New: Gran Fondo Mario Cipollini

The first details of the Gran Fondo Mario Cipollini have been announced. The event will be held in conjunction with a 3-day "LUCCA BIKE" bike fair weekend from April 15 to April 17, 2011, in Lucca.

The Lucca Fiere e Congressi (Fairs and Conferences) organization, in conjunction with the city of Lucca and Mario Cipollini, joined forces to create a 3-day Spring event dedicated to the world of two wheels. The aim of the partnership is to create an event of international importance in Lucca.

The routes of the gran fondo will take riders throughout the province of Lucca and were conceived and designed with rider safety as the primary consideration. The characteristics of the routes offer everything a cyclist would experience in a competition. "I personally designed the courses,", said Cipollini. "I chose my favorite roads throughout the territory of Lucca."

Three route choices, differing in characteristics and difficulty, will be available: Corto Fondo (53 kilometers), Medio Fondo (115 km) and Gran Fondo (152 kilometers). The final part of each route will wind along the beautiful wooded path that is atop the walls that surround Lucca, the same paths that were used in past editions of the Giro d'Italia time trials in which Bernard Hinault and Francesco Moser competed in.

It should also be said that Lucca has about 44 km of cycle paths and a network of hundreds of kilometers of dirt roads leading to the hills surrounding the city.

"That will be an important event in Lucca," - said Mayor Mauro Favilla. "The event will be hosted in the Exhibition Centre of Lucca, a new structure located in a strategic position of the city. I thank our champion, Mario Cipollini, because together we believed in the realization of this initiative. I am convinced that art cities such as ours we have everything to gain through the widespread use of bicycles."

More details to come in the future.

The event website (currently in Italian) is http://www.granfondomariocipollini.it/

Photos: Cipollini at the presentation for the Gran Fondo Mario Cipollini, Lucca

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