2024 Giro d’Italia: Stage 7 Preview

For The Riders

Stage 7 of the 2024 Giro d’Italia is the first time trial of the race, measuring a fairly long 40.6km with sharp climbs at the end, which may see some leaving their TT bikes in the trailer.

The route

This individual time trial is clearly composed of two parts. After 32 flat kilometres, until just outside Perugia, comes a steep ascent to Casaglia (16%); from there on, the route continues uphill all the way to the finish.

Final kilometres

The final kilometres are entirely uphill, also with doubledigit gradients. After a brace of bends and counterslopes, some wide hairpins eventually lead to the home straight. The sharp ascent to Casaglia (1,300 m), with 6.4 km to go, has gradients around 12%, peaking out at 16%. The home straight (250 m) is on 6 m wide stonepaved road.

For The Tourists

Elegance. That’s what Foligno, the town where the time trial stage to Perugia starts, is known for. But before heading over to the starting area and chatting to the cyclists as they warm up on the rollers, a quick stroll will reveal how the town got its nickname as the ‘City of Palaces’. Strolling down Corso Cavour as far as the Piazza delle Repubblica, usually referred to as the Piazza Grande (the large square), you’ll walk past all the town’s main buildings and monuments: the Cathedral of Saint Feliciano (the city’s patron saint), Palazzo Trinci, the city’s museum which houses an important cycle of frescoes by Gentile da Fabriano and his assistants, the Palazzo del Podestà (or Mayor’s Palace) and Palazzo Orsini, the home of the Foligno printers, where the first printing of Dante’s Divine Comedy took place in 1472 and which now hosts the Printing Museum. A leap forward in time brings us to the CIAC – Contemporary Art Centre and the ‘Cosmic Magnet’, a giant sculpture measuring 24 metres in length and almost 4 m high. The work was created by Gino De Dominicis and is located within the former Church of Santissima Trinità in Annunziata.

We then head over to Spello, another treasure chest overflowing with charm. Visitors will be charmed by the enchanting Pinturicchio frescoes in the Baglioni Chapel of the Collegiata of Santa Maria Maggiore, and awestruck by the Villa dei Mosaici, full of recently discovered mosaics dating back to Roman times, which only opened to the public in 2018. Spello is also the centre of Umbria’s olive oil production, the hub of a very active food district which has never lost sight of its ancient traditions. Spello Gold, as the local olive oil is known, is made using one of Umbria’s most iconic products, the Moraiolo olive, which is also used to make a comprehensive range of beauty products.

Assisi is close by, but the race doesn’t climb up to this iconic site. It does, however, run past the Santa Maria degli Angeli Basilica, home to the Porziuncola chapel. And yet a visit to the city of Saint Francis, the Capital of Peace, is nevertheless a must, given its mystic atmosphere and the importance of its monuments. The most celebrated is certainly the Basilica of Saint Francis, where pilgrims can gather before the Saint’s grave, or stand in awe, dazzled by the extraordinary frescoes by artists such as Giotto and Cimabue.

Fontana Maggiore in Perugia

Now within sight of Perugia, we leave the race route briefly to reach Torgiano and visit the Wine Museum and the Olive and Olive Oil Museum of the Lungarotti Foundation, two of the most important sites of their kind in Italy, with a highly specialised historical and scientific approach to the subject and an enchanting setting.

Perugia welcomes us with its wealth of places that will remain in our hearts forever. Let’s start on Corso Vannucci, the elegant pedestrianised street that leads to Piazza IV Novembre, dominated by the Maggiore Fountain and surrounded by historic buildings such as the Palazzo dei Priori (Prior’s Palace) and the Cathedral of San Lorenzo. There’s also the Umbria National Gallery (in the Prior’s Palace), with its exceptional collection of Umbrian art from the Middle Ages right up to the Renaissance, featuring works by artists such as Perugino, Pinturicchio and Beato Angelico. And then there’s the Rocca Paolina (Paolina Fortress) and the San Francesco al Prato Basilica (13th century) now converted into a unique and magnificent auditorium.

On May 10, the day of the race, a conference will be held entitled ‘The future of cycling hinges on safety’, to discuss the current status of the Italian cycling movement and road safety for both cyclists and pedestrians.