Tuscany

navrig2
navrig2 Posts: 1,851
edited July 2014 in Tour & expedition
We are planning a cycle tour holiday next year with Tuscany as the target destination.

After considering the logistics of taking our own bikes and likely fitness level of my wife we reckon we would be better to hire bikes and stay in the same place planning day trips rather than an end to end cycle.

So I am looking for suggestions of a place to stay which has:

Bike hire reasonable close
Train station nearby so we could consider a train journey to extend the area we can cover
An interesting area and mixed terrain to get a good variety of routes

Any suggestions?

Comments

  • craker
    craker Posts: 1,739
    10 years ago Mrs C and I did a supported tour from Livorno down to Orbetello. Can't remember who we booked with but it was organised by the German tour operator Rad & Reisen (all the other folks on the tour were Germans and Austrians).

    Each day we cycled from one hotel to the next whilst our bags were carried for us. Up early for a breakfast of rolls and ham and cheese, then a 20-40 mile ride along the coast at our own pace. Minor roads, sandy tracks, dirt tracks if I recall. See a lovely beach? Stop for a bit. Beach bars a plenty (best left to the end of the day's riding). I'm not too keen on beach holidays but after a morning cycling through increasing heat it was a nice counterpoint. Evenings spent in nice towns along the Tuscan coast finding a restaurant and watching the sunset. I enjoyed that holiday :-)

    At the end of the trip they took us + bikes back to the airport (Pisa). We took out own (hardtails, knobbly tires) bikes, all the others by the looks of things hired step through European town bikes, no idea what else was available. (We hardly saw the others btw apart from nodding aquaintanceship at breakfast).

    Hope that's useful. I'd love to do it again, this time try to explore inland a bit too.
  • navrig2
    navrig2 Posts: 1,851
    Thanks for that Craker.

    We'll have a look at that site. A holiday like that was on the list but we didn't find anyone who did Tuscany (not that we have searched very hard so far).
  • jc4lab
    jc4lab Posts: 554
    https://www.explore.co.uk/holidays/cycle-tuscany

    Used these twice now for Poland & Morrocco Atlas Mountains and quite enjoyed them but I prefer DIIY usually..On my group the range of Age was about 35-50..Fairly easy cycling.Group tended to stay together at night for a binge meal which was good but did nothing for coming back home trimmer than before you went.....
    jc
  • slowbike
    slowbike Posts: 8,498
    Just come back from Tuscany - my longest ride was 18 miles and that had 2500 feet of climbing ... straight out of the campsite into a Cat3* climb - and that wasn't the top ... having got past the top and descended (twisty narrow roads so a fair bit of braking) the climb back up to the site was a Cat2* ...
    I was glad of my triple - 30 front and 32 rear cogs ... and glad I didn't have any baggage!



    *Strava categories
  • navrig2
    navrig2 Posts: 1,851
    jc4lab wrote:
    https://www.explore.co.uk/holidays/cycle-tuscany

    Used these twice now for Poland & Morrocco Atlas Mountains and quite enjoyed them but I prefer DIIY usually..On my group the range of Age was about 35-50..Fairly easy cycling.Group tended to stay together at night for a binge meal which was good but did nothing for coming back home trimmer than before you went.....

    That looks great!
  • andymiller
    andymiller Posts: 2,856
    There's a directory and google map of bike hire shops in Italy (with half a dozen around Toscana) on my website:

    http://italy-cyclin-guide.info

    The site also has lots of information about possible routes.

    As far as places with stations there are stations at Siena, Pisa and Firenze (and plenty of others). Siena would be my pick, but Grosseto is worth considering as a starting point for the Gran Tour della Maremma.

    Cicloposse in Pienza look like the would be worth checking out:

    http://www.cicloposse.com/
    Italy Cycling Guide
  • navrig2
    navrig2 Posts: 1,851
    andymiller wrote:
    There's a directory and google map of bike hire shops in Italy (with half a dozen around Toscana) on my website:

    http://italy-cyclin-guide.info

    The site also has lots of information about possible routes.

    As far as places with stations there are stations at Siena, Pisa and Firenze (and plenty of others). Siena would be my pick, but Grosseto is worth considering as a starting point for the Gran Tour della Maremma.

    Cicloposse in Pienza look like the would be worth checking out:

    http://www.cicloposse.com/


    Thanks Andy

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