Granfondo Nove Colli: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

Assembly is from five in the morning at the Colonia AGIP on Viale Carducci; the red grid rolls out at six and every other grid follows in real time at four-minute intervals. Placement is earned: riders who went under set times in a previous edition, or who appear on the Nove Colli ranking list, start at the front and everyone else goes in order of entry. The opening fifty kilometres are flat, through Martorano, Diegaro and Forlimpopoli, before the first rise comes at Bertinoro and Polenta.

The heart of the race sits between kilometre 59 and 135. Pieve di Rivoschio is followed by Ciola, and then at kilometre 90 comes the Barbotto: close to five kilometres averaging almost eight percent with ramps to seventeen, ridden as its own timed hill climb for the Trofeo dello Scalatore. Shortly after it, Montetiffi delivers the steepest moment of the day, under two kilometres long but with sections above twenty percent. Perticara, Monte Pugliano and the Passo delle Siepi carry the route up to 791 metres, its high point, before the Gorolo at kilometre 164 provides the last climb.

From there the road falls back to the sea through Borghi, Savignano and Gatteo, and the closing twenty kilometres are fast flat running to the finish on Viale Carducci. The profile shows how little recovery lies in between: only a quarter of the measured 197 kilometres is flat, and nearly 60 percent of it points up or down. The field is capped at 10,000 riders from age seventeen, and anyone not through the Le Ville di Montetiffi junction at kilometre 99 by 11:45 is redirected onto the medium route.

Pacing Strategy

The first fifty kilometres are the most dangerous of the day. They are flat, the field is dense, the groups move fast and it costs nothing to sit in, until the bill arrives on the Barbotto. Ride the flat deliberately below threshold, look for a group rather than a position, and accept that there is nothing to win before Bertinoro but a great deal to lose.

The race is decided in the Barbotto to Montetiffi block between kilometre 90 and 105. The Barbotto is long enough that starting it too hard genuinely breaks you, and Montetiffi arrives straight after with pitches above twenty percent, a torque demand you cannot meter out on empty legs. Racing the Trofeo dello Scalatore is a deliberate choice that costs you the rest of the day: more than a hundred kilometres and four climbs still lie ahead of it.

The second trap is the long middle section between Perticara and the Passo delle Siepi. It looks moderate on the profile at four to six percent, but it is where carbohydrate and fluid deficits turn into lost watts, because it falls in the late morning and May in Romagna can already be warm. Eat and drink on the flat linking roads rather than on the climbs, and treat the last twenty flat kilometres to the sea as their own section: they are fast, but only if you can still hold a wheel there.

Training plan for Granfondo Nove Colli: 12-week build

For age-group riders the long route means seven to eleven hours in the saddle, with an official limit of twelve. The demand is a long aerobic day with nine strength-endurance blocks folded into it: not a steady time trial but an alternation of group riding on the flat with repeated twenty to forty minute climbs.

Preparation therefore rests on two pillars. First volume: long rides building to six to eight hours, so the closing fifty kilometres are not unknown territory. Second, climbing under fatigue: hill repeats of twenty to thirty minutes ridden in the final third of a long day rather than at the start of it.

The decisive phases are the Barbotto and Montetiffi. The Barbotto asks for steady threshold power for roughly half an hour; Montetiffi asks for short, low-cadence force above twenty percent. They need different stimuli: threshold intervals on climbs on one side, short heavy out-of-the-saddle efforts on the other, and, just as importantly, gearing that makes them possible. A cassette that is genuinely low enough for Montetiffi saves more matches than any training detail.

On conditions: late May on the Adriatic means a very early start in cool morning air and an afternoon that can already turn distinctly warm, with long unsheltered stretches inland. Rehearse the eating and drinking routine for an eight-hour day explicitly, put some long rides into the heat, and practise descending: every one of those 4,000 metres has to be given back, mostly on narrow Apennine roads, and that is where time and reserves go faster than on any climb.