Riding to the sky above: Taking on the Passo dello Stelvio

The highest summit finish in Grand Tour history... Paul Knott headed to the Passo dello Stelvio to tick this bona fide bucket-list climb off his list

It was almost as if the cycling gods were aware of what was to come. A thunderstorm greeted us upon landing at Milan Malpensa airport before we made our way north towards the Alps on flooded roads; our final destination a stretch of road famous for pushing the minds and bodies of cyclists to the limit, the Passo dello Stelvio.

Sketchy weather isn’t anything new to the Stelvio Pass, which has seen many an epic Giro d’Italia stage played out to the backdrop of snowstorms and unrelenting rain. Nairo Quintana infamously attacked, on a supposedly neutralised Stelvio descent, to take the pink jersey in 2014 and go on to win the race altogether.

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Paul Knott is a fitness and features writer, who has also presented Cycling Weekly videos as well as contributing to the print magazine as well as online articles.  In 2020 he published his first book, The Official Tour de France Road Cycling Training Guide (Welbeck), a guide designed to help readers improve their cycling performance via cherrypicking from the strategies adopted by the pros.