I Cinque Ostacoli a N-E

Very challenging route in terms of elevation gain, terrain and travel time. There are five climbs and five descents, with widely varying difficulties and gradients.

The first climb, made essentially of dirt and beaten roads, leads to the main ridge, the Apennine watershed between Umbria and Marche and the northeastern reference of the entire tour.

The second climb is on a forest road, stony in places and also heavily hollowed out by rain in others, muddy especially high up in rainy periods; this too touches the ridge-Sentiero Italia.

Another steep ascent follows, initially on a dirt road; we pass by a nice little lake after which the route makes a few ups and downs before the start of the climb proper, which is in a beautiful, typically Apennine forest and on real off-road sometimes also very stony. A short stretch of ridge 00 leads to a long, challenging descent and the next challenging climb.

This is the "infamous" (for locals) climb of Rogni, terrain that is all in all rideable but challenging gradients even for long stretches; in five kilometers you still reach ridge 00 and begin to descend again. In the village of Vallurbana, at the beginning of the climb, there is a very useful water point.

The last climb is about nine kilometers, unpaved at the beginning, then true off-road; here again you encounter even very challenging slopes and a great variety of bottoms; I point out in the hamlet of Col del Ranco, about halfway up the climb, another useful water point. At the top we reach almost 1,000 meters, the highest elevation of the entire tour.

The descents are never extreme, but it is always worth taking care; the fourth, the one that follows the Rogni climb, is perhaps the most challenging, rather long and in some places fast or strewn with large stones and dug up by rain and passing motor vehicles.