CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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 622 km round trip from Capo di Ponte - roughly 13 h 32 in the saddle. It goes by way of Molina di Ledro, Dolomiti di Brenta, Rio delle Foglie and Marmolada. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 81 km this is Great Dolomites Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Several thousand years of people have been scratching pictures onto the rocks of Val Camonica, and the oldest are thought to be roughly eight thousand years old. The valley runs north from Lake Iseo in Lombardy, following the Oglio river up to the Tonale pass, and its glacier-polished sandstone slabs turned out to be an ideal canvas. The Camuni, an Iron Age people, carved thousands of figures: hunters, deer, warriors, ploughs, huts, dancing figures and a swirling sun-like motif that is now the emblem of the Lombardy region, the Rosa Camuna. In 1979 this became Italy's first World Heritage site.
Read the complete Parco Archeologico Nazionale dei Massi di write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Parco Archeologico Nazionale dei Massi di is where the day begins. Next is Molina di Ledro.
In 1929, when the level of Lake Ledro was lowered to feed a hydroelectric plant, thousands of wooden posts emerged from the mud near Molina di Ledro. They were the remains of a Bronze Age pile-dwelling village, inhabited some four thousand years ago, and the finds included pottery, tools, weapons, and a canoe. Molina di Ledro is part of the UNESCO-listed Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, and the Museo delle Palafitte, on the lake shore, displays the finds alongside reconstructed huts on stilts.
Read the complete Molina di Ledro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Molina di Ledro comes up about 94 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dolomiti di Brenta.
The Brenta Dolomites stand apart from the rest of the Dolomites, a separate range west of the Adige valley, and they look as if they were carved by someone with a taste for drama: sheer walls, needle-sharp spires and long ledges of pale limestone glowing pink at dawn and dusk. The range is part of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage site, listed in 2009, and it is protected within the Adamello Brenta Nature Park, home to brown bears, which were reintroduced here from Slovenia around the turn of the millennium.
Read the complete Dolomiti di Brenta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 154 km into the recorded legs you reach Dolomiti di Brenta. Next is Rio delle Foglie.
Rio delle Foglie is the Italian name for the Bletterbach, a gorge that cuts deep into the plateau above the Adige valley, south of Bolzano, near the villages of Aldino and Redagno. It is part of the Dolomites World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2009, and it is one of the best places in the Alps to read the history of the Earth in rock. The stream has carved down through hundreds of metres of layers, from volcanic porphyry at the bottom through red sandstones to the white dolomite of the Corno Bianco at the top, spanning tens of millions of years.
Read the complete Rio delle Foglie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rio delle Foglie, about halfway. Next is Marmolada.
The Queen of the Dolomites, they call her, and the Marmolada earns the title: at 3,343 metres, Punta Penia is the highest summit of the range, and its northern flank carries the largest glacier in the Dolomites, while the south face drops away as a sheer wall of pale limestone. That glacier is shrinking fast, and in July 2022 a large section of it collapsed, killing eleven climbers, a tragedy that brought the effects of climate change home to everyone who loves these mountains.
Read the complete Marmolada write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Marmolada sits at 204 km, about halfway. Next is back through Rio delle Foglie.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rio delle Foglie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rio delle Foglie comes up about 393 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Dolomiti di Brenta.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dolomiti di Brenta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 470 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Dolomiti di Brenta. Next is back through Molina di Ledro.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Molina di Ledro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Molina di Ledro, late in the day. Next is Parco Archeologico Nazionale dei Massi di.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Parco Archeologico Nazionale dei Massi di write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 622 km.
Parco Archeologico Nazionale dei Massi di → Molina di Ledro is 94 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Molina di Ledro → Dolomiti di Brenta is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dolomiti di Brenta → Rio delle Foglie is 77 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rio delle Foglie → Marmolada is 81 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Marmolada → back through Rio delle Foglie is 81 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rio delle Foglie → back through Dolomiti di Brenta is 77 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dolomiti di Brenta → back through Molina di Ledro is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Molina di Ledro → Parco Archeologico Nazionale dei Massi di is 94 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.