lake garda -monte baldo

It's pretty steady, mostly under 10%, and a nice route. It took me about 2:45 to get from Torbole to highest point, with about 2 hours on the climb proper. Here's the route I did last summer:

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?lnk=http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pdw/cycle-routes/gpx/20110813-montebaldo.gpx

A few notes from my ride...

There's a decent cycle track out from Torbole to the base of the climb at Mori which avoids the main road. The toughest bit of the climb is from Brentico to San Giacomo, but it's still pretty steady.

There's a fountain hidden in the back of a car park on the left in San Giacomo (see squiggle on GPS track) which if you're stupid enough to do it in the middle of the day like I did will be much needed!

There's a cafe at the peak (Rifugio Graziani). Sadly the views of the lake are a pretty limited from the road. The cafe is at the base of the gravel track climb to the top of Mt Altissimo. If you go a bit further, you get to the road up to the cable car station, but the last mile of that is also gravel.

As you'll know if you've been before, the lake side road is horrible, and particularly the bit from Malcesine to Torbole which has a number of unlit tunnels, so you'd do well to either come back down the way you came, or if you want to make a loop grab a ferry back to Riva.

I'm afraid I can't help with the bike hire - I was lucky enough to be able to take my own bikes - road and mountain I know there's plenty of choice for MTB hire, but I've no idea what the deal is with road bike hire.

I've been about 4 times to various towns on the lake - I didn't feel that the lake road is horrible but it can obviously be pretty busy at times and not where I'd choose to ride other than to access the roads heading away from the lake itself.
I found road bike hire in Arco, just up from Torbole - i recall that there might have been 1 or 2 other places that also hired them but MTBs are much more common, at worst you could use one of these - if you've your own slick MTB tyres maybe fit these to make the ride a bit more pleasant - doesn't take much time to swap over 2 tyres. Also remember your shoes and pedals spanner maybe if spds are fitted and these don't match your own shoes.
From Riva, which is close to Torbole where I stayed about 9 years ago, you can go up the Passo Folgario which is also North of the Lake. A beast of a climb. Folgaria NE of Rovereto. Would be mighty hard work on anything other than a decent road bike mind !

Hire - try googling for noleggio bici corsa : eg http://www.gardabikeshop.com/en/-garda- ... ride-.html.