Pro quo. Or the chickens that come through those who leave, it is the general sensation between the participants who, for their tranquility, have enjoyed the innumerable points of mechanical assistance stationed in the gutters. With the intercalated hache and the characteristic blue color of the Osaqueño giant reference of the world squad to the rescue. Level.
Gourmet avituallamientos
If Italy can presume something its culinary passion in virtually all areas is exported around the world: gastronomy, pastry, coffee, ice cream or wines. And this gluttony of good living is felt in the mimo opíparo with which the supplies that marry the flow of cyclists are organized. From the characteristic newly made Italian coffee or the typical Sienés pamphorts, it is not skimmed in variety and quantity in which the most varied, rich and exquisite supply points of those who enjoy the amateur squad are probably. It is well worth sacrificing a few minutes in the chrono even if it is only to enjoy such gastronomic deployment and take some succulence to the jersey.
But this aspect is just an archetypal extravagance of the “Italian class” that does not falsify the sullen sternum crunch and the grinding of white dust between the teeth of the participants. The epic rough of a cycling test that, once again, has managed to find a sports and cultural product in perfect combination of respect and insolence, of tradition and avant -garde. Of hardness, innovation and admiration.
Experiences such as Strade Bianche confirm the popular saying that sometimes a step back is necessary to go forward. What leads us to think that success and advances in bicycle matters, humans do not always have to obey the logics of developmentalism and hyper technification. If not, on the contrary, that sometimes it is enough to search among the simple, old and imperishable formulas of success. Like that legendary of “a uomo only to the command …”.
And this was how in the 1990s an enlightened conceived a classic cycling test exclusively for old bikes, with the idea of maintaining the white gravel paths of the Tuscany. What has evolved in an event of enormous magnitude that has contributed to the improvement of discipline, and renewed the illusion and enjoyment of fans based on huge sums of common sense. Of those white paths, this Strade Bianche. Blessed cycling. Someday we will invent the wheel.
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