Dolomiti Friulane e d`Oltre Piave and The Dolomites
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
219 km
Riding-time estimate
4 h 25
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 219 km round trip from Cimolais - roughly 4 h 25 in the saddle. It goes by way of Pelmo-Croda da Lago, The Dolomites and back through Pelmo-Croda da Lago. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Scenic road chapters
Passo di Giau · Dolomites
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 25 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Rider note
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Chapter facts
Length
46 km
Named road
Passo di Giau · Dolomites
Pass
Passo Falzarego
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Dolomiti Friulane e d`Oltre Piave
The Friulian Dolomites are the quiet cousins of the famous peaks around Cortina, and that is precisely their charm. West of the Tagliamento, between the Piave and the Friulian plain, these rugged limestone mountains rise in jagged ridges and pinnacles, with deep valleys and very few roads. They are part of the UNESCO Dolomites site and form the Parco Naturale delle Dolomiti Friulane, a wild area of forests, gorges and rock towers, including the extraordinary Campanile di Val Montanaia, a needle of rock standing alone in a high valley like a stone bell tower. Chamois, ibex, golden eagles and marmots live here, and the silence on the high trails is profound.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Dolomiti Friulane e d`Oltre Piave is where the day begins. Next is Pelmo-Croda da Lago.
2. Pelmo-Croda da Lago
Monte Pelmo is the mountain that looks like a throne. Its huge limestone mass, rising to 3,168 metres, has two summits linked by a great curved basin, and the people of the Cadore call it the Caregon del Padreterno, the armchair of God. It stands alone between the valleys of the Boite and the Fiorentina, and in 1857 it became the first major Dolomite peak to be climbed, by the Irish naturalist John Ball. Across the valley, the jagged towers of the Croda da Lago rise above the little Lago Federa, and the two together form one of the components of the Dolomites World Heritage site.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Pelmo-Croda da Lago comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Dolomites.
3. The Dolomites
North of Cortina d'Ampezzo, the valley narrows between walls of pale rock, and the road toward Dobbiaco threads through a landscape that looks almost too dramatic to be real. Here, between the Cristallo group to the east and the high plateaus of Fanes and Sennes to the west, you are in the heart of the Dolomites, the mountains UNESCO inscribed in 2009 for their extraordinary beauty and geology. The rock is dolomite, a magnesium-rich limestone formed from ancient coral reefs in a tropical sea some two hundred and fifty million years ago, and the way it catches the evening light, turning pink and orange, has a name of its own in the local Ladin language: enrosadira.