Granfondo Pinarello race by Rob Tagg

I had competed in the Granfondo Pinarello race this July and have to tell you that overall it was a wonderful race from a scenery and organisational point of view.

Main positives are
1 - Smaller field than the other sportive races like L'Etape. We only had 1,300 in the main race so it is not crowded
2 - Easy flight over to Venice and then a 30 min taxi
3 - You get to eat real authentic pasta during the built up to the race (including breakfast)
4 - Some lovely fast sweeping downhill sections after the 90km mark
4 - Great weather, scenery and they give you a beer and pasta at the end for your efforts


I completed the 200km race in 7h20 with 3,100m of climbing. Frantic start with hundreds of crazy Italians flying past you at 45 km/h so the first 20 min involved survival tactics but hard not to get caught up in the mad pace at the start. The major climbing was in the first 90kms which took me 4 hours with lovely switch backs so you could see all the way down the valley. The next 110kms was super fast - managed to get behind a big group which at times I was fighting to hang onto at the back because they were doing 40-45 km/h on the flats. Wonderful experience and well recommended for the racing nuts. All the hard training paid off - mixture of road and spin classes.