Whilst one great Italian Classic, Milano-San Remo, opens the UCI WorldTour season of one-day racing in March, Il Lombardia, brings the curtain down on cycling’s top league for another year.
Italy’s most prestigious one-day races are opposites in many other ways. Milano-Sanremo starts in one of the country’s industrial heartlands and concludes in the cosmopolitan glitz and glamour of the northern Mediterranean coastline. Il Lombardia’s 250-kilometre, six-hour trek over the wooded hills, past deep lakes and finishing in a major Lombardy town, gives it a much more rural, timeless feel. Held on the first Sunday of October and known as ‘the race of the falling leaves’, Il Lombardia’s melancholic autumn beauty could not be more different from the sunshine-drenched start to the Classics season at Milano-Sanremo.
Rather than the sprinters and Classics specialists that tend to excel at Milano-Sanremo, Il Lombardia’s lengthy climbs and often arduous weather conditions favour the climbers and stage race specialists.
Last year it was won by Ireland’s Dan Martin, already victorious the year before in similar terrain at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. In 2012 and 2013 Spain’s Joaquim Rodríguez, another rider like Martin who excels in the hilly Ardennes Classics, was able to solo away on Il Lombardia’s final climb for two consecutive triumphs.
Held a week after the UCI Road World Championships, Il Lombardia simultaneously represents three things: a prestigious triumph, the chance for sporting revenge for those defeated in the battle for the rainbow jersey and - last but not least - the opportunity to claim some precious individual and team points for the UCI WorldTour rankings.
Following a makeover in 2014, two of Il Lombardia’s most emblematic features now take place in the opening segment of the race. These are the ride alongside Lake Como’s shores and the ascent to the “cyclists’ chapel” - bedecked with jerseys of many a former champion inside - atop the Madonna del Ghisallo. The first real final challenge comes at the 7.4km Colle Gallo ascent a little under 100km from the finish, and together with the even harder and longer Passo di Ganda (9.2km kilometres with sections touching 15%), the peloton quickly tends to shrink to just 40 or 50 riders.
Following a constantly undulating finale on narrow, often rain-soaked roads, the two decisive climbs are the Berbenno, 27km from the finish and the short, sharp ascent to Bergamo Alto. Just three kilometres remain after the climb on narrow cobbled streets, all downhill and on twisting roads. Dan Martin launched his winning attack before the final corner in 2014. Will someone be strong enough - and daring enough - to follow Martin’s strategy in cycling’s last great Monument and UCI WorldTour race of 2015?