Tortona→Tortona

Description of the route

The Tortona ring is the longest of the three Strade di Coppi: 80.6 kilometres, 1,124 meters of climb and around six and a quarter hours of movement make for a complete cycling day in the Tortona hills. The departure from the city immediately introduces the theme of the journey, that of the roads on which Fausto Coppi built his relationship with the bicycle. The length and the difference in altitude invite you to start at a regular pace, because the most significant part of the route develops far from the valley floor and requires continuity until the return.

From Tortona the track climbs towards Castellania Coppi, birthplace of Fausto and Serse and symbolic center of the entire itinerary. The road continues through Sant'Agata Fossili and Cassano Spinola, connecting the undulating hills to the Val Borbera route. It is a succession of agricultural landscapes, small nuclei and panoramic openings that allow you to read the territory with the same long and variable rhythm that characterized the Campionissimo's training sessions.

After Cassano Spinola the ring reaches Garbagna and faces the sector that passes through Avolasca and Sarezzano before returning towards Tortona. The changes in altitude are distributed throughout the day: there is not a single obstacle that exhausts the difficulty, but a series of climbs and descents to be managed without forcing. The official route and the map must be consulted especially at the crossroads between the towns, while water, power supply and mechanical autonomy must be organized for an excursion of over eighty kilometres.

The return to Tortona closes a circuit that combines sporting memory and real geography, without transforming Castellania into a simple isolated destination. The value of the route lies precisely in the continuity between the city, the hill towns and the valleys crossed: each stretch helps to tell the story of the territory in which Coppi lived and trained. Departure and arrival coincide, so the logistical organization is simpler than a linear stage; it is useful to identify in advance parking or access to the exact point indicated by the GPX and check the weather and conditions of the road network.