Tuscany (SW of Siena) advice please!

English John
English John Posts: 36
edited June 2014 in Tour & expedition
I am staying in Tuscany for 2 weeks in August, based in Stigliano (15 miles south West of Siena) and would like to hire a road bike and do some 30-50 mile morning rides, before the heat from the Sun and the family !
Has anyone got any advice on places to hire bikes from , and any good routes?
Any advice would be great
Cheers
John

Comments

  • apreading
    apreading Posts: 4,535
    Did a great ride through there last week: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/501234362

    Dont know about hire bikes, took my own.
  • English John
    English John Posts: 36
    Thanks for that route.
    If you have any more routes around the area , I would love to see then.

    I also wondered if you found a useful map for planning your routes , and whether the car drivers were careful around bikes?

    Cheers

    John
  • knedlicky
    knedlicky Posts: 3,097
    I’ve cycled most of the area west of a line roughly between Volterra and Grosseto, but I don’t think you can go really wrong wherever you choose to ride, including east of that line.
    I was using a map with scale 1:250,000 and found all small roads quiet, so had no problems with cars. Even slightly larger roads, like that between Cecina and Poggibonsi, were no problem but I’d avoid the busier main coast road and the Siena-Grosseto road.

    I had my own bike with me; I did consider hiring, but we were staying near the coast and the places I found where I could hire (Castellina in Chianti, Poggibonsi and San Gimignano, all N-NW of Siena), I decided were too far away to go pick up then later drop off a bike.
    But those locations may suit you as not so far away from where you’ll be. The tourist offices at each of those towns can provide the names and addresses of the shops with bike hire.

    I’ve since also found out there is a company called Eco-Rent, main-based at Cascina near Pisa but with bases in other Tuscany towns, who rent out bikes and scooters.
    If you are within 50 km of one of their rental bases (and I think they have a base in Siena) for a moderate charge will even bring the chosen item to your hotel, rented property or wherever - which seems a great idea.
    They have a webpage, incl. an English version.
  • apreading
    apreading Posts: 4,535
    +everything knedlicky said.

    I didnt plan routes as mine was a guided tour with Skedaddle, but looked at RideWithGPS beforehand, which would be good for planning and had already downloaded the routes onto my Garmin 800 (with free OSM Cycle maps) and cached the route and maps in ViewRanger on my iphone.

    I have other routes on my garmin account but all will get further away as we did a circular, staying somewhere different every night. As kned says, as long as you stay off the major routes, all the others are generally quiet roads and traffic is very good as they respect cyclists more than we do in the UK... There is one bit of my route which is part of the 'Strada Bianchi' (white roads, used by l'eroica) - because a bridge has been out for the last few months and we followed a detour. Generally the roads are much better than ours in the UK but because of a few stretches we did like this, it was recommended to use 25 or 28mm tyres.

    If you have to go to San Gimignano for bike hire then the bonus is the world champion ice cream shop in the centre...!
  • English John
    English John Posts: 36
    Thanks for your advice.
    I didn't realise that the l'eroica is in the area, fantastic

    I have seen that there is a bike shop in Siena that hires bikes , but I will look into Ecorent as well.

    I haven't looked specifically at the steepness of the hills, but I hope that I can get up everything with a normal compact double - which seems to be only option available.

    Cheers

    John
  • cycladelic
    cycladelic Posts: 641
    The Michelin website will show the local roads.

    Type in 'Siena' and a nearby place and you can then zoom in to see what's what...

    http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/web/Routes
    It's an uphill climb to the bottom
  • e17blade
    e17blade Posts: 215
    Having stayed around Siena a couple of times during August I would just like to confirm that, like you said, going out early to avoid the heat is absolutely imperative (from the sun that is, I can't comment on your family!)

    I was there two years ago and the temperature very quickly got up above 40°C each day. It may have been a freakish year, but I would not have wanted to be riding around in it.

    If you get out early enough though it will be amazing. Ride up to one of the hill towns, café stop, and back to the pool again. Lovely.

    Enjoy.

    Dave

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