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 454 km round trip from Nova Levante - roughly 7 h 40 in the saddle. The stops in between: The Dolomites, Palù di Livenza - Santissima and back through The Dolomites. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 101 km this is Passo di Giau · Dolomites, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Watch the Rosengarten at sunset from the valley of Bolzano and you will understand the legend. As the sun goes down, the pale dolomite peaks glow pink, then red, then purple, a phenomenon the Ladin people call enrosadira. According to the old story, King Laurin of the dwarves had a magnificent rose garden here, and when he was captured by enemies who had spotted his roses, he cursed the garden so that no one would see it by day or by night. He forgot the twilight, and so, for a few minutes each evening, the roses bloom again on the rocks. Together with the Sciliar, or Schlern, the great flat-topped massif to the north, the Catinaccio forms one of the components of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage site, listed in 2009.
Read the complete Sciliar-Catinaccio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sciliar-Catinaccio is where the day begins. Next is 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.
Read the complete The Dolomites write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Dolomites comes up about 101 km into the recorded legs. Next is Palù di Livenza - Santissima.
At the foot of the Cansiglio plateau, where the Friulian mountains meet the plain, the river Livenza is born from springs of cold, clear water that rise from the limestone, and a little sanctuary, the Santissima, stands right by the source, surrounded by water. Not far away, in a marshy basin called the Palù di Livenza, archaeologists found the remains of a prehistoric pile dwelling settlement, with wooden posts, tools and pottery preserved in the wet ground for thousands of years. It is one of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps listed by UNESCO, a series of more than a hundred sites in six countries that tell the story of farming communities living on the edges of lakes and marshes from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age.
Read the complete Palù di Livenza - Santissima write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 227 km into the recorded legs you reach Palù di Livenza - Santissima. Next is back through The Dolomites.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Dolomites write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Dolomites, late in the day. Next is Sciliar-Catinaccio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sciliar-Catinaccio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Sciliar-Catinaccio. That is the ride.
Sciliar-Catinaccio → The Dolomites is 101 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Dolomites → Palù di Livenza - Santissima is 126 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Palù di Livenza - Santissima → back through The Dolomites is 124 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Dolomites → Sciliar-Catinaccio is 103 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.