Profiles & Route Il Lombardia 2024

On the 12th of October the cycling peloton tackles the final monument of the season: Il Lombardia. The queen of the Italian autumn classics is the monument for the climbers and every years features an exciting route packed with iconic climbs. We take a look at it's profile.

The route is extremely long, the traditional, and it packs in a lot of mountains in the region of northern Italy right at the base of the Alps. 252 kilometers on the menu with both long and short climbs spread all throughout, with a total of 4800 meters of climbing. A proper climber's race, the monument best suited to them. The race does have a flat start but it doesn't take long until that changes.

Four climbs marks the first half of the race. We have got the Forcellino di Bianzano (6.3Km at 5.1%) and quickly after the Passo di Ganda where often the race is decided when it finishes in Bergamo. It will be, as usual, 9.4 kilometers at 7% and ends with 202 kilometers to the finish. Afterwards comes the Colle di Berbenno which is 4.5 kilometers at 6.2% and finally the Valpiana ascent which is over 10 kilometers long at 6%.

However this phase of the race won't see serious attacks, but instead only be used to create fatigue; perhaps some contenders will have their teams force the pace to make it hard from early on. A long flat section will follow before reaching the famous Madonna del Ghisallo, but it will be tackled through it's easiest side.

It consists of two small climbs with a short descent in the middle. The first of which is 5 kilometers long at 5.6% and the second is 8.1 kilometers long at 3.7%. In these gradients it's very hard to make a difference, however the descent will be very technical and provides an opportunity to explode the race before it's main climb.

Sormano is a very well known in cycling, but the riders will be thankful that they won't tackle the famous 'muro'. Instead, the riders will ascend through the main road. It is a climb that is nevertheless very difficult, featuring almost 13 kilometers at 6.4%. The climb is rather constant with high gradients and is the hardest of the day, where the winning attack may come. It ends with 42 kilometers to go though, still a long way to the finish.

From there on there is a long descent, a small rolling section and then another descent into Como where the riders will ride through in order to reach the final ascent. This one will be to San Fermo della Battaglia: 2.8 kilometers at 6.7%. It's by far not the hardest climb of the day but with 250 hard kilometers in the legs, even the strongest climbers can make differences between each other. However, that is not too likely.

What is known is that the summit comes with only 5.2 kilometers to go and what follows is a technical and fast descent that leads into the final 1.5 kilometers. Any gap over the end of the climb means an almost certain victory.