Tuscany

The Settore Fabian Cancellara, named after his third Strade Bianche win, and the race's critical divide. Eleven and a half kilometres of white gravel roll between Asciano and the hamlet of Monte Sante Marie, pitching to fifteen percent both up and down, and the decisive move has come here more often than anywhere else on the course. Tadej Pogacar has launched his record four wins from these ramps. The climb proper is short and vicious, under two kilometres at close to eight percent with a wall near seventeen, dust in dry years and grey paste in wet ones. This is the road that made a modern classic.

The most famous 500 metres in gravel racing, and there is not a stone of gravel on it. Every Strade Bianche ends here, the men since 2007 and the women since 2015, on a flagstone ramp through Siena's Fontebranda quarter that averages nearly fourteen percent and hits sixteen with half the wall still to climb. The road bends right at the top and spills into the Piazza del Campo, where the winner rolls to a stop beneath the tower. Five hundred metres, sixty vertical, a whole season's ambition. Ride it slowly and it is still the best finish line in the sport.

Pogacar's signature launch pad, doubled on the course since 2024 so the race hits it at 47 kilometres to go and again at 17. The sector opens with 400 metres of fifteen percent gravel wall, the kind of pitch where wheelspin decides as much as watts, and the climb holds close to ten percent before rolling on toward Le Tolfe. He has attacked here so often the Italian press took to calling him Mr. Colle Pinzuto. It is short, white and brutal, and with the finish just over the hills it is exactly long enough to end everyone else's afternoon.

The last word. Le Tolfe is the final sector of the Strade Bianche, about twelve kilometres from the Campo, and since 2024 the race crosses it twice. It arrives at the bottom of a fast gravel descent and kicks straight back up, 900 metres at over seven percent with a pitch the organisers call eighteen percent, on loose white stone with the day's whole selection at stake. Most editions are decided here or already have been. Then the survivors drop toward Siena and the flagstones of Santa Caterina, and whatever Le Tolfe left in their legs is what they finish with.

The most recognisable skyline in Tuscany, fourteen medieval towers on a hilltop that earned the town its Manhattan of the Middle Ages nickname, and a proper little climb to reach it. The road rises just over three kilometres at close to six percent from the valley floor to the walls, steepening as the towers grow. Strade Bianche started here in 2014 and 2015 before the race settled in Siena, and the climbing databases count four separate sides to the gates, proof that riders have always found reasons to arrive the hard way. Climb up before the buses and take your coffee in the Piazza della Cisterna as the light comes over the towers.