Damn the Maiella!
The start of the Blockhaus climb, Abruzzo
‘Mennaggia nella Majella’
(Damn the Maiella)
Half way down the Italian peninsula, in the mountainous region of Abruzzo, lies a massif which touches the sky. The Maiella, or the Mother Mountain as the local refer to it, is remote, capricious and beguiling, a home to bears and wolves as well as a lure for cyclists seeking adventure away from the populous slopes of the more famous Northern Alps. Occasionally the climb appears in the parcours of the Giro d’Italia, most recently in 2022.
Wednesday 31 May 2022
‘Mennaggia nella Majella’ is painted in huge white letters across the new black tarmac on the road to the Blockhaus - ‘Damn the Maiella’! The words appear just where the road begins to hike up to 16% after a long section of 10% and more. The sun is beating down. The bike computer reports that it is 34.9 degrees. The radio masts which mark the top of the climb seem as far away as the moon. There is no shade. And this is not even halfway.
The Maiella from the Blockhaus climb
Although the official start to the Blockhaus climb is in the small village of Roccamorice at the foot of the steepest slopes, the climbing really begins way down on the valley floor, a mere 34km from the top. The first 14km are relatively easy on smooth, consistent 6% gradient roads through olive groves and fields of wheat. Then just before the ‘official’ start to the climb, there is a quick plunge into a deep and cool gorge. Rock walls, shade, broken road surfaces, a couple of corners, followed by a short rise to the village Roccamorice.
The village is built of white stone quarried from the mountain, its streets oak and lime tree-lined. I pass through the village square with cafes and a restaurant and hear the laughter and gossip echoing off the walls. Eyes follow me as I cross the square. On the edge of the village there’s a stone sculpture honouring Eddy Merckx, who aged 21, announced to the world on this very road 55 years ago today, that he was going to be the best cyclist the world had ever seen.
Eddy Merckx on the Blockhaus climb
The climbing is inexorable and unrelenting. 14% is standard, 16% common. The road surface is rough and narrow and there are cracks and holes and loose stones. There are no trees to seek shade from the summer sun, and corners are rare. I look up occasionally from watching my front wheel slowly revolving, and there is only the long straight road climbing inexorably upwards to the distant grey domes of the high peaks.
I pass the spot where in 2017 edition of the Giro, Geraint Thomas, the most fancied rider of the peloton for the overall, crashed into Mikel Landa and dislocated his shoulder, which forced him to withdraw from the race. Further down the hill, Adam Yates crashed and this year, it was the turn of his twin brother, who cracked with 10km to go, and arrived eleven minutes after Jai Hindley, the winner of the stage.
Mathieu van Der Poel racing up the Blockhaus, Giro d'Italia 2022
I am not racing. It beggars belief how anyone could turn the pedals at the speed the professionals do. I have the time to admire the grandeur of this place. I crawl past the great piles of stones in corners of abandoned fields a century ago, each one tossed there by the famers trying to make the thin soil yield to their ploughs. I see the dry stone walls quadrating the slopes, and I smell the deep and sweet fragrance of the genesta plant, whose yellow flowers blanket the lower flanks of the mountain.
Tiring and wilting in the heat, I have to pause in the shade of a solitary beech tree. The computer on my handlebars has never once gone below 10% gradient. With the heartbeat a little less frantic, I plod on towards the upper slopes where there are remnants of the great Apennine beech forests. It was here a couple of weeks ago after nearly 5,000 kilometres of climbing behind them, Richard Carapaz launched his attack. The gradient is 17% as the road curves around a rare corner. I laugh - more a dead man croak than a gutsy humorous laugh, but still it was a laugh - at the improbability of it all.
The Blockhaus climb
Until the Giro’s arrival the true name of this climb was ‘La Maielletta’. The fort, or Blockhaus, is a further kilometre beyond the race’s finish line. It was built in 1863 by the Piedmontese to quell the locals who rose up against the ‘unification’ or ‘conquest’ - depending on your point of view - of Italy. It was governed by a soldier of Austro-Hungarian descent, who it is said gave the fort its brooding name. In planning the 1967 Giro route, the race’s director, the legendary Vincenzo Torriani, decided to rename the climb in order to give it a brutal and fearsome edge. Since many of the greats of cycling have glided up these slopes - Merckx of course and Anquetil, Gimondi, Moser, Armstrong, Nibali. Lesser men who sought to join them in the golden pantheon and ‘won the stage’ by using illegal means, have been cast aside in ignominy; Franco Bodrero (1968), Franco Pelizotti (2006), Danilo di Luca (2007), and Ivan Basso (2009), their triumphs annulled. The Blockhaus is that sort of a mountain.
Briefly after skirting the beech woods and avoiding the shade, the gradient relents and eases onto a ‘flat’ 5%. For a kilometre or so we have a rock wall on one side of the road and an airy drop into a gorge whose floor is so deep that its bottom cannot be seen. I’ve seen no one since the village square in Roccamorice. No car has passed me, no cyclist has sped down on the other side of the road. It’s been a solitary climb.
A brief respite from the sun on the climb up the Blockhaus
As I approach the shoulder of the mountain, pylons for ski lifts line up the hill. Sheep graze the grass. From behind the two wooden chalets smoke from the arrosticini - grilled mutton on skewers - wafts in the breeze. Music from the bar beats against the peace. Cars are parked on the verges. People mill and chat, eat and drink.
For the amateur cyclists who grind their way up the road, the modern finish line, is not their end. They have, as did Merckx before them, another six kilometres of unrelenting 9% slopes before they cross the white line at the end of the stone strewn road.
But the modern line will have to do for me today. The upper slopes of mountain are still blocked with snow, although we are just a day away from June. Even so the views are stupendous - the glistening blue sea just 45km away as the chough flies, and on the other side, wave after purple wave of mountains all the way to Rome.
The road to the Blockhaus is blocked by snow
The bike computer says its only 9 degrees and the wind is chilling me. I am tired but also quietly irritated that I am going to return and complete the climb in order to reach the real finish at the top later in the year.
‘Mennaggia nella Majella!’
To read the details of the full Blockhaus climb to the top, and see the photos from the top, click here