The Giro d'Italia is the corsa rosa, the pink race, and the most romantic and unpredictable of the three Grand Tours. First run in 1909, it climbs through the cruelest and most beautiful mountains in the sport, the Stelvio and the Mortirolo and the Zoncolan, often in foul spring weather that turns a bike race into a survival exercise. The pink jersey, the maglia rosa, has been worn by the giants of Italian cycling and almost everyone else who matters. Fausto Coppi, Alfredo Binda and Eddy Merckx share the record with five overall wins each, a mark no one has touched in fifty years. The Giro rewards riders who attack, and its mountain stages have produced some of the wildest racing the sport has ever seen. It is the Grand Tour the purists love most.