Online Resources for Italy

Frank Drackman said:

I am sorry if this has been covered to death, but I couldn't find online
resources for planning a trip to ride some of the Italian mountain passes.
I found plenty of sites that offered tours but I am trying to do it by
myself. I am looking for suggestions for online maps, ride reports, hotels
that are bike friendly, towns to stay in, etc.

It would help if you named the passes or at least the area.

As for maps, I would forget online maps and just order an appropriate
set of the TCI (Touring Club Italiano) 1:200000 maps for the regions in
which you are interested. All of the Dolomites and Alps can be covered
with 4 maps: Veneto, Trentino, Lombardia, Piemonte. For online
assistance, look at Google maps/Google Earth for the areas of interest.

As for hotels, I have yet to find a hotel, inn, etc. in Italy that was
not bike friendly. I am sure there are some, but they must be rare.
They will accomodate one way or another, even the fanciest hotels. On
our last trip we had various inns store our bikes in places like
underground garages, the hallway of the owner section of the inn, a
wine cave, a barn, storage sheds, an underground garage, the
manager's office, and more.

The best towns to stay in are the ones where you feel like stopping for
the day, as long as there are facilities (lodging and food). We have
pre-planned stops and stuck to the schedule, and pre-planned but
altered as we desired on the way. The latter has worked best; more
flexibility to handle exigencies.

As for ride reports, start with Jobst's from the past 40 years or so.
Check out the Trento bike pages. Do a Google search. We have found
tons of information using these resources, and rather easily.

- rick

In 2004, we only had a hotel in Venice for two days before moving to Lido
(next time we'll skip getting a room in Venice). After that, we used Rick
Steve's Italy Book and the internet, which was available free at a couple of
the hotels, to make our reservations. Having the desk clerk at the current
hotel call ahead and book a room at the next stop worked very well, also. I
agree with Rick, the hotels were great when it came to dealing with bikes,
and so were the trains.

Pete
"Rick" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

Frank Drackman said:

I am sorry if this has been covered to death, but I couldn't find online
resources for planning a trip to ride some of the Italian mountain
passes.
I found plenty of sites that offered tours but I am trying to do it by
myself. I am looking for suggestions for online maps, ride reports,
hotels
that are bike friendly, towns to stay in, etc.

It would help if you named the passes or at least the area.

As for maps, I would forget online maps and just order an appropriate
set of the TCI (Touring Club Italiano) 1:200000 maps for the regions in
which you are interested. All of the Dolomites and Alps can be covered
with 4 maps: Veneto, Trentino, Lombardia, Piemonte. For online
assistance, look at Google maps/Google Earth for the areas of interest.

As for hotels, I have yet to find a hotel, inn, etc. in Italy that was
not bike friendly. I am sure there are some, but they must be rare.
They will accomodate one way or another, even the fanciest hotels. On
our last trip we had various inns store our bikes in places like
underground garages, the hallway of the owner section of the inn, a
wine cave, a barn, storage sheds, an underground garage, the
manager's office, and more.

The best towns to stay in are the ones where you feel like stopping for
the day, as long as there are facilities (lodging and food). We have
pre-planned stops and stuck to the schedule, and pre-planned but
altered as we desired on the way. The latter has worked best; more
flexibility to handle exigencies.

As for ride reports, start with Jobst's from the past 40 years or so.
Check out the Trento bike pages. Do a Google search. We have found
tons of information using these resources, and rather easily.

- rick

Rick said:

As for maps, I would forget online maps and just order an appropriate
set of the TCI (Touring Club Italiano) 1:200000 maps for the regions in
which you are interested. All of the Dolomites and Alps can be covered
with 4 maps: Veneto, Trentino, Lombardia, Piemonte.

This is THE suggestion about maps.

You might like to get the beautiful N.1 1/200000 TCI Atlas of Italy,
instead of the separate maps, and carry xerox copies along.
Moreover, that Atlas covers also a lot of Switzerland, as well as a
good strip of neighboring Austria and France.

Quoted message said:

As for hotels, I have yet to find a hotel, inn, etc. in Italy that was
not bike friendly. I am sure there are some, but they must be rare.

Agreed.
However, here is one: Hotel Siusi in Siusi, near Bolzano.

Quoted message said:

As for ride reports, start with Jobst's from the past 40 years or so.

Be advised that Jobst is a tough cyclist and that things may be a bit
tougher than you might be led to expect after reading his reports.
Also, as a rule, major roads are never too steep in Italy (as compared
to Austria, for example) but you might be surprised if you venture
elsewhere.

Sergio
Pisa

"Rick" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Frank Drackman said:

I am sorry if this has been covered to death, but I couldn't find online
resources for planning a trip to ride some of the Italian mountain
passes.
I found plenty of sites that offered tours but I am trying to do it by
myself. I am looking for suggestions for online maps, ride reports,
hotels
that are bike friendly, towns to stay in, etc.

It would help if you named the passes or at least the area.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will order the maps.

Sorry, I should have said that I am really early in the planning process. I
don't know which climbs yet and would love suggestions. I am really slow
but love to climb. Would it be possible, with a car for support, to stay at
one hotel in Dolomites then move to another hotel in the Alps for base
camps, or would I have to change hotels every day?

Frank Drackman said:

"Rick" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Frank Drackman said:

I am sorry if this has been covered to death, but I couldn't find online
resources for planning a trip to ride some of the Italian mountain
passes.
I found plenty of sites that offered tours but I am trying to do it by
myself. I am looking for suggestions for online maps, ride reports,
hotels
that are bike friendly, towns to stay in, etc.

It would help if you named the passes or at least the area.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will order the maps.

Sorry, I should have said that I am really early in the planning process. I
don't know which climbs yet and would love suggestions. I am really slow
but love to climb. Would it be possible, with a car for support, to stay at
one hotel in Dolomites then move to another hotel in the Alps for base
camps, or would I have to change hotels every day?

Love the Dolomites. Plan on spending at least 3-4 days there. You
can survive without a car, using trains, buses, and the bike for
transport if you like.

Staying in one spot and riding is a bit easier in the Dolomites than in
the Alps. In the Dolomites you could stay in Cortina and ride all the
eastern passes, then move just a bit west to Arabba for the Sella ring
and the western passes. The Italian Alps are a bit more stretched
out. Bormio or Livigno is a good spot for some of the passes: Stelvio,
Gavia, Motirola, and some of the passes in adjacent parts of
Switzerland. But things are a bit stretched out and doing day trips
as loops gets a bit more of a challenge; you would be doing loops of
80-100 miles, minimum, with significant amounts of climbing to return
to the point at which you started. Possible, but make sure you are up
to it. I prefer doing some minimal loaded touring so I can be flexible
and stop when I want each day without worrying about getting back to a
specific point, but it is all personal preference.

- rick

Rick ha scritto:

I prefer doing some minimal loaded touring so I can be flexible

Quoted message said:

and stop when I want each day without worrying about getting back to a
specific point,

That's fine provided it is not high season, when you are not guaranteed
to find lodging late in the afternoon stopping just anywhere.
Plan to do it by, say, july 10th.

Before we get to detailed suggestions, study the maps and read other
people's reports.

Sergio
Pisa

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

Rick ha scritto:

I prefer doing some minimal loaded touring so I can be flexible

Quoted message said:

and stop when I want each day without worrying about getting back to a
specific point,

That's fine provided it is not high season, when you are not guaranteed
to find lodging late in the afternoon stopping just anywhere.
Plan to do it by, say, july 10th.

Before we get to detailed suggestions, study the maps and read other
people's reports.

Sergio
Pisa

Thanks guys. I ordered the atlas yesterday. I will study up and post more
realistic questions in the future.

Frank Drackman wrote

Quoted message said:

Would it be possible, with a car for support, to stay
at one hotel in Dolomites then move to another hotel in the Alps for base
camps, or would I have to change hotels every day?

If you choose your location carefully, you could get two (or three) great
climbs from the same base. Like Bormio is at the bottom of both Gavia and
the west side of Stelvio (and one more less famous to the northeast). But
not so convenient for the more famous (but less interesting) east side of
Stelvio / Stilfserjoch. But lots of people who train seriously for big long
climbs could do both Stelvio and Gavia in one day of good weather -- so if
you get too many days of good weather, you might quickly exhaust the
possibilities from one hotel.

If you've got a car, something else to consider is sleeping inside it. Big
advantage is that you can get out riding as early in the morning as you
want, not worry about figuring out each hotel's checkout and car-park
security procedures. I did that for several nights in the French Alps
recently. My idea is that if I can't fall asleep easily in the car, I must
not have climbed enough vertical that day on my bike.

The other great thing about having a car is that you do not have to ride in
the big mountains day after day. You can get on the autostrada and walk
around some famous historic city to the south on the plain, like Verona or
Venice, or do some very mellow and pretty riding through the "Brenta
Riviera". Or the foothills in between. Or non-bicycling fun things in the
Dolomites: hiking, "via ferrata", rafting -- Seems to me more variety is
more fun, and a car opens up lots of possibilities.

Quoted message said:

I don't know which climbs yet and would love suggestions.

A lot of us have already offered them on this newsgroup. Speaking of "online
resources", how about searching the newsgroup archives for previous years?

A rather helpful resource (not online) is this book: "Cycling Italy", by
Ethan Gelber and others (Lonely Planet, 2003).

Ken

Quoted message said:

Rick ha scritto:

I prefer doing some minimal loaded touring so I can be flexible

Quoted message said:

and stop when I want each day without worrying about getting back to a
specific point,

That's fine provided it is not high season, when you are not guaranteed
to find lodging late in the afternoon stopping just anywhere.
Plan to do it by, say, july 10th.

Which brings up a good point: timing. The higher Alp passes may not
open until later May (e.g., Stelvio opened May 29th in 2004, May 22nd
in 2005, and about the same this year. They could start getting dicey
for riding in September, which means planning a trip around them is
really an early June-early Sep window affair. The Dolomites tend to
open earlier and stay open later, but still you have limitations. And
by mid-July through August there are too many folks on holiday so
things like lodging tend to fill, there are more cars on the roads,
etc. I tend to look at trips there as being early-mid June or early
Sep affairs. Even with that, expect unpredictable weather. In 2004
we had to hold off at the bottom of Stelvio for a day as there was a
heavy snowfall on the mountain; we crossed the next day in light snow
flurries ..... on June 21st!

- rick

Frank Drackman said:

I am sorry if this has been covered to death, but I couldn't find online
resources for planning a trip to ride some of the Italian mountain passes.
I found plenty of sites that offered tours but I am trying to do it by
myself. I am looking for suggestions for online maps, ride reports, hotels
that are bike friendly, towns to stay in, etc.

Thanks...

Try these:

http://www.trentobike.org/Countries/Italy/

http://www.initaly.com/regions/apulia/cycling.htm

Rick said:

Which brings up a good point: timing. The higher Alp passes may not
open until later May ...

Better yet around june 10th.
This year I passed on the Iseran in mid june when it was still
officially closed.

A suggestion for all.
It is great to take up to the higher passes in late may when they are
still closed.
At that time you are guaranteed to be able to get to the 2000 meters
altitude, but possibly no farther. Roads are officially closed much
below that point but you simply go around the blockade and climb as far
as possible.
I have done that time and again, mainly up to Piccolo and Gran San
Bernardo, but also up to Albergo Sottostelvio.
Unless what you really want is the postcard stamped at the pass, you
are guaranteed to have a glorious day, to the amazement of marmots.
The only witnesses.

Sergio
Pisa