White gravel roads through the Tuscan hills
Strade Bianche sends riders over kilometers of white gravel roads in the Tuscan hills, where dust, positioning, and timing matter as much as power.
Strade Bianche is a men's one-day WorldTour bike race held each March in Tuscany, Italy. The route winds through the Crete Senesi region south of Siena, incorporating stretches of unpaved white gravel roads known as strade bianche, before finishing in Siena's Piazza del Campo.
Strade Bianche is the one-day race on the white gravel roads of the Crete Senesi, the hills south of Siena, and it finishes on the city’s Piazza del Campo. It was first held in 2007, far later than the classics it is now ranked with. Tadej Pogačar has won it a record four times.
The race was created in 2007 as the Monte Paschi Eroica and brought professional riders onto the gravel. L’Eroica is the ride for vintage bikes that Giancarlo Brocci started at Gaiole in Chianti in 1997. “I wanted to save the historic Strade Bianche from being paved,” Brocci said of the white roads.
The first professional edition was held in October, a few days after the world championships in Stuttgart, with 14 teams and 60 kilometers of gravel in a race of 180. Alexander Kolobnev, the silver medalist in Stuttgart, was in the early break, which gained six minutes. He left it on the penultimate gravel road with 20 kilometers to go and rode alone to the Piazza del Campo. Afterward he called the area “really beautiful, with a lot of olive groves around it” and added that the dust had kept him from seeing more than 30 meters ahead. The race joined the WorldTour in 2017.
Monte Sante Marie is the hardest sector: 11.5 kilometers of gravel, 4.5 of them uphill, with slopes of up to 18 percent. Colle Pinzuto climbs for 2.4 kilometers at up to 15 percent, and Le Tolfe is 1.1 kilometers long with a 500-meter ramp at 18 percent. The last kilometer includes Via Santa Caterina, 500 cobbled meters at an average of more than 13 percent, before a sharp right turn and the drop into the Piazza del Campo.
In 2023 the race was 184 kilometers long with 11 sectors, and Monte Sante Marie came 54 kilometers from the finish. In 2024 it grew to 215 kilometers and 15 sectors, with a closing loop that sends the riders over Colle Pinzuto and Le Tolfe twice and leaves Monte Sante Marie 72.5 kilometers out. The 2026 route kept that finale but dropped the La Piana and Serravalle sectors, for 66 kilometers of gravel in 14 sectors.
Until 2011 the race was often decided on Via Santa Caterina. Fabian Cancellara, who had first won in 2008, changed that in 2012 when he rode away on Le Tolfe and finished 42 seconds ahead of Maxim Iglinskiy. Moreno Moser won in 2013 and is still the only Italian winner of the men’s race.
In 2016 Cancellara won for the third time, from a group of four. Peter Sagan attacked on the penultimate sector with just under 20 kilometers to go and caught the lone leader, Gianluca Brambilla, and Brambilla’s teammate Zdeněk Štybar and Cancellara joined them. Brambilla led alone from 5 kilometers out until the last 500 meters. Cancellara set the pace up Via Santa Caterina, led through the right-hand bend 100 meters from the line and beat Štybar. A rider who wins three times gets a stone marker and his name on a sector, and Cancellara’s is Monte Sante Marie.
The white roads were mud in 2018. Romain Bardet attacked on Monte Sante Marie, and Wout van Aert, then a 23-year-old cyclocross world champion, went with him. The two led for most of the last 50 kilometers. Tiesj Benoot came across from the chasing group, dropped both on the final sector and took the first win of his professional career.
Van Aert finished third that day and third again in 2019. In 2020 the pandemic moved the race to August, and the temperature at the start was 36 degrees Celsius. He attacked from a small group with 13 kilometers to go and won alone on an almost silent Piazza del Campo.
The 2021 race split on Monte Sante Marie with 50 kilometers to go, when Julian Alaphilippe accelerated. The group that formed included Mathieu van der Poel, Van Aert, Egan Bernal, Pogačar and Tom Pidcock. Van der Poel attacked on Le Tolfe, and only Alaphilippe and Bernal could go with him. He led the three onto Via Santa Caterina, raised the pace, attacked again and reached the square five seconds clear. Alaphilippe was second and Bernal third.
Pogačar finished seventh in that 2021 race. A year later he rode away on Monte Sante Marie with just over 50 kilometers left and stayed clear to Siena, where Alejandro Valverde finished second. Pidcock won the 2023 edition with an attack 52 kilometers from the finish.
On the longer route of 2024 Pogačar went on Monte Sante Marie again and rode 81 kilometers alone. In 2025 Pidcock followed him there. Pogačar crashed at the exit of the Monteaperti sector, got back to Pidcock, dropped him on the rise to Colle Pinzuto and won by 1 minute 24 seconds. The third win earned him his own marker, on Colle Pinzuto.
In 2026 he went clear on Monte Sante Marie once more, about 80 kilometers from Siena. Paul Seixas tried to follow, and “it wasn’t easy to drop him,” Pogačar said. Seixas, 19, finished second, a minute down, and became the youngest rider to reach the podium, with Isaac del Toro third. Pogačar’s four wins are one more than Cancellara managed.
Also known as: Monte Paschi Eroica · Montepaschi Strade Bianche · Montepaschi Strade Bianche - Eroica Toscana
First held in 2007, the race was designed to showcase the white gravel roads that give the Crete Senesi its distinctive look and have become central to its identity.
This is the rare modern one-day race built around a surface rather than a summit. The gravel sectors are not long enough to become pure attrition tests, but they arrive frequently enough to reward positioning, bike handling, and the ability to respond when others hesitate. The finish in the Piazza del Campo, climbing into the medieval square, gives the race a sense of occasion that matches the terrain. It sits early in the spring calendar, often catching riders between winter form and April sharpness, which makes it unpredictable in the best sense.
2027 edition
Mar 6, 2027. Strade Bianche 2027 is on Saturday, March 6, on the gravel roads around Siena, Italy. Tadej Pogačar won the 2026 race for a record fourth time, alone from Monte Sante Marie with 78.5 kilometers to go, and 19-year-old Paul Seixas was second on his debut.
| Year | Winner |
|---|---|
| 2026 | 🇸🇮Tadej Pogačar |
| 2025 | 🇸🇮Tadej Pogačar |
| 2024 | 🇸🇮Tadej Pogačar |
| 2023 | 🇬🇧Tom Pidcock |
| 2022 | 🇸🇮Tadej Pogačar |
| 2021 | 🇳🇱Mathieu van der Poel |
| 2020 | 🇧🇪Wout van Aert |
| 2019 | 🇫🇷Julian Alaphilippe |
| 2018 | 🇧🇪Tiesj Benoot |
| 2017 | 🇵🇱Michał Kwiatkowski |
Tadej Pogačar started a run of three consecutive victories with an 81-kilometer solo attack from the Monte Sante Marie sector, in the first edition on the longer 215-kilometer route.
Mathieu van der Poel attacked on Le Tolfe and again on the final ramp of Via Santa Caterina, reaching Piazza del Campo five seconds ahead of Julian Alaphilippe, with Egan Bernal third.
Fabian Cancellara won his third and final Strade Bianche (after 2008 and 2012) in his last season as a professional, edging out Zdeněk Štybar on the climb into Siena after a four-rider group formed on the penultimate gravel sector.
Alexander Kolobnev won the first Strade Bianche, then a smaller race born from the L'Eroica vintage ride. The ingredients were already there: gravel, Siena, and chaos.
The white gravel roads of Tuscany are the race's signature. Roughly 60 to 80 kilometers of unpaved sectors, depending on the edition, test bike handling, power, and nerve across rolling terrain.
The race finishes in Piazza del Campo, in Siena's historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1995. The final ramp, Via Santa Caterina, is 500 cobbled meters at an average of more than 13%, and the last few hundred meters run through narrow streets and down into the square.
The route through the Crete Senesi is constantly undulating. No single climb is long, but the accumulation of short, steep rises on gravel wears down the field.
First held in 2007, Strade Bianche has become one of the most prestigious one-day races in cycling despite its youth. The terrain and the finish are unique in professional racing.
The route covers around 200 kilometers, with 14 gravel sectors in 2026 spread across the whole day. The sectors range from about a kilometer to the 11.5 kilometers of Monte Sante Marie, and many include gradients steep enough to split the group. The final sector usually comes with 12 to 15 kilometers remaining, close enough to the finish that attacks stick but far enough out that positioning into it becomes a race within the race. After the last gravel, the route descends into Siena before climbing the Via Santa Caterina into the Piazza del Campo, a narrow ramp steep enough that a small gap becomes decisive. Riders who can stay near the front through the gravel, respond to accelerations without burning out, and handle technical descents on dust or mud tend to arrive in Siena with options. Pure climbers sometimes struggle with the positioning battles, and pure classics riders can find the final climb too steep if they have already spent too much energy.
Siena's shell-shaped main square, in a historic center that has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1995. The steep final ramp before the square, Via Santa Caterina, averages more than 13% over 500 meters and makes for one of the most dramatic finishes in cycling.
An 11.5 km sector of steep up-and-down gravel and the usual launch pad for the winning move. Since the 2024 route change it has ended just over 70 kilometers from the finish. Where the race begins to break apart in earnest.
A later gravel sector on steep, exposed terrain. Positioning here often determines who arrives at the foot of the Siena ramp with the legs to contest the finish.
The eroded clay hills south of Siena that give the race its visual character. The rolling terrain through the Crete is relentlessly demanding even between the gravel sectors.
Four victories (2022, 2024, 2025, 2026) are the race record. Three of them came from solo attacks on Monte Sante Marie, between 50 and 81 kilometers from the finish.
Three wins (2008, 2012, 2016) helped establish Strade Bianche as a major race. Cancellara treated the gravel like his personal time trial course.
The 2020 winner brought cyclocross handling skills to the sterrato. His victory in the August heat proved that bike handling matters as much as power on these roads.
Won in 2019 and finished second in 2021. Alaphilippe embodied the punchy, aggressive rider profile that Strade Bianche rewards.
