(More than) Eroica bikepacking

Tuscany

228km ↔️

5 days 📅

63% unpaved 🚵‍♂️

4000m D+ ↗️

4000m D- ↘️

612m asl ⛰

🗺 Gaiole in Chianti (SI)

📅 February – November

Activities

🔎 Overview

Tuscany. The overview might end here as well, is there really something more to be said?

Tuscany is the THE LAND to do a cycling trip! Breathtaking panoramas, a constant up and down along its beautiful hard-packed gravelly hills. You look on your right and you see vast extentes of yellow fields, you take a look on your left and you see the brightest blue sky of Italy, you look forward and gather at long lines of cypresses.

We reached a small medieval village on top of a lovely hill a stone’s throw from Gaiole -in the Chianti Wine area 🍷- to spend the first night, to be able to start early the day after. Our aim was to pedal in the mornings and to spend the afternoons and evengings savouring the cities of Tuscany, its archtitecture, art and history (as well as the delicious tuscanian food 🍴).

The aim of the first day was Siena. UNESCO World Heritage city widely known for its Palio, the horse race in the main square of the city, as old as medioeval time.

The second day has offered the landscapes Tuscany is famous for: loads of Strade Bianche (white roads). Kms upon kms of white gravel roads that cut through vineyards and corn fields, linking together ancient medioeval hilltop towns like our aim for the day: Montalcino, famous for its red wine, yet again, the Tuscan hills are jaw dropping and when you see Montalcino on top of its own hill you just say wow, you’ll have no other words to say.

The third day was about pedalling through the Val d’Orcia Valley to reach Buonconvento, home of the Nova Eroica races. Since this day we mostly left the uphill part of the journey for a sweeter up-and-down rolling that brought us back to Gaiole.

We really recommend you to do this trip in 5 days like us, if you want to visit the citites and all their little treasures 😄

👀 Our advices

Carry with you a mosquito/horsefly spray because you will need it.

If you follow our tour exactly how we did it, make sure to have 45mm (or more) and tubeless, as the first rocky bit is quite demanging on the bike, but really wild, we loved it!

📸 Points of interest

Gaiole in Chianti
— official starting point of the Eroica event, they also have an Eroica shop

Rocky segment after Gaiole
— really rough, if you don’t feel safe to tackle it, just stay on the main road, you will rejoin the tour a couple kms later

Cypresses
—everywhere really, and everytime they are a gift

Siena
—the whole city really, its ancient walls, dome, square, entrances, everything!

Fields
—look left and right while cycling here, the fields are poetry

Montalcino
—jaw-dropping ancient little town on top of a romantic hill (also with an Eroica shop)

Val d’Orcia valley
—Tuscany as seen in movies

Buonconvento
—pretty medioeval town, official starting point of the NOVA Eroica event

Strade Bianche
—everywehere really, on komoot they are traced are roads but most of them are hard-packed white roads

Fabian Cancellara’s Strade Bianche segment
—the Strade Bianche is also a well-known road bike race, similar to those races in northern Europe, just in Italy 🙂 and the most famous egment is the one dedicated to Fabian Cancellara

Crete Senesi
—peculiar earth formations worth seeing

Photo Gallery

Developed by: Ian