Giro d’Italia launches Giro E e-bike race to run alongside main event

RCS Sport, owners of the Giro d’Italia, have launched a new Giro E edition of the race that will see five teams of two riders each undertake the 18 Italian stages of the race on Pinarello Nytro e-bikes.

The race will begin in Sicily on Tuesday 8 May when Giro resumes with Stage 4 from Catania to Caltagirone following the Big Start in Israel.

It will end in Rome on Sunday 27 May, with the riders participating in the Giro E riding the same route as that of the Giro d’Italia ahead of those competing in the UCI WorldTour race.

The Giro E is partnered by Enel, TAG Heuer and Pinarello, which will supply the Nytro ‘eRoad’ bikes used in the race.

> Pinarello unveil Nytro electric road bike

The new race was announced yesterday as Rome hosted its first ever Formula E race for electric cars.

To promote the Giro E, Team Sky’s Gianni Moscon, riding a Pinarello Nytro, and former Formula 1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella , in a Formula E car, took to the circuit to promote the new race.

There’s no word yet on the identity of the teams or riders who will be taking part in the Giro E.

Interest in e-bike racing has been building for a while, however, and the European Cycling Union (UEC) has said that it would add professional e-road and e-mountain bike races to its calendar for 2019.

> Apparently professional e-bike racing is going to be a thing now

In February, the UCI said that it was speaking to national federations and other parties in the industry about creating regulations to govern e-mountain bike racing.