Lake Garda: Pizza, Red Wine & Road Bike

by Lisa Riedlsperger

Tenno and Cavedine Lake, Monte Bondone and of course the famous Monte Baldo are among the classics among racing bike tours. A popular tour is also the Giro del Basso Lago. After crossing the lake by ferry from Torri to Toscolano, you cycle along the southern shore of Lake Garda. A historical region with impressive Mediterranean vegetation. Experienced, high-performance racing cyclists can be found on the routes, where you can certainly meet professional athletes who prepare here for the racing season. One of these routes is the climb from Peri to Fossa. Here the rules of the three nines apply: nine kilometers of climb, nine hairpin bends and an average gradient of nine percent. With this range of tours, it quickly becomes clear why the region around Lake Garda is so popular with road cyclists. We are just on our way back to Austria from a business trip and have wisely packed our racing bikes. The beautiful weather and the fact that we only want to be back home in 4 days, lead us to the south shore of Lake Garda, to Peschiera del Garda. With the Roadbike Holidays Hotel "Garda Bike Hotel" is quickly found an optimal accommodation. Today we want to unwind a few more easy kilometers on the plain, then tomorrow Monte Baldo is our goal. So we quickly put our bags in the room, put on our road bike clothes and are ready to go. As big friends of the vine drink we turn a round by the famous wine-growing areas south and southeast of the lake. Lugana, Bardolino, Soave and Valpolicella are the sounding names of the wines that are grown and bottled here and delight our palates in the evening in combination with typical Italian dishes.

King Tour Monte Baldo
For the famous King Tour to Monte Baldo we join a group accompanied by two professional guides. The Garda Bike Hotel offers this tour in three variants by shortening the journey to the bus with the shuttle service by 30 or 60 kilo-meters. Gerhard and I do without the bus and decide for the long distance, which has impressive key data with 125 kilometers and considerable 2'092 meters of altitude. In total there are 8 top-motivated racing cyclists who tackle the entire round together with us, five more shuttle up to the foot of Monte Baldo. Our guide Marco finds a pleasant pace from the beginning, where we can perfectly prepare ourselves for the long climb. Along the Adige River, we head north for about 40 kilometers. The noise coming from the nearby highway hardly bothers us. Rather the fact that in Italy you are not allowed to ride side by side on a road bike. So we have to shift the conversation, as we are used to at home, to the sections we complete on the bike path. In Avio begins the 23 km long ascent, which leads with an average gradient of 7 per cent, 1'500 elevator meters at a stretch to the highest point of the day. The chatting has now an end, it is nevertheless called, the 5 colleagues, who are on the middle variant already in the rise, as fast as possible to catch up. Gerhard starts right away, pedals hard and I briefly consider whether I should actually keep up the pace. Despite the doubts, I stay on his rear wheel and find a good rhythm in the first bends - there are more than 20 in total. The beautiful landscape contributes its part to distract a little from the exertions. The mountain road winds through a valley, forested ridges rise to the left and right of the road and obscure the view. In between, small valleys open up again and again, their streams carrying plenty of water. After a good hour we reach Lago di Pra da Stua and take a short break. The Garda Bike Hotel offers a very special service for this tour. The shuttle bus that brought part of our group to the mountain accompanies us throughout the day to provide us with bars, fruit and snacks and to help with any breakdowns.

We are already at an altitude of over 1,000 meters above sea level, the forest becomes thinner and the panorama improves with every hairpin bend we pass. Our professional guides manage, thanks to their experience, to bring the whole group almost simultaneously to the highest point of the tour. This is what I call perfect timing. We have reached not only the highest but also the northernmost point of the loop, the famous Monte Altissimo still looms about 500 meters in altitude ahead of us. After putting on a thin vest, we roll down a short descent into a saddle. We are amazed when we suddenly see the magnificent blue of Lake Garda in front of us. A dreamlike view of Italy's largest lake and its striking rocky coast on the opposite shore. We tackle the approximately 200-meter climb, which is now the last hurdle before the long descent, together. Lago di Garda is already hidden again behind the mountain range to the west of us and will only show itself again at the end of our lap, when we roll the last kilometers of this fantastic royal tour along its shore road to the finish in Peschiera del Garda.

On to the Northwest Round
Gerhard and I still want to change to the north side of Lake Garda today and so we say goodbye to the rest of the group after a wonderful espresso. We quickly leaf through the Roadbike Holidays catalog and then make our way to Torbole to the AktivHotel SantaLucia GARDASEE. The hotel of the Rigatti family has received an award as the most popular hotel in Italy, is located only about 200 meters from the center in a quiet location and is a perfect starting point for road bike tours, such as the one to Monte Bondone. Silvio, the owner of the hotel, is himself a passionate road biker with a guide qualification. He provides us with some tips for tomorrow's tour, which we want to tackle on our own this time.

It will be a good 100 kilometers again today, which lie ahead of us on the planned round in the northwest of the lake. To be on the safe side, we go through the rich breakfast buffet once again to properly replenish our reserves. After all, this time we don't have an escort vehicle at our disposal. Again, the sky is cloudless with pleasant early summer temperatures, so that we start punctually at 9 o'clock our project in the best of moods. First we roll along the beach promenade to Riva, then we stay on the shore for about 2 kilometers in southern direction. After the first long climb we reach Lago di Ledro, whose smooth surface glistens wonderfully in the sun. The ride through the many small villages on the way through the Valle Ampola turns out to be extremely entertaining, even though there is another 200 meters of ascent here. At Storo we encounter much more traffic along the state road and therefore stay mostly on the well paved bike path, which fortunately is not very busy. The villages are much larger here, but still convey the typical Italian flair, which we let work on us in Roncone directly on the lake, with cappuccino and cake. According to our plan, we have already completed half of the round, the legs are still doing good work and thanks to the wonderful dessert, the start of the second part is a little easier. In Bolbone we change to a side road, which gives us a few extra meters of altitude, but still cuts off quite a bit of the route and, above all, is extremely low-traffic and quiet. Our thighs and calves now feel what we overlooked when we briefly looked at the map. The Passo Duron has a good 400 meters of ascent, which with gradients of more than 10 percent is an obstacle that really takes a lot of energy. Fortunately, the pass road brings us only in Fiave back on the original route and thus the Passo Balino, the last pass of the day, is only a piece of cake. Silvio said last night that we should take our swimming trunks with us - now we know why. The Lago di Tenno, which we reach after a short descent, invites us to swim with its turquoise blue color and pleasant water temperature. Since we will be heading back to the cool north tomorrow, we take the opportunity to put our road bikes down in the meadow and enjoy an extensive swim amidst this unique scenery. The mighty mountains, the mild climate, the many small lakes and not least good wine and good food make the region around Lake Garda, especially in spring and autumn, the perfect destination for a racing bike vacation.