Italy: 4 Monte Grappa road bike tours - Around Monte Grappa by road bike
Way back there, somewhere in the south-east, must be Venice. Well, the direction is right anyway. But stop, shield your eyes with your hand and take a closer look? Not a thought. A thousand metres above the Po Valley and in the middle of a killer ramp on the southern slope of the Grappa, you're just happy if the front wheel sticks to the ground and stays on track. The provincial road 141 is as narrow as a German cycle path in places. We have just overtaken two Italians who were pushing uphill on cleats. Stop now and make a fool of yourself by saying "we just wanted to have a look at Venice"? Certainly not!
Many people have worked their way up Monte Grappa, and probably very few of them as voluntarily as cyclists today. The many roads to the top are largely a legacy of the First World War. From one side, the Italians transported tens of thousands of soldiers to the summit, while Austria-Hungary did the same from the other side. They were joined by building materials, cannons and supplies. Again and again, for months. Then the armies fired at each other, ending thousands of young lives. The monumental memorial on the summit of Monte Grappa alone honours 22,000 fallen soldiers. The supply routes remained and are now tarmac. Resourceful marketers have summarised the "10 plus 1 climbs" to Monte Grappa in a brochure. It encourages racing cyclists to tackle all of them in one season, for which an award beckons. The so-called "climb of heroes" is also included, a variant with a gradient of up to 26 per cent. Almost a hundred years after the organised mass extinction, the conquest of Monte Grappa has finally become recreational fun - macabre, perhaps, but undoubtedly a step forward.
You can download the entire travel article and the GPS data for these tours below:
- Tour 1: One hundred kilometres flat (101 kilometres, 500 metres in altitude, max. 5 % gradient)
- Tour 2: The seven municipalities (82 kilometres, 1,300 metres in altitude, max. 11 % gradient)
- Tour 3: The long ridge (98 kilometres, 2,100 metres in altitude, max. 17 % gradient)
- Tour 4: Monte Grappa from the east (82 kilometres, 2,000 metres in altitude, max. 16 % gradient)
