Icons of cycling: Passo dello Stelvio

Chris Sidwells looks at one of the most famous climbs in the Giro d’Italia

The Maglia Rosa group climbs the Stelvio on stage twenty of the 2012 Giro d'Italia (Watson)

(Image credit: Watson)

Staggering, amazing, breathtaking. Stand at the summit of the Stelvio and the superlatives tumble into your brain.

The Passo dello Stelvio is a civil engineering triumph, a ribbon of tarmac 48km long that uses almost 70 hairpin bends to soar 2,757m into the sky and back down again.

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