There are easier ways to spend a Friday in Italy than riding 244 kilometres across the Apennines in weather that looks increasingly hostile with every passing hour. But nobody came here for easy.
Stage 7 of this year’s Giro d’Italia was always going to be one of those days people remember long after the race is over. Formia to Blockhaus. The longest stage of the Giro. Nearly 4,500 metres of climbing. A proper mountain finish on one of the most iconic climbs in Italian cycling.
For us, it started at 4 a.m.
Coffee. Lights. Quiet streets. That strange mix of excitement and mild dread you only get before a very big ride.
We rolled out into the darkness with a group of four riders, headlights cutting through the cold morning air along the Tyrrhenian coast. At that hour, Italy feels completely different. Empty roads through sleeping towns, shutters closed, fishing ports silent. Just the sound of freehubs and tyres on damp tarmac.
One of the beautiful things about doing the Giro this way — riding every kilometre of every stage before the race arrives — is that you stop consuming Italy like a tourist and start moving through it properly. Slowly enough to smell bakeries opening at dawn, hear church bells in villages you would otherwise never visit, and notice how dramatically the landscape changes within a single day.
This stage almost cuts Italy in half. From the Tirreno to the Adriatico in one push. Coast to mountains. Lazio into Molise, then deep into Abruzzo.
And Abruzzo is where the day really began.
I love this region. Honestly, it might be my favourite part of Italy to ride in. Not because it is polished or fashionable. The opposite. Abruzzo still feels raw and slightly wild compared to the hyper-curated cycling destinations everyone already knows. Fewer tourists. Bigger spaces. Harder roads. More authenticity. You feel closer to the real backbone of Italy here.
You also feel very small.
As we moved deeper into the mountains, the weather started turning on us exactly the way mountain weather in Abruzzo tends to do. The skies darkened. The wind picked up. Temperatures dropped. By the time we reached the lower slopes of Blockhaus, everyone knew the final climb was going to be a fight.
And Blockhaus does not negotiate.
The climb rises for 13.6 kilometres at 8.4%, with long sections above 9% and ramps touching 14%. It is one of those climbs that strips cycling down to something primitive. No rhythm for long. No hiding. No tricks. Just exposure, fatigue, gradients, and weather.
The higher we climbed, the worse it became.
Heavy wind sweeping across the exposed upper slopes. Rain hitting sideways. Cold hands. Fog drifting over the road. The kind of conditions where you stop thinking about power numbers or average speed and narrow your world down to the next corner, then the next.
And still, everyone kept going.
That is the part people outside cycling often misunderstand. These days are miserable in moments, yes. But they are also deeply rewarding because they demand something real from you. You earn every metre. Nobody gets dragged up Blockhaus by accident.
Near the top, the landscape opened into that bleak lunar terrain the climb is famous for, with the wind hammering across the mountainside. It felt less like arriving somewhere and more like surviving into another world.
Then suddenly it was done.
Wet jackets. Steam rising off riders at the finish. Big smiles despite the exhaustion. The kind of tiredness that simplifies everything.
Later that afternoon, while the pros battled for the stage win and Jonas Vingegaard attacked to victory on the same brutal slopes, we were already descending in the warm van back toward civilisation, carrying that quiet satisfaction only these kinds of days can give.
This is why guiding trips around the Giro matters to me.
Not because of VIP access or finish-line selfies. Because it gives people a chance to experience Italy physically, honestly, through effort and movement. To cross an entire country under their own power. To start in darkness on one sea and finish in a storm high above another. To discover places like Abruzzo that many visitors never really see.
Stage 7 was hard. Probably harder than expected.
Which is exactly why it will stay with us.
