Bike rides

Like many people I am getting itchy feet, I have my bikes ready to and now finally we can go on them! We have loads of lovely bike rides around here, both on road and MTB bikes, I prefer road bikes but our mountains attract many MTB fans who love the tricky and spectacular routes.

For those who want to go for a good easy ride we have the cycle track along the side of the lake, it goes from under the Villa to the left, along the lake, over Ponte Del Passo and then through the Pian di Spagna nature reserve and then crosses over the big Adda river bridge to meet the Sentiero Valtellina route… for a short ride go right and to Colico for lunch, just about 10kms each way

The Sentiero Valtellina is a wonderful bike track which goes from Colico (the town opposite us on the other side of the lake) right up to Bormio, in the Alta Valtellina. 114kms of mainly cycle track! It follows the course of the Adda River and often is right by the side of the river. It’s a fairly easy bike ride, mostly on a dedicated cycle track and much of it is ok for road bikes.

It is just 25mts of slow climb to Morbegno so very easy. It passes by Morbegno and the lovely Roman Bridge, if you leave the cycle track and go into Morbegno behind the town there is the hard ‘Passo San Marco’, the 26kms climb goes from 200mts up to 2000 metres, this was the ‘main road’ to Venice. This is a great climb for road bikes. Morbegno is wonderful on a Saturday because there is a big market and don’t miss the wonderful Ciapponi shop, full of local goodies and great wines. (More about Morbegno in a later article).

After Morbegno keeping on the sentiero Valtellina you pass below Talamona and to their right you can see up the val Tartano where at Campo there is the Ponte Tibetano from one side of the valley to the other, 140mts high and 234 mts long suspension footbridge. Only for those not scared of heights.

The Valtellina cycle track carries on up towards Sondrio, where it goes to the right of the city, in total 165mts of uphill, then up under the vineyards to Tirano and then uphill to Grosio, where you can see the lovely castles on the hill and also the very interesting Stone Carvings dating back 2200-1000ac, on the other side of the valley there is the Mortirolo Pass, famous for cyclists, if you like you can drive here and then leave your car by Grosio and ride up this wonderful hard pass to Mortiolo and down to Val Camonica, Edolo, Aprica pass and then down to Tirano and back to Grosio, its about 80kms of pain. (Mortirolo is one of the hardest climbs in the Giro d’Italia).

From Grosio the cycle track goes up to Bormio, some of this part is on the road itself (a quiet road) but they are building a cycle route by the side. This area is where there was the landslide in 1987 and you can see the mountainside where the earth split in two and crashed down on the village of Sant’Antonio Morignone destroying the village totally. You are now in the alpine areas and arriving at Bormio you have the feeling of being in the Alps properly. In Bormio there are the three thermal water baths, the Bagni Nuovi, Bagni Vecchi and the Therme in the centre, all are lovely with hot water and plenty of saunas.

Sentiero Valtellina – link

Another lovely ride is the cycle track up the Val Chiavenna, passing along the side of the Mera River, from the villa you go to the Ponte del Passo bridge and left through the pian di Spagna and round to the left, through the gorgeous town of Chiavenna up to the border with Switzerland and the Val Bregaglia. The route is mainly on dedicated cycle tracks with a couple of parts on quiet roads, it is 42kms long.

The cycle track passes alongside the Mera river to the Novate Mezzola lake, round the right hand side of the lake where the valley is quite narrow, to the right are the quarries of the famous granite from the area, up the side of the river through a short tunnel by the side of the ‘verceia mine tunnel’ . This was created in 1917-18, in order to protect the area from invaders, with explosives placed in the tunnels so if they needed to they could blow both the road and train tunnels out blocking the road totally. Two 50m narrow tunnels then branch out into 8 tunnels each with a hole dug at the end which was just above the roof of the road and train tunnels, if they set off the explosives this would blow out the rooves. They pumped water up from the lake and filled the wells with this water, having placed the explosives in the bottom sealed perfectly watertight. This ensured that the explosion went sideways and not up so they could keep the mine tunnels for another time. The tunnels are usually open to visitors at weekends during the summer

The track carries on around the side of the campsites and then for a short section on the road and then onto country roads all the way to Chiavenna. This town is definately worth a visit! (more about Chiavenna in another article though) passing Chiavenna you go alongside the Crotti. Little houses with a cave at the back into the rock where they would keep cheeses and salami’s, the crotti caves have fissures by which air would pass creating a type of refrigeration – the air is called the ‘Sorel’ and would keep the cave at a constant 8 degrees summer and winter, they are still not 100% sure how it works but there are about 80 of this Crotti around Chiavenna and were an important part of their life.

Carrying on up the valley by the side of the river you pass various little villages, you also pass the wonderful waterfalls of Acquafraggia on the left hand side. Twin waterfalls of 170mts, this is also worth a stop! A bit further after this is the village of Piuro, this is where there was a landslide in 1618 which killed over 1000 of the inhabitants of the village. Riding up the valley you come to Villa di Chiavenna and then to the Border at Castasegna and Switzerland

For fit road bikers or MTB or eBikes definately the Via dei terrazzamenti is must, this is from just after Morbegno along through the vineyards right up to Tirano, going along the left hand side of the mountain and not along the cycle track, there is quite a lot of climbing and descending but the views are spectacular! You pass through old villages, alongside the vineyards, in the autumn you can see the harvesting of the grapes and often during the summer see people working, spraying the ‘verde rame’ or pruning.

Via dei Terrazzamenti route

Hope this has given you a desire to come and try a few of our bike rides around here!!! I have MTB’s or bring your own bike and i will give you all the routes etc that you need! Maybe even install one of the routes on your Zwift, Rouvy or google bike maps so you can virtually try them out before!