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.
From Cortina d'Ampezzo it runs 137 km to Cortina d'Ampezzo; allow about 2 h 47 of riding. The stops in between: Pelmo-Croda da Lago, Marmolada and back through Pelmo-Croda da Lago. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
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.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
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 is where the day begins. Next is 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.
Read the complete Pelmo-Croda da Lago write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pelmo-Croda da Lago comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach Marmolada. Next is back through Pelmo-Croda da Lago.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pelmo-Croda da Lago write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pelmo-Croda da Lago, late in the day. Next is 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 at The Dolomites. That is the ride.
The Dolomites → Pelmo-Croda da Lago is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pelmo-Croda da Lago → Marmolada is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Marmolada → back through Pelmo-Croda da Lago is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pelmo-Croda da Lago → The Dolomites is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.