Cycling around Trento

Monster week around Trento. Over 30 hours. This historic city on the river is right at the base of the Alps, close enough to view the Dolomites on a clear day. Most of the riding options from here are mountains.

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First Ride

Rain forecast for most of the day but I still had time to get out in the morning. Ended up using the rest of the day to check out museums.

Trento is an ancient city located right in a fertile river valley. If you want to go anywhere but along the river you have to climb quite a ways out.

Just a peek of Trento on the way out of the city

Sort of sunrise over lake Caldonazzo

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Lagi Di Molveno

Riding up north to do a scenic loop that comes around this beautiful lake. The whole area is quite nice with lots of castles on hills, apple orchards, vineyards and of course steep mountains.
Had my first taste of the chaotic bike path network and Strava and Garmin’s pathetic attempts at shoving me onto them.

Mausoleum Ceasar Battisti overlooking Trento, at the base of Monte Bondone

This is the view for the entire river valley for hundreds of kms

Was starting to see tons and tons of other cyclists on all the roads.

Few houses dug into the mountainside!

There's a good 20+ castles all part of a tourism circuit and vaguely related to the Castle in Trento

Look down into the valley from Mezzolombardo, 1000m up

Molveno is an alpine town swarming with tourists

The descent around the lake is awesome. We're starting to see deep aqua blue alpine lakes up here

Wall lizards are everywhere in Italy. If you stay still long enough they might come out and let you photograph them

Beautiful castle along some lakes going back into Trento

The entire city of Trento, mix of old and new architecture. Look at all the red roofs.

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Passo Manghen

The toughest climb you can access in the region, also used in the Giro D’Italia during certain years.

Every time you try to make a loop out of Trento you will have to do pretty huge rides with tons of elevation. Will my legs get destroyed before the end of this “vacation”?

All over northern Italy you will find medieval fortresses on random hills

Valley on the way to the pass

Huge climb that makes its way up isolated ranches and farms on the mountainside

There is of course a "riffugio" at the top so people can grab a bite. Almost every pass and mountain has one.

The other thing you'll find isolated on hilltops are churches and monasteries

Slowly descending along the river back to Trento. So many terrace farms in this region!

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Lake Garda

Really wanted to do this one so I learned to use the trains to take me to Rovereto to start the tour of this famous and iconic lake. That saves you 50km and the train each way is just 20 minutes! ( in theory )

This area is absolutely beautiful however the southern part of the lake is choked with tourists and traffic and the North has tunnel after tunnel which really don’t feel safe…

There's endless KMs of vineyards and orchards between towns in the Trento river valley

Lake Garda has a deep green hue in the south and turns blue in the deeper parts.

Massive crowds in line to see some castle. There's people absolutely everywhere in the towns.

There's even a few amusement parks along the lake. The least Italian place I've seen the whole trip.

Lots of marinas and boats you can take tours with and even ferry systems that take you from one side to the other ( if you wanted to dodge the northern tunnels )

Just amazing and a nice change of pace from farmlands and mountains

Hey. A castle. Damn. Don't see that every day.

Came across this ceramic store. I guess they make/sell huge sculptures for commercial use

Or to just put in your living room, if that's your thing. These are 6 feet tall

Just soaking in the nature on this hot and long day.

Tons of towns along the lake, all of them seemed like absolute tourist traps to me. They will milk you dry around this lake.

In the northern part now, you can tell from the deep blue hue of the deeper middle part

You can see the steep cliff on the side of this tunnel. There would be no other way to make a road around the lake.

Italian roads have no shoulder and lots of drivers love to stop to the right and block cyclists

Scenic town of Riva del Garda at the very northern tip. Swarmed with tourists. There's several such towns all around the lake, they are quite beautiful.

Taking in the views one last time before climbing back up to Trento.

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Monte Bondone

Met up with Dar after his conference his Trento. He’s the reason I’m in Italy at all since he invited me to come to the Dolomites. We did the epic Monte Bondone climb ( from Trento side ) which is a true EUROCLIMB(tm) featuring lots of switchbacks. There’s just nothing like that in Canada and only a few in the USA but hundreds in Europe.

From the top you can start to see the bald peaks of the Dolomites in the distance. Just 100km away!

He was so happy. I think he's addicted to cycling now.

Essentially the Dolomites proper in the background, with its flat bald peaks and clouds constantly hovering around each mountain.

Hilltop castle on the backside of the mountain. They are just so cool and scenic. All we have in Canada are cell towers.

Just about as full a view of Trento as you can get while descending back into town. It's actually quite large and has basically no tall buildings. Very strange.

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Passo Mendola

Not really one of the big named climbs in the region but you have to do it if you want to make a loop. That’s how it is now so far up north, there’s no way to make loops out of your rides other than to follow valleys ( which can be 200+km ) or cut across random 1000m+ passes that are just everywhere. It’s crazy how much infrastructure has been built up here over sometimes thousands of years, paving over what sometimes started as Roman roads.
By comparison Canada mostly had railroads until the late 19th century… It’s so sparsely ROADULATED.

To make this ride distance a little more reasonable I decided to take a train to save 20km.

Some regional trains have vertical bike hangers like this and some you just put your bike in some large empty area.

Arrival at the tiny station of San Michel. Already really scenic!

There is a long stretch of bike path from Trento to Bolzano that is almost tolerable and almost engineered by someone with a brain cell.

Almost in Bolzano now. I realize I took no pictures of that city. Well it looks like Trento, but more German. There.

Up Passo Mendola. Actually really amazing views of Bolzano from this one.

Again a little town at the top where you can refuel

More agriculture in the river valley going back south to Trento. Just feel so safe and protected in between the mountains.

Finally learned that red circle = Not allowed. Just put a diagonal line. You do it for "no smoking" signs. Stop being weird. Also is that an e-bike? Does that mean I'm allowed?

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Prato Di Nago

Was starting to feel more ambitious with my rides and knew I’d have a day off where we’d just travel to Badia. This climb looked pretty promising from the pjamm website, being one of the toughest in Italy. However that was just because it’s really steep and on crap roads. You get to 1500m elevation right next to Lake Garda and you can’t see anything at all from the peak, it’s quite a shame. Do the first 30% then turn back.

Finally stopped to see what they grew in all these orchards. Turns out: Apples. Apparently this region is famous for its apples.

Arriving at the bike cafe in the town up the climb from Riva Del Garda. Great view already!

About 400m on the climb now, best view of the lake you'll see! ( probably )

It just kept getting better and better as trees would randomly part to let me get a glimpse of the lake bellow.

But then after climbing 1300m with lots of 20% walls at the end you end up at... a parking lot.

There's people living up here too. This is a narrow 1.5 lane road that averages 10%. And you live here. Why. Why do people do this?

I see so many butterflies on all these rides btw.

This is one of the rare times I stopped to try and get pictures. I need to stop and enjoy nature more instead of just suffering and eating.

Last awesome view on the way down. You can even see the little tunnel holes along the lake. Now back to Trento!

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That was it for the pretty nice city of Trento. Unlike Bassano, I think Trento is large enough to be liveable. It’s also great that trains and buses can carry you and your bike further along the road so you can do more rides in different settings. I think I could have stayed a little bit more but after a week of riding you can cover a lot of distance.
Next up: Tourism in Trento.

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