Saturday, September 26th, 6:30 a.m. Florence hasn’t yet decided to wake up. A heavy silence hangs over the Lungarno, and Ponte Vecchio seems to hold its breath: no tourists, no scooters, just the river and about forty cyclists with their lights on. Then comes the start, the gate of the Società Canottieri opens, and the city closes behind us. Ahead lie 383 kilometres of Tuscany.
On paper, the briefing was clear: 196.9 km on Saturday to PuntAla, 186.2 on Sunday to ride back, roughly 2,600 and 2,750 metres of climbing, 17 GPM climbs. A demanding loop, but reality exceeded the numbers. Several riders’ Garmins showed around 3,000 metres on the way out and 3,500 on the way back: the course proved tougher than expected, and it was hard on us organisers too. The Colline Metallifere presented the bill, with the second-category climb between km 115 and 123, followed by 65 kilometres without a single café before Follonica. The ford at km 60, the portage through the woods at km 241, the 14% wall before Pievescola that had to be walked, the 30 km without services from Tatti to Palazzetto up to the Cima Coppi, 580 metres above Tatti. Every “delicate point” in the briefing stopped being a line on a page that weekend.
The weather did its part: a perfect weekend, crystal-clear light and no excuses. And the route, for all its severity, won everyone over: Signa and Montelupo, the hills of Montespertoli, Gambassi Terme, the ridges above Montecatini Val di Cecina, Follonica and the sea at PuntAla. Then the return through Giuncarico, Ribolla and Montemassi, San Galgano with its sword in the stone, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Impruneta and the last descent toward the Arno. Beautiful places, one after another, that repaid every ounce of effort.
The effort, however, showed in the numbers. Out of about forty entrants, 22 scanned their QR code at PuntAla and 13 completed the loop in Florence: the high number of withdrawals says how severe this edition was. Let’s remember it once more: Fiorino Mud is not a race, and the ranking exists only as a statistical curiosity. But curiosities deserve to be told. The lowest overall time belongs to Francesco Bacci, 22:49:52, followed by Leonardo Lo Bue, 23:29:12, and Martino Poccianti, 23:36:44. Right behind them Andrea Berretti, Stefano Borsi, Riccardo Coluccini and Giovanni Fortunati, with the top six of the second stage packed into little more than two minutes. Then Tommaso Mattei, Serge Bozzolan, Thomas Andrew Daddi, round out the Top 10. Our applause goes to all thirteen of them, and to those who stopped along the way too: having taken the start on a course like this is already an answer.
A heartfelt thank you to our sponsors and supporters: PuntAla Camp & Resort, Cicli Tommasini, Proraso, ZoWorking, Udog, Silverskin, as well as our media partner Event Bike. A special mention goes to Proraso, for the incredibly high-quality products in the race pack, and to ZoWorking, for the start-line logistics.
Thanks also to TrailCore Radar, the tracking app: closely followed, both by the organisation and by those watching from home. Above all, support like we have never seen: the developers answered our organisers’ requests almost in real time. Well done!
The PuntAla Camp & Resort deserves a chapter of its own. Arriving at the end of the first stage, legs empty and head full, and finding logistics planned down to the last detail is rare. You can feel the commitment and passion for the athletes, welcomed warmly, almost like family. The super lunchbox with a first and second course and everything needed to recover, the stations to wash the mud off the bikes, the charging points for devices ahead of the next day’s stage. Nothing was left to chance, and after a day like that, it makes all the difference.
And then Florence, where everything begins and everything ends. A special thank you to the Società Canottieri Firenze for their hospitality and for the honour of opening their doors to us as the start and finish location: an incredible venue. On the way out, the silence wrapped around the view of Ponte Vecchio, almost a rite of passage. On the way back, the exact opposite: the city lit up, alive, full of tourists and Florentines, an embrace of lights and voices for those returning after so many kilometres of gravel. Two opposite images, the same emotion. Speechless.
See you at the next Fiorino Mud.
Fiorino Mud 400
Podio · Classifica Generale
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Francesco Bacci
M2 DA 35 A 39 22:49:52 -
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Leonardo Lo Bue
M2 DA 35 A 39 23:29:12 -
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Martino Poccianti
M2 DA 35 A 39 23:36:44
