Bike tours in Italy by Agile Compass

Our regular bike tours in northern Italy are in Piedmont (Piemonte), east of the high Alps separating southern France from Italy, and just over the coastal range from the Italian & French Rivieras on the Mediterranean. While Piemonte is a magnet for enthusiasts of fine food and fine wine, and draws its French neighbors to visit, cyclists from English-speaking countries have yet to discover the superb cycling it offers.

Since we design your week day-by-day while you’re here, as the week progresses, we don’t have a fixed itinerary to publish. Instead, in the Rides section below we summarize some of the many choices of destinations available to us, from verdant Alpine valleys connected by challenging passes featured in the Giro d’Italia, to rolling hills over vistas of vineyards and orchards nestled below hilltop castle-towns and church spires, to easy cruising in the Po river basin.

We ride on quiet secondary roads that have very little motor traffic. What few motorists you may encounter you’ll find much more bike-friendly than in North America. They don’t regard bikes as children’s toys which should stay off public roads, nor consider cyclists to be some weird, alien them dressed in sissy, outlandish spandex. Cars wait patiently until there’s ample room to pass, they don’t try to beat you to a turn to cut you off or pull out right in front of you from a side approach. A honk is a courtesy alert that someone’s behind you, not an aggressive threat that they’re coming through so you’d better get the !@#$%^ out of their way right now or else!

Dynamically customized for you. Because we stay at one home base the entire time, we aren’t obliged to conform to a rigid, predetermined itinerary. Instead, we observe and listen to you, check the wind, weather and road conditions, take into account local events of interest, and each morning (or the previous evening), choose a route or destination of suitable interest, length and terrain. Here are some of the possible ride destinations and/or places along the way that we may visit.

Piemonte has an extensive selection open for public visits. They range from austere, forbidding medieval ones to luxurious Renaissance palaces, elaborately furnished and decorated inside. In particular, in the flatlands north of our home base are 11 to choose from for easy biking destinations, in Busca, Castellar, Costigliole Saluzzo, Fossano, Lagnasco, Manta, Monasterolo di Savigliano, Racconigi and Savigliano. We can tailor the distance to you by using our van.

The Barolo and Barbaresco wine regions of Piemonte surround the town of Alba, about 1 hour to our northeast by car. The Dolcetto region, around the town of Dogliani, is about 40 minutes away. Quiet roads, perfect for bicycling, roll along gentle ridges which look out on gorgeous panoramas of vineyards, orchards and hilltop villages with castles or church spires soaring over them. Wine-tasting is possible, at the many wineries and community wine collectives, some located in old castles. However, wine and cycling don’t mix any better than drinking and driving, so we’d reserve visits for the end of the day: you can taste (and buy a few bottles if you wish), then relax in our van for the trip home.

Numerous small hills and valleys surround nearby Mondovì, offering easy to challenging rides. Among the places to visit on these routes are the San Fiorenzo church in Bastia Mondovì: with its 16th century Provençal-style Gothic frescoes; the Sanctuary at Vicoforte Mondovì, capped by the world’s largest elliptical dome, which is decorated with the largest painting in the world on a single theme (the Virgin Mary, 6032 m², 64,928 sq. ft.), and fronting a spacious, park-like piazza; the grottoes at Bossea with its skeleton of prehistoric bear and caverns laden with stalactites and stalagmites, which you can see by boat.

Certosa di Pesio, a restored Carthusian monastery dating from 1173. Parco Naturale Alta Valle Pesio e Tanaro, which has an extensive network of hiking trails. Lurisia Terme, a natural hot springs resort with a spa offering a wide range of services, from basic visits to chocolate massage.

Starting counterclockwise from the northwest: Valle Varaita passes through Sampeyre and Casteldelfino on the way to Colle dell’Agnello at the Franco-Italian border; Valle Maira starts at Dronero, with its Occitan ethnographic museum, and connects to Sampeyre via Colle di Sampeyre; Valle Grana, home of Castelmagno, “the king of cheeses”, and the Castelmagno Sanctuary, peaks near Colle d’Esichie; Valle Stura ends at Colle della Maddalena (Col de Larche) on the Franco-Italian border, connects to Castelmagno via Demonte and Colle Fauniera, and connects to Colle della Lombarda (Col de la Lombarde) on the Franco-Italian border via Vinadio; Valle Gesso ends at the hot springs resort at Terme di Valdieri, and connects to Demonte via Madonna del Colletto; and Valle Vermenagna passes through Vernante and Limone Piemonte on the way to Colle di Tenda (Col de Tende) on the Franco-Italian border. Many of the passes are high enough that colorful Alpine flowers flourish on their slopes even in mid-summer.

Some popular cycling climbs in Cuneo province, most of which have been included in the Giro d’Italia and some in the Tour de France:

Name	Alt. (m)	Dist. (km)	Climb (m)	Av. Grade	Max. Grade	Notes
Colle dell’Agnello	2,744	9.45	939	10%	14%	highest paved pass* on the French-Italian border
Colle d’Esischie	2,370	23	1,421	7%	13.2%
Colle Fauniera	2,481	20.9	1,687	10.1%	14.75%	monument to Marco Pantani
Colle della Maddalena	1,996	33.2	1,092	—	12%
Colle di Sampeyre	2,284	14.5	1,354	9.4%	15%
Pian del Rè	2,020	20.6	1,406	7%	12%
Sant’Anna di Vinadio	2,010	15	1,106	7.4%	9%	highest-sited church in Europe

* Surpassed by Col de la Bonette in the French Alps, artificially raised to 2,802 m; Col d’Iseran in the French Alps, 2,764 m; Passo dello Stelvio/Stilfersjoch in the Dolomites, 2,758 m.

Cyclists can obtain official timings of their climbs at Chrono Test Points. As of August 2006, the following ones are operational: Castelmagno (from Pradleves), Colle d’Esischie (Ponte Marmora), Colle dell’Agnello (Chianale), Colle Fauniera (Pradleves), Monte Bracco (Barge), Pian del Rè (Paesana) and Roccabruna (Dronero).

Sample 1-week itinerary

While every week is different and designed to suit your abilities and aspirations, here’s an example of how one particular week might go…

Saturday: We meet you at Nice airport to transfer you to Chiusa di Pesio. Assemble/fit bikes in the afternoon to take a short spin in the vicinity of the town. Welcome dinner at the hotel.

Sunday: Ride along the rolling ridges of the Langhe, overlooking gorgeous landscapes of vineyards, orchards and picturesque hill towns. Visit a family-owned and operated winery in the Barolo region to taste (and buy, if you like). Dinner at the hotel.

Monday: Ride along the scenic alpine Valle Maira. Climb to Elva, the highest-located year-round community in Europe. Visit the Hans Clemer frescoes, a 15-16th century masterpiece. Descend the spectacular Elva gorge. Dinner out.

Tuesday: Climb a scenic alpine valley to Sant'Anna di Vinadio, the highest-sited church in Europe and a pilgrimmage site for Italian and French survivors of devastating traffic accidents. Optional added out-and back to the French border at Colle della Lombarda (Col de la Lombarde, in French). Dinner at the hotel.

Wednesday: Mid-week rest day. Take the bus into Cuneo to visit, or catch a train to Turin or the Mediterranean coast. Take a guided tour to learn more about the ancient Occitan cultural heritage of the local alpine valleys (shared with Provence and Catalonian Spain) with visits to sites rarely open to the public—advanced reservation required. Go hiking, use the outdoor climbing wall in Chiusa, visit the thermal hot springs spa in Lurisia. Or ride on your own, we'll supply maps and cue sheets. Dinner on your own (we can suggest places in town).

Thursday: Ride among the hills between Chiusa and Mondovì, into the southwestern Dolcetto-Langhe wine country. See the imposing Vicoforte Sanctuary, the largest elliptical-domed church in the world, and visit the workshop of world-class chocolate-maker Silvio Bessone to taste (and buy, if you like). Dinner out.

Friday: Ride into the Pesio Valley to visit the restored Carthusian monastery at Certosa and the nature park. Continue with optional added hills or an easy spin in the flats, with distance and altitude adjustable on the fly. Disassemble and pack up bikes in the afternoon. Farewell dinner at the hotel.

Once more, we emphasize that this is just one possible scenario from an endless palette we mix and match for a week uniquely adapted to you.

The snapshot below from Google Earth shows the terrain around our home base at Chiusa di Pesio in southern Piemonte (Cuneo province). The village is at the transition between a flat river basin to its north, the high, rugged Maritime Alps and the border with France (yellow line) to the south and west, and the rolling Langhe wine country hills to the northeast. The purple lines are some of the many rides in the area, spanning every range of difficulty from easy, flat spins to leg- and lung-busting Giro d’Italia climbs.