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Mountain Goats: Cippo Carpegna




Written by our riding reporter Robert Gill

First of all, a big thank you to 87 riders who signed up! The event is growing and I'm sure we'll crack 100 in the coming weeks!

Thank you too to the 48 who made it to the top and conquered the Cippo Carpegna. In doing so we all celebrated the turbulent life of one of the greats of our sport - Il Pirata - Marco Pantani! He would have been 51 this month if not for his tragic death in 2004 and I chose the Carpegna as an ode to his memory. Pictured is some of the graffiti that lines the route. It translates to "This is the Pirate's sky".

The race was won by Damien Roux in Pirata-esque time of 21:14. A brilliant ride and you certainly put the rest of us to the sword! Chapeau! Matteo Zwaenepoel and Michael Bauer had a titanic duel with Matteo taking 2nd by just 3 seconds. Bravo to both of you. A great ride!

There were other great battles along the road with R.2cn taking 4th from Matthias Schilling and a little further behind Andrzej Krajewski (Rasio Racing), Jurgen Janssens (Pedalers), and Henrik Mård (Pedalers)rounding out the top 10 with a matter of seconds (or tenths of seconds) between them!

There were great rides all along the road - they had to be to get up there! - and I myself felt much better than last week and I was pushed quite deep going under the flamme rouge as I was caught by Michael Andalora. I managed (just) to keep his wheel and then my juvenile competitive nature took over as I managed to take a largely uncontested sprint. Hey - if you cant pretend to be Marco Pantani in the last few hundred meters of the Cippo Carpegna when can you?! Haha!

Behind me, there were further big efforts. R. Merro54 started 14mins 30 late and made it to the top in 51 mins. Bravo - this would put you very close to my time on the road! Perhaps we can battle it out next week? Also, Sebastian Klotz pulled out a mammoth effort in the last kilometer and condemned a few bots to walk the plank! Bravo!
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