The Great Climbs of Europe

Important addendum: after writing this a reader pointed out that there are misspellings in the poster. I've now heard from ELCYCLISTA who said, "I am Conor from the Elcyclista blog. We have been following you for a long time and regularly check the blog. Just a quick note on the poster. The shots up there were from a printers proof that did indeed include some typo's. These have been corrected before the finals went to print. We were a little too eager to get the posters up on the site. We would appreciate if you could add a note explaining this." 
 

From ELCYCLISTA EDITIONS:

"A while back I started thinking about doing a number of limited edition projects in a series of different formats. Short runs, that would allow me to work a little quicker and play around with the formats I love. I just got back the proof of the first of these projects, a poster titled THE GREAT CLIMBS OF EUROPE helping kick-off ELCYCLISTA EDITIONS. Since I was a kid I have loved maps, and could easily spend hours with my head stuck in an atlas taking imaginary trips along roads and up mountains all over the world. This progressed later in life to crossing off the climbs I traveled to around Europe, and highlighting the ones I still hoped to do next. All of this inspired the Climbs poster (click on the images for a larger detail view).

Interestingly, without ever tracing the boundary of a country, the climbs we all love still define the shape of the regions we gravitate to each year to challenge ourselves. I started out with the monuments, those climbs passed into cycling folklore through races and riders that have given them great stories. Then there are those mentioned in conversations with local riders, people we have met on the road, picked up in articles, or discovered through studying race routes. Key cities were added next, the places we travel in and out of, and the ranges and areas where all of these exist. Together these created a footprint that document the climbers playgrounds of Europe, and hopefully giving you some inspiration as to where your next ride might take you. The prints are available for order at our shop here.

The Posters are printed by SUPREME here in Brooklyn and are of exceptional exhibition quality. They are created using the Giclée inkjet printing process using archival inks to create fade-resistant prints, typically used for gallery printing. They are printed onto an enhanced 260gsm Matte paper. We are offering the prints in two standard sizes (unframed), printed to order with a 5 day turnaround:
SIZE 1: 18″ X 24″ print at $80
SIZE 2: 24″ X 36″ print at $140
The total first edition of all sizes will be 124 prints, all hand numbered. Why 124? Well Sean Kelly our fellow country man and all round great rider was know for his exceptional descending skills (check out this video at about 4mins of him coming down the Poggio in pursuit of Argentin). His fastest clocked decent was on the Joux Plane into Morzine at 124 KM/H. So 124 prints in honor of what goes up must go down.
The prints are available for order at our shop here."

Follow on Twitter: ITALIANCYCJOURN or receive an email when new content is added using the "Follow by Email" button on the right side column. 

Stories for the Italian Cycling Journal about rides, granfondos, touring, having a good time cycling in Italy, Italian cycling history, racing, etc. are always welcome. Contact me at veronaman@gmail.com.  There are now more than 2,700 stories in this blog. The search feature to the right works best for finding subjects in the blog. There is also a translate button at the bottom so you can translate each page.