
Location: Veneto Italy - Dolomites
Departure:
Misurina
Length: 7.5km
Altitude: 2,333m
Height Gain: 576m
Average Gradient: 7.5%
Maximum Gradient: 19.0%
Lake Misurina effectively marks
the starting point of the short climb up the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Though brief in duration,
it’s nevertheless something of a horror movie with a perverse sort of ending.
Maxing out at 19%, its average gradient over the final 4 kilometres is 12%.
Intimidating after riding 19 kilometres from Cortina
d’Ampesso, via the Passo Tre Croci, but
far worse if it’s the climax to an exhausting 200-kilometre-plus professional
race like the Giro d’ Italia.

I don’t remember much more of the climb, only how I hovered between 6
and 8 kilometres per hour for most of the final 4 kilometres, and that when I
had the energy to look up the views were spellbinding.
While now
a fabled climb with a near 50-year history in the Giro d’Italia, the Tre
Cime di Lavaredo’s introduction to the Italian Tour was tainted
with controversy. First climbed, in woeful conditions in 1967, race organiser
Vincenzo Torriani declared the stage 19 race null and void, after riders
collectively grabbed onto team cars or were pushed by spectators all the way to
the top at the Rifugio Auronzo. The eventual winner, though to no avail, was Felice Gimondi, who immediately after the race was over, paid out on his fellow Italians for their 'despicable pushes'.
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Of the three summits, which before 1919 marked
the border between Austria and Italy, only two are
visible along the steep valley road.
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Ironically, given the sport’s drug-addled history, the climb’s
inclusion the following year led to speculation that riders would be even more
tempted to venture outside the rules. Meanwhile, rather than promote the
213-kilometre stage 12 race from Gorizia to the top of the Tre Cime di
Lavaredo, the local media urged spectators to restrain their roadside
behaviour. As a precaution, police lined the sides of the roads leading up to
the summit.

Three years after cementing his Giro d’ Italia victory on the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Italian cyclist Vincenzo Nibali is again favourite to win the race. Now lying in 5th place and with the big mountain stages later to come, he’s already working himself into a good position.
2013 marked the second-last appearance of Australian cyclist Cadel Evans in the Giro d’Italia. That was the year he emerged out of the snow and sleet up the Dolomite climb in 14rd place, leaving him a further 90 seconds behind Niboli and Colombian cyclist Rigoberto Uran.
That was also the year that the 19th stage was cancelled due to snow and sub-zero temperatures, while the next day’s stage (finishing up the top of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo) was stripped of three earlier climbs due to the horrendous conditions.
Books by Mark Krieger:
‘High Spain Drifter’ is available on Amazon , Barnes and Noble, Booktopia and other online bookstores.
‘Lycra, Lattes and the Long Way Round’ is available on Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes and Noble, Kobo Books
Both books are also available at local bookshops on the Mornington Peninsula: @ Rosebud Bookbarn and @ La Brocante
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware”.
Martin Buber
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