The route for the 2012 Giro d'Italia was publicized a few days ago in Milan and it looks like it will be an exciting race. The Giro will start on May 05, 2012 with an individual time trial in Denmark. Overall, the first three stages will take place in Denmark, before the Giro takes a day off to allow the teams to travel to Italy for stage 4, which will be a team time trial in Verona. More details on each stage can be found here. Opposing last year's route, when continuous mountain stages with long transfer times between each other were causing riders to complain, this year's route features a flat stage between two mountain stages in the last week.  The Guardian calls the 2012 Giro "more human" and thus likely to appeal to the Sky team. Last year's route of the Giro had caused a lot of controversy between the riders and the former race director, Angelo Zomegnan, has since been replaced by Michele Acquarone.Stage 20 was designed based on feedback from an online poll and the fans decided on the following: this stage takes the riders over four climbs, including the Mortirolo, before they reach the Passo dello Stelvio mountain-top finish (via the Bormio side). This will most likely be the deciding stage of the race, also being the second to the last stage before the final stage in Milan on May 27. Alberto Contador has already declined his participation to focus on the 2012 Tour de France and thus will not be defending his maglia rosa.

One of our friends, Rob Lombardi, had the opportunity to climb the Mortirolo this year and we wanted to share some of the beautiful impressions below. "It was a very memorable experience even though I was delirious with a 103F fever" he says. "Was the fever the reason that I saw a lady chatting on her cellphone riding up the Mortirolo like it was nothing?"  No, we actually have proof that she exists, she claims to be considered the  "Queen of the Mortirolo".