The 2007 Monte Paschi Eroica was the first professional edition of the Monte Paschi Eroica bike race, later called ''

Strade Bianche The Strade Bianche is a road bicycle race in Tuscany, Central Italy, starting and finishing in Siena. First held in 2007, it is raced annually on the first or second Saturday of March. The name ''Strade Bianche'' (Italian for ''White Roads'') st ...

''. It was raced on Tuesday 9 October 2007 in the

province of Siena The province of Siena ( it, provincia di Siena, link=no, ) is a province in Tuscany, Italy. Its capital is the city of Siena. Geography The province is divided into seven historical areas: * Alta Val d'Elsa * Chianti senese * The urban area o ...

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

, Italy. The race was won by Russian rider Alexandr Kolobnev, who completed a 40 km solo, narrowly staying ahead of his teammate Marcus Ljungqvist at the finish. It held a 1.1 UCI rating on the 2007 continental calendar. The professional race was spun off the granfondo

L'Eroica L'Eroica is an annual non-competitive cycling event which has taken place since 1997 in the province of Siena, Italy. The theme of the event is vintage cycling, with participants using vintage bikes (up to and including 1987), accessories and clot ...

, a recreational bike race for vintage bikes, on the white gravel roads around

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centur ...

, an event that continues to this day. The inaugural edition was the only time the race was held mid-week and in autumn; before moving to early March in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

. Monte dei Paschi, the world's oldest still existing bank and headquartered in Siena, served as the race's title sponsor. As a newly created race, organizer RCS -

Gazzetta dello Sport ''La Gazzetta dello Sport'' (; "The Sports Gazette") is an Italian daily newspaper dedicated to coverage of various sports. Founded in 1896, it is the most widely read daily newspaper of any kind in Italy (in 2018). History and profile ''La ...

asked local Tuscan cycling icons

Fiorenzo Magni Fiorenzo Magni (; 7 December 1920 – 19 October 2012) was an Italian professional road racing cyclist. Biography Magni was born to Giuseppe Magni and Giulia Caciolli, and had an elder sister Fiorenza. Bulbarelli, pp. 14–15 He started c ...

and

Paolo Bettini Paolo Bettini (born 1 April 1974 in Cecina, Livorno, Tuscany) is an Italian former champion road racing cyclist, and the former coach of the Italian national cycling team. Considered the best classics specialist of his generation, and probably ...

to promote the event.

Route

The race started in

Gaiole in Chianti Gaiole in Chianti is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Siena in the Italian region Tuscany, located about southeast of Florence and about northeast of Siena. ''Forbes'' named it number one in its list of "Europe's Most Idyllic Pla ...

and ended in

, and was run entirely within the boundaries of the

, in southern

. The course ran over the undulating hills of the

Chianti A Chianti wine (, also , ) is any wine produced in the Chianti region of central Tuscany. It was historically associated with a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket, called a ''fiasco'' ("flask"; ''pl. fiaschi''). However, the ''fiasco'' is ...

region and included seven sectors of gravel roads (''strade bianche'' or ''sterrati''), totaling 60 kilometres of dirt roads on a 181 km distance. The race finished on

's illustrious Piazza del Campo; the finish came after a particularly steep and narrow ascent over a roughly-paved road into the heart of the medieval city.

Report

Eight riders forced the decisive break on the ''sterrato'' climb to

Montalcino Montalcino is a hill town and ''comune'' in the province of Siena, Tuscany, central Italy. The town is located to the west of Pienza, close to the Crete Senesi in Val d'Orcia. It is from Siena, from Florence and from Pisa. Monte Amiata is ...

at 107 km from the finish, facing the remaining four sectors of dirt road. Alexandr Kolobnev and Marcus Ljungqvist (Team CSC),

Eros Capecchi Eros Capecchi (born 13 June 1986) is an Italian former professional road bicycle racer, who last rode for UCI WorldTeam . He took four professional wins during his career, including a stage of the 2011 Giro d'Italia. Career Born in Castiglione ...

(Liquigas), José Alberto Benítez and Manuele Mori (Saunier Duval-Prodir), José Enrique Gutierrez (Team LPR), Jure Golčer (Tenax-Salmilano) and Ricardo Serrano (Tinkoff Credit Systems) were the men to fight out the race as it wound its way back north to Siena. Kolobnev used his Worlds' form to attack and drop his companions on the penultimate sector. The Russian kept his bike upright on the technical gravel descents that comprised the final ''strada bianca''. After the final sector, 11 km from Siena, he held a 40-second advantage over the chase. Saunier put the most into the chase with two men but were discouraged by Ljungqvist sitting on. The Swede used his stored strength on the final stretches into Siena to attack and take second place behind his teammate Kolobnev.

Results

References

External links

* {{Strade Bianche 2007 in road cycling

Strade Bianche