The white gravel roads of the Strade Bianche await men’s and women’s pelotons

For the first time in its nine-year history, the Strade Bianche will hold a women’s race, with the gun firing 90-minutes before the men’s contest on Saturday. The spring race in Tuscany has quickly become a popular one for both fans and riders, and both of Saturday’s courses will be demanding ones for the respective pelotons.

The women will assail the 103-km parcours containing 17-km of white gravel roads or sterrati between San Gimignano and Siena. Being Tuscany, there is hardly any flat sections–the profile resembles a piranha’s jawbone. The toughest section of sterrati is harder than any in the men’s race due to its 9.5-km length and steep pitches. The downhill section of gravel out of Taverne D’Arbia, at 11%, will be dicey.

The Strade Bianche was supposed to be Marianne Vos’s season opener, but the Dutch rider still hasn’t recovered from an injury suffered in the cyclocross season. Vos’s Rabobank-Liv teammate and compatriot Anna van der Breggen is on a roll, having won the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and come runner-up in Wednesday’s Le Samyn des Dames. Lizzie Armitstead (Great Britain/Boels-Dolmans) hopes to keep on the form that saw her win the Ladies Tour of Qatar. Wiggle-Honda’s Italians Giorgia Bronzini and Elisa Longo Borghini should be in the hunt as well. Joëlle Numainville (Bigla), 13th in Le Samyn, is Canada’s sole representative.

The men’s course is 200-km long with 45-km of sterrati, including sections of 9.2-km and 11.5-km. The last, short section comes 12-km from the finish line in Siena. Again, the corsa is a relentlessly jagged one.

Last year, Michal Kwiatkowski (Poland/Etixx-QuickStep) stole away from Peter Sagan on the final steep climb into Siena, but Sagan (Slovakia/Tinkoff-Saxo), twice runner-up, won’t have the world champion as competition on Saturday. However, former winners Moreno Moser (Italy/Cannondale-Garmin) and Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland/Trek) are hungry for early season wins. All riders should take warning from Brit Ian Stannard’s muscular and canny win at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

Canadian Svein Tuft (Orica-GreenEdge) will be in Tuscany for his first race since the Tour of Qatar, while Moser’s teammate Ryder Hesjedal is in action after six weeks out of competition. This will be Hesjedal’s fifth participation in the race. His best result was 5th in 2010 and he’s never finished below 35th.