Gran Fondo Internazionale FELICE GIMONDI Bianchi
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Sunday 15th May 2016

Paul Townsley took on a mega challenge with this Italian event.

 There were three distances to choose from and Paul chose the big one.
​- ​  162.1 km   –   Overall altitude difference 3,050 m   -  48,8 km uphill   (that's a serious amount of uphill)

The certificate above shows just how well he did. A time of 7:09:59 gave him a ranking of 709.

Quotes from Paul:

• If you'd asked me straight after the event "Would I do it again?" then the response would have been a resounding "No".
  But now it's definitely becoming a "Maybe".
  
  
• The ambience for the whole thing was awesome with police outriders and huge crowds and local helpers with flags (red for safe and yellow for take care).
  
  
• If there was a scale of 1-10 the London Ride 100 would score a 4. This would score a 9.
  
  
• Leith Hill is like a pimple compared to what we rode up.
  
  
• It's superb to ride on what has been a stage of the Giro D'Italia

Details of the event.

​To encourage participation at different levels, Felice Gimondi has always proposed 3 different routes, better known as the Short route (89.4 km), Medium route (128.8 km) and Long route (162.10 km). According to their training and state of mind on that day, each athlete can choose the most suitable distance for his/her level of preparation: ”Am I going to take part or not? Why not, if it comes to the worst, I’ll do the Short route”.

Photographs from the day.