Italy Bike Hotels any experiences

Ive booked up for the Belvedere for end of September. Recommended via someone i know who says its a top hotel. I'm taking the family so the appeal for me is that have plenty to keep wife and son occupied whilst i'm out on the bike. The welness centre looks superb. Theres also the c+ article on this hotel which should be on the hotels website.

I've stayed at the Gemma and at the Adlon in Riccione, as well as a bike-hotel at Cervia (on the other side of Rimini) and found them all good and welcoming and a good deal. I'd guess, irrespective which hotel you choose, you can't really go wrong.

The food was best in the Gemma (where you could also breakfast and dine outdoors which I liked) but in the other hotels the food was fine too, and particularly plentiful at the Adlon, especially their afternoon snacks. The Gemma had a more mixed clientele, which I liked - you didn't feel the place was exclusively in the control of cyclists, and it had a swimming pool (though some other bike hotels have one too). A big minus point for the Gemma, however, was that the bike room was in the cellar, which meant carrying one's bike up and down a dozen steepish steps each day.

At the Gemma we weren't enough to form different groups, so some days I ended up with my own private guide (with no extra cost), while other days we joined a group from another hotel - both had advantages. One day with the group, we cycled out into the country to a top-class restaurant in a renovated 500 years-old farmhouse, where we were given a surprise 5-course meal with wine, all for for free. I never found out why - maybe so we'd go back home and report how well we were treated?

At the Adlon and the Cervia hotels, there were many cyclists staying the week I was, allowing I think 3 different ability groups at each hotel, but you could change your group from day to day depending on your mood or whether you wanted to spend that day riding with the wife/girlfriend in her group. Or depending on the group's route and destination - by the last time I went, I had some ideas of routes and destinations to have my own likes and preferences about them. Some chose not to ride in a group or with a guide, simply used the route cards which you get provided.

My three visits have all been in May, and all three hotels were on the seafront (just a pedestrian way between hotel and beach), dead handy to the beach for runs in the early morning and relaxing on the beach in the late afternoon, after a ride. For my next visit I'll probably try somewhere new and toss up between the Belvedere (of which I've heard good) and the Arizona (this because of its direct accessibility to the beach).

unfitguy wrote:

Secondly what the terrain like i ruptured my calf muscle last week playing squash and will be doing very low intensity stuff

I think you ought to address your injury before flying off on a cycling holiday. See a physio and get that muscle fixed first.

Bin

What andyp said. The Belvedere website is here

I have stayed there twice. I'd recommend that you go in spring or Autumn - not June - August. Summer's too hot for 10km climbs :oops: and the hotel has plenty of beach holiday clientele at that time and is less focused on ciclisti.

The food is really excellent - their chef is a gem.

Good decisionmate. Good luck with the physio. You'll enjoy the holiday much more with that muscle fixed.

Bin