An Italian sportive is a mass start - and they don't get much more massy than the Nove Colli - 12,000 at 6am on a Sunday morning. To add to complications the start grid is in and around a big road junction and bridge (closed for the occasion), alongside a canal and actually bisected by a railway line; couldn't get much more complicated!
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| Brief interruption to start procedure |
For the Nove Colli the start is actually a series of separate mass starts with may be 2,000 going off at a time. These masses are groups down the sliproads, carparks and town streets of Cesenatico and then set off at intervals. When you enter you get a number and that indicates which start group to join - but even so get there early if you want to be at the front.
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| One of two slip road groups |
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The groups are held back by a gate - here's one of the last
groups getting the start |
