Photo: Pansèrs with Pantani the Pirate

We flew back to Italy on Wednesday. With five days off the bike I was eagerly awaiting to see what ride we would do on Saturday. Maybe a nice gentle ride to get back into it. On landing at Bologna I turned on the phone to be greeted by a WhatsApp message “Proposta giro per Sabato 30 Giugno, Cippo da Fano…..”

The key word in the message was Cippo. Having climbed it four times before I knew what to expect. First, an 86km ride from sea level to Carpegna at 744m, a quick rest and then climb the Cippo.

The Cippo is very famous in these parts as the training hill of Marco Pantani, Il Parata. It’s 6km, rising 600m starting with a short 20% ramp before a steady 10% all the way until the last 100m where you can, if you have anything left, get into the big ring for a flourish at the finish. The 22 bends are all numbered along with statues, quotations and newspaper headlines all about Pantani. His tribute to the climb is repeatedly stencilled on the road. “Carpegna is enough for me”

I thought I’d have a go at my personal record of 41:35. I was tracking my previous best until the penultimate kilometre when I slowed before one last effort in the final 500m. I crossed the line sprinting on the drops and carried on for another 50m just to make sure I had completed the Strava segment, then off the bike to recover:

I wasn’t sure if I’d made my record but I did look a lot better than when I took it on last September with ICC:

Imagine how I felt when I saw my time for the Strava segment. 1 hour 16 minutes 43 seconds. WTF? When I checked I discovered that my Wahoo ELEMNT had positioned me in the woods as I approached the end of the segment. It only recorded me as crossing the line after I’d returned, recovered, posed for photographs and started the descent. So far I’ve been really pleased with my Wahoo, but this is a significant question mark. Here’s my track in black:

Comparing times of other riders and my moving time I reckon I completed the climb 53 seconds slower than my record, so double disappointment.

As Hannah said “Oh no!!! You’ll just have to do it again 😃”

Year to date

7,922km / 73 rides / 108.5 km average per ride

78,330m elevation gain (8.8 Everests)