From Trento to Bassano del Grappa

9 August 2021

After a rest day in Trento to get our energy back, we set about closing the loop by riding the cycle path that in 2020 won the press award of the “Italian Green Roads Award,” the Italian Oscar of cycle tourism: the Valsugana cycle path. We are very curious, and the idea of closing the loop with a very beautiful route intrigues us a lot. There’s only one small problem: to get into the Valsugana from Trento you have to climb over a pass at 730 m above sea level, starting from the 190 m of Trento, in about 7 km.

The start

In the morning we wake up a little dazed: we’ve been eating and drinking quite a bit in the evenings and our sleep isn’t benefiting. After a quick breakfast, we say goodbye and arrange to meet our friend Cesare in Bassano. He’s been sharing the trip with us by moving between the various stages by car. And we set off. After a few km in the center, we arrive at the foot of the climb, and it’s already very tough: a 13% cobbled stretch — and we’re still in the center. We decide to push the bike to avoid killing ourselves on the cobbles with cold legs. After a few hundred meters, though, the asphalt comes back, and we have no more excuses: we start pedaling. And it’s 7 truly tough km, where we rarely drop below 7% gradient and instead touch 18 / 20%.

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It really is a brute, we have 400 km in our legs, the bikes are heavy and it’s also very hot. But pedal stroke after pedal stroke, between one laugh and the next (which, fortunately, were never lacking), we make it all the way up to the pass. We’re at 730 m of altitude, reached perhaps even in less than 7 km! We are wrecked, but the prospect of doing just as many km downhill cheers us up. So we throw ourselves into the asphalted descent, convinced we’ll have a triumphal route all the way to Lake Caldonazzo without pushing a single pedal. And instead, after a few hundred meters, we discover the truth: almost all of the descent is on cobbled cart tracks at impossible gradients, which force us to get off and walk. So much for the triumphal descent!

With no small amount of effort, though, we make it all the way to the bottom, and the prize of the beauty of Lake Caldonazzo is worth the toil.

The Grand Finale

Skirting Lake Caldonazzo along the very pleasant cycle path, we arrive at the beginning of the famous and long-awaited Valsugana cycle path. And there we discover a world. The cycle path follows the Brenta from where it forms, and winds for 80 km of incredible beauty. Everything is looked after, everything is clean, there is so much green, trees, flowers, and this splendid river that in many places is comparable to a mountain stream with little waterfalls over the rocks. It’s like pedaling through a delightful Japanese garden.

We feel good, and we’re happy. We pedal cheerfully above 20 km/h and rack up the road quickly, enjoying the scenery that’s always changing and full of surprises. We don’t make many stops, just a break in Borgo Valsugana and then at one of the many “bici grill” (bike rest stops) along the cycle path to grab a sandwich, but otherwise we enjoy the enchanted route, messing around every so often 😊.

The finale is a crescendo. At the end of the cycle path begins a route through splendid villages along the Brenta, including the beautiful Valstagna.

We arrive in Bassano without feeling the 100 km we’ve covered at all, and we are happy. It was an amazing trip, fun and full of colors. Vincenzo and I — who was the perfect road companion for me — know that it was also a journey of the soul, because that’s how the bike is: it makes you unload the ballast of the mind and lets you find what you aren’t looking for when you least expect it. The important thing is to keep going, never mind the gradient.

Thank you to Vincenzo for sharing this trip with me — I would never have made it without you, and in any case it wouldn’t have been so much fun. Thank you to Cesare who, unable to pedal with us, followed us by car just to share with us some precious moments together.

The track

→ Giro_delle_Dolomiti_Day_6_Da_Trento_a_Bassano_del_Grappa.gpx