17th – 19th June
Well we’ve waited quite a while for a proper climby stage race, but now the calendar seems to be packed with them. The Tour of Trentino is one of the longest survivors, this being its 18th edition (and a couple of missing years in that sequence make it a bit older). And those missing years should give us some hope that other races that vanished will return The province of Trnetino is one half of the semi-autonomous Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, and the semi-autonomous bit is largely due to the fact that until modern times it was cut off from the rest of Italy for large parts of the year which made remote governance pretty impossible. In past years the route of the Giro has tried to take in large chunks of those hills, for example the first stage last year which began with a deceptive 20km flat road leading to the 40km long ascent to Passo Mendola, where unsurprisingly Emma Pooley vanished into a Giro winning distance. But this year it looks like things have been turned down a notch or two, possibly to give a helping hand to local star Rossella Callovi who will have fans out with banners all the way.
Stage 1 (Friday 17th): Dimaro – Arco di Trento (86.5km)
The first stage is actually a downhill stage. Yes it starts with a 1st category climb to the gloriously titled Passo Campo Carlo Magno, but the 1st category rating comes from the absolute height of the pass of 1682m, but the start line is at 1269m, so the majority of the climbing gets done in the team bus.
Stage 2 (Saturday 18th): Mattarello – Termon di Campodenno (86km)
This is likely to be the deciding stage. The first 60 or so km are just about flat, then there is an ascent of almost 400m to Cunevo and to the finish line. That first time over is not the end of the race since the riders then get sent to the bottom of the hill to do it all again. The vertical ascent is probably more than that to Passo Campo Carlo Magno, but as the summit at Cunmevo is only 575m up it gets called a Cat 2 climb.
Stage 3 (Sunday 19th): Castel Thun – Cles (72km)
This exactly the same course as used for stage 3 last year, when Eleonora Patuzzo outsprinted Ina-Yoko Teutenberg through a really wretched rain-storm. The climb to Cavareno will break the field up a bit, but they will have plenty of time to come back together again for the finishing circuit at Cles.
All profiles via www.girotrentinodonne.it from whom you can also download nice clear pdf versions complete with map.