Italy coast to coast

Toscana e Emilia Romagna

This wiki contains the planning information for a cycle touring trip in Italy for September 2014. My blog about the ride including the planning process is here. There is a Google+ Page for it here. It is hoped that this site will be a resource not just for participants in this ride but also for others planning something similar in the future. The blog of how things turned out may be instructive also :-)

I've got "prior form"... the last cycling trip that I organised also had a wiki. You can find it here, and a blog of the trip here.

Logistics

• The ride starts at Viareggio on the Ligurian Sea and finishes at Rimini on the Adriatic, with a "home base" at Firenze, travelling to and from there by train before and after the ride. For the logistics of getting from the plane to Firenze, see Getting to Firenze.

  • It is relatively easy  (for those with negative experience in Spain) to travel with your bike by Trenitalia. This link is on their home page! The short answer is that on regional trains you can take your bike ready to ride, but on the express trains (FRECCIAROSSA, FRECCIARGENTO etc.) it must be in a bag. You can get to Firenze easily by train. It is less than three hours and only one change of train from Roma's Fiumicino airport. There is even free Wi-Fi on the express trains! There is an official Android and iPhone app called Prontotreno, linked to from the Trenitalia web site, however at least on Android it has region restrictions so you can't install it from Australia :-( Well that's not quite true, there is a convoluted way, so if you want to know then ask me)

• There will be eight days riding. A couple of those will require several hours in the saddle. Two "rest" days are planned, although (see below) the idea of rest during the Chianti Wine Festival is difficult to imagine. The rest days mean that there are at most three days of riding in a row which should make washing/drying possible.

• We will come back through Firenze after two days of riding, so it is easy to make adjustments to what we are carrying. 

• Most hotels, B&Bs and restaurants have been chosen based on TripAdvisor rankings and reviews. In some cases that is not possible because the route is off the beaten track. Most have free WiFi.

• Detailed day-by-day itinerary is on the right. Just click the links!

Riding conditions

• The riding distance is around 370 kilometres.

• Almost all of the route is on sealed roads although there will be some sections of good gravel. The roads are all "B" roads, typically quiet with mostly local traffic.

• The ride is somewhat supported. There are two riders and two non-riders, who will essentially follow the same route and will transport the luggage each day, but there is no "sag wagon" and in the event of mechanical problems or accidents we will have to rely on ad-hoc support arrangements.

• Given the two previous points, I intend to take my touring bike with the DT wheels with the 25mm or 28mm Continental 4 Seasons tyres.

• The ride crosses the Apennines between Arezzo and Rimini. In addition there are the climb over the foothills of the Apuan alps near Viareggio, through the Tuscan hills between Vinci and Comeana and the Chianti Hills from Greve in Chianti to the Val d'Arno. This makes a total of around 7,400 metres of climb. 

• This spreadsheet shows the climbs on the route and allows comparison to a popular local (in Canberra) climb.

• There are now day-by-day cue sheets in this PDF file.

Planning Criteria

For past rides I have constructed the route with one eye on what I'd want and am capable of doing and the other on what others want and are capable of doing. This trip is different: it is planned around what I want.  I was even OK with the idea of doing it by myself but as it has turned out the trip will have four participants (barring late scratchings or additions) with two riding and two non riders.

I also want to fit it in to weekend-weekend over two weeks, so that dictates a Sat-Mon dedicated to travel and then Fri-Mon coming home.

Timing

Day one of riding will be Tuesday 9th September 2014, which puts us in the right place at the right time for the festivals of Festa della Rificolona in Firenze, the Chianti Wine Festival at Greve in Chianti and the palio in Sansepolcro, and maybe even the wine festival in Montecarlo. Good times!!

This requires flights leaving Australia on 5th or 6th of September, and leaving Italy on the 19th or 20th for the return trip. If you want to see the daily schedule on the calendar then scroll it to September 2014.