Road Bike Reviews
By Alastair Hamilton, Thu Dec 8th

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The Giro d'Italia has a fine history behind it, like the Tour deFrance it was started to publicise a newspaper, just like theTour de France the organisers made the leaders jersey the samecolour as the paper, yellow in France from the L'Auto newspaperand pink in Italy from the La Gazzetta dello Sport. The firstGiro was in 1909 and was 2448 kilometres long (the shortest),split into 8 stages and was won by the Italian rider LuigiGanna, 127 riders started in Milan, but by the finish, also inMilan, there was only 49 left, this was not the worst edition,in 1914 only 8 out of the 81 starters managed the full distance.

The winners.

Just like the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, the Girod'Italia always has a deserving winner, three riders have won itfive times, Alfredo Binda and Fausto Coppi of Italy and thegreat Belgian, Eddy Merckx, Merckx of course also won the Tourde France five times and the Vuelta once. There have been manyother "stars" who have won the Giro over the years, Frenchheroes Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault and from SpainMiguel Indurain have all one 5 Tours de France and the Giro morethan once. The home riders have obviously been the big winners,Felice Gimondi, Gino Bartoli, Ivan Gotti, Gilberto Simoni andPaolo Savoldelli have all shown there winning ways, but thebattles between Giuseppe Saronni and Francesco Moser in the 80'sare epic. The strangest rider to have taken part in the Girod'Italia would be Alfonsina Morini Strada who is the only womanto have ridden the race, and finish!

The race itself.

The Giro has started outside of

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Italy on eight occasions, thefurthest away being either Belgium, Greece or possibly the Dutchtown of Groningen, which hosted the opening individual timetrial in 2002. When the road bikes race is on Italian soil the main difficulties areusually the Alps, Dolomites and the Apennines, the Giro is inMay so the big climbs can get dreadful weather, snow, rain andcold temperatures can shape the race and determine thewinner.

The future of the Giro d'Italia.

The future of the Giro d'Italia looks good, since the UCI(cycling's governing body) brought in the Pro-Tour all the top20 teams have to ride the race, before they would only get allthe Italian teams and a few foreign teams with sponsor interestsin Italy, now the race is also shown free on television, whereas before it could only be seen on a private station. The 2005edition was one of the best for years, top teams, top riders anda hard course brought the race to life, for years the Giro hadbecome a procession until the last hour, then the sprinters tookover. The climbers had some good hard stages and the teamleaders would do there work for the overall on the hills or thetime trial, and that was it, now its one of the most excitingstage races there is from begging to end.

About the author:Alastair Hamilton is a successful writer who offers a trulyunique depth of experience in competitive cycling, he alsocontributes adding technical articles on road bikes to some online magazines. Please, visit bike cyclingreviews to reach further information on bike and cyclingnews.