Santo Stefano di Arcevia

The Santo Stefano circuit sits in the province of Ancona, on the ridge of the hill the small village of Santo Stefano stands on. It is run by Moto Club Suasa. The track directory mxcenter.it lists it with FMI homologation in category 5, 1000 metres long, on hard-packed earth. No fixed training hours are published: the entry gives only the instruction to contact the operator before you set off. There is almost no infrastructure - no bar, no cold or hot showers, no 220 V sockets, no floodlights. The Marche regional tourism service describes the layout as a constant up and down with two demanding downhill braking points and very steep climbs back out; it calls the jumps low to medium in difficulty but the take-off faces fairly steep. The same text notes that the ground drains rain well, dries quickly and throws little dust in summer, so the track is ridden in every season. What asks the most of you is the pairing of a downhill braking zone with a steep climb straight after it: you have to build drive while the rear wheel is still looking for traction on the slope. For a rear that spins on a climb, top of our cause list is rear tyre pressure - too much of it shrinks the contact patch, so take a little out to find grip up the hill.