Valerio Stuart wanted to go and visit his family in Tuscany, but didn’t want to go the easy way and just fly directly there from his home in the UK. Instead, he travelled much further south in Italy and then plotted a gravel bikepacking route back up the country towards his destination. Would he get mauled by sheep dogs, succumb to malnutrition or get wiped out by an errant car driver before he reached his destination? You’d better read on if you want to find out….

I’m Valerio, born and raised in Italy and living in Manchester, UK since 2014. Despite coming from a country where cycling is huge and from a region known for its Strade Bianche, I never had any interest in cycling growing up. Just like many, I picked up cycling during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2021 to get me outside my apartment and the city. In 2022 I tried bikepacking for the first time after spending hours and hours watching YouTube videos of epic bikepacking races and adventures and I loved it. 

I love traveling and visiting new places but having family living abroad has significantly reduced the opportunities to do it as I typically use days off work to visit my parents. 

In October 2022 I found myself with a couple of weeks off between jobs and I decided to make the most of this opportunity and start drafting a list of places I could explore by bike in the United Kingdom. However, the weather in the UK is typically sub-optimal for cycling in Autumn and my – slightly traumatic and Lyme disease ridden - experience along the Badger Dividecomes back to haunt me while planning. Traveling by train with a bike can also be tricky in the UK, as well as significantly expensive as ticket prices for a return journey to Scotland or the South are well over £150. 

My little evil brain comes up with a thought – the weather is typically nice in Italy in Autumn. I try to shut that thought down but travelling to Italy would mean seeing my family and friends who I had not seen since early in the year and would not get to see till Christmas. I would like that. My brain has another thought - I could get to see my folks and get to explore new places by bike if I flew somewhere that wasn’t the nearest airport to my parents’ place. I open a flight search engine and look for the cheapest destination I could fly to in Italy, hoping it won’t be Sicily or the Alps. It’s Pescara. It’s in Central Italy. The ticket price was insanely low at £20 and the flight was in a couple of days. Deal. 

The planning 

I opened my GPX editor and started looking for options and places to see while connecting the start and end points. There were some very famous rides on beautiful tarmac roads in central Italy – e.g. Gran Sasso and Campo Imperatore which have featured in the Giro d’Italia, but I was after the wild side of the region and quiet gravel tracks. Fortunately for me, Bikepacking.com and the guys at Montanus have exactly what I need: The Wolf’s Lair and Bikepacking Sibillini routes. Both were in Central Italy and I could link up parts of those routes to get me home. Neither of the two routes were particularly suitable for a gravel bike with narrow-ish tyres like mine but riding gravel in the UK has taught me to embrace being under-biked and I’m happy to take a beating for a rewarding landscape. 

For the first time I wouldn’t be bikepacking along a well-trodden route set by someone else which was very exciting and scary at the same time. I came up with a 400km and nearly 9,000m+ route on a mix of gravel, singletrack and tarmac. I gave myself four days for the ride knowing that with my fitness level and limited experience it was going to be a challenge. The parts of the route that followed the tracks of the Montanus duo were well documented, but the rest of the route was a bit of an unknown and I’m not a fan of endless hike-a-bikes. 

Considering the terrain, climbing and unpredictable weather I decide to keep my set-up as light as possible and left the tent and sleeping system at home. I don’t like the idea of having a must-reach point at the end of each day, but I decide to pre-book accommodation instead of just looking for places to sleep during the ride. Crucially, this happened to be the right choice as it turned out that hotels and guest houses were few and very far apart from one another and I had to tweak the route slightly for this reason. 

The journey begins

Day One started as with my two previous bikepacking trips - arriving to the location late at night, staying up even later to assemble the bike out of the cardboard box while praying that it survived the trip in one piece and then waking up early after little sleep to start my journey. At least this time the weather forecast looked good. Almost too good to be true! 

I took a train out of Pescara to avoid some tarmac through urban areas and get me to the village of Torre de’ Passeri. From there, I picked up the Wolf’s Lair route which does not disappoint - I soon spotted wolf tracks and the carcasses of some sheep. Temperatures quickly rose above 25 degrees C and it only took a couple of climbs to get me soaked in sweat. Apart from when I cycle through a couple of villages early in the day, I do not see a soul until I got to Ristoro Mucciante in Campo Imperatore. This ristoro was usually packed with visitors during summer but it was now deserted and just about to close. Thankfully, they take pity on me and made me a couple of panini and I also buy bread and dry sausages so that I have something to eat should I not find food later on. My destination for the day was Calascio which was still several miles away. 

The golden hour on Campo Imperatore was simply amazing. There’s a reason why some Spaghetti Westerns were filmed in the area. Despite repeatedly stopping to take photos I made it to Calascio by 7pm and checked-in at the B&B. Being a Monday night in a tiny village I quickly realised that I’m not going to get any food there, but my host points me in the direction of a wine/aperitivo bar that serves food and was open for another 30min. Despite being pretty busy with locals – and food being still served in front of my eyes – the unhelpful waiter at the bar sends me away as they were “about to close”. I tried to explain the situation and that I didn’t have any other options for food but he wouldn’t listen and so I left, shocked by the lack of empathy but glad that I had bought some food earlier. 

As I was leaving one of the customers from the bar caught up with me outside – while mumbling some not friendly remarks to the waiter for his lack of hospitality – and told me that there was a sandwich place nearby and he would call to ensure it was still open! Great news - the shop was open. I thanked the guy for his help and got on my way. Except that when I get to the sandwich shop the lights were off and the door was shut. I looked at the “Aperto” (Open) sign clueless about what to do, but I was soon joined by an old man with an eccentric goatee. 

He apologised for making me wait, opened the door and turned the lights on and welcomed me inside. As I stepped inside, I realised this was no ordinary sandwich shop – it was more like a rural museum displaying all sort of old farming tools and old photos. For those that are not familiar with Abruzzo, the region is known for farming and lamb is one of the staples of the local cuisine. Here I was with the place all by myself and the owner giving me a personal tour, clearly super-proud of his treasures. Fortunately for me he was as good on the grill as he was with memorabilia and I shortly devoured three massive sandwiches with grilled cheese, meat and vegetables. If you happen to be in Calascio, please visit the little gem that is “Pane Amaro” - you won’t regret it. 

Day Two – rubble, sausages and sheep dogs.

After a good night’s sleep, I was back on the bike and made my way up to the old castle (Rocca) at the top of Calascio, the village still quiet and the narrow streets empty. Once at the Rocca I had to make sure I was not hallucinating as I found myself in the middle of a fashion photoshoot with photographers, staff and models running around and music blasting from a speaker. They were as surprised to see a cyclist as I was to see them and after a short walk around the castle I decided to get going and be out of their way. 

The second day carried on in a similar fashion to the first one, with almost not a soul along the route apart from a couple of e-bikers who tried to persuade me to leave the off-road route and take the main tarmac road. Even when I rode through some villages, I found them deserted with buildings boarded up and still showing the scars from the last earthquake. The few locals that hadn’t left the area in the aftermath of the earthquake, still lived in prefabricated homes. At that point I understood why I couldn’t find any accommodation on Booking.com along the route, with some villages shown on Google Maps being reduced to a pile of rubble in real life. 

Once again, I didn’t have any opportunity to resupply for food during the day, fortunately I had that stale bread and dry sausages with me...now almost cooked after being against my sweaty warm back for hours. I stopped to eat along the road next to a tiny chapel and I was soon joined by three fluffy looking shepherd dogs that seem more interested in the sausages than cuddles. I was not keen to share nor wait for the dogs to decide to help themselves and so I jumped back on the bike and had the rest of lunch while riding. Once I got to Amatrice – hit by a 6.2 magnitude quake in 2016 that claimed the lives of hundreds of people - I only had a tarmac road between me and my bed and so I put my head down and got to Aquasanta Terme before sunset. The good thing about staying in Aquasanta was that this time I had the luxury of choosing where to eat and finally try some of the famous lamb skewers. 

Day Three – Riding through the Kyrgyzstan of Europe

Day Three started with relatively cold temperatures and a 25km long climb which took me from 400m up to 1,800m a.s.l. As far as warm-ups go...this was brutal! I stopped outside Rifugio Belvedere for a break, looking at my now nearly empty feed bags with just a couple of oat and almonds bars left from my initially generous stock. The views from the Forca di Presta pass, at 1,550m were truly spectacular and I would love to visit the Piana di Castelluccio again when the fields were in full bloom. 

I spent another blissful day crunching gravel and admiring beautiful open landscapes. If you live in Europe and can’t afford to get to Kyrgyzstan, I suggest you consider this part of central Italy for your travels. Crossing the Apennine mountains proved to be tough and with my tyres having seen better days, punctures were now coming thick and fast on some fast-flowing descents. “Perhaps I should have changed the rear tyre when that fence nail went through it back in the Peak District” I told myself. “Or the front tyre after it burped hitting a nasty pothole on the Tuscany Trail and the side wall got damaged”. It didn’t matter at this point. Fortunately, the sealant eventually did its job and I made it to the town of Visso that night. Knowing that the next day would be mostly on tarmac I heaved a sigh of relief. 

Day Four – Heading home via the tourist trail

The fourth and final day of my journey would see me crossing the region of Umbria – I claimed the #UmbriaDivide hashtag – and getting to Tuscany. Fully aware that it was going to be a big day, I set the alarm at 5am, prepared the bike and hit the road early. A final 160km push was between me and home and I was determined to make it despite the temptation of bailing out at one of the train stations along the route. 

In stark contrast to the previous days, I was now back into civilisation. Following the footsteps of St Francis along the Via Francigena, I reached the city of Assisi, bustling with tourists and eventually got to Perugia. Once I reached Perugia my next milestone was Lake Trasimeno, which I reached right in time for sunset. Stunning. I was now close, really close to home. At that point I got a call from my brother who offered to come and pick me up and would not understand why I insisted on carrying on riding at night having already cycled for days. But I’m a stubborn bastard and I was not going to throw the towel with less than 20kms to go. 

While riding along the last familiar stretch of gravel, childhood memories started coming back from times when I would embark on a mission with friends to reach Lake Trasimeno, go fishing and playing. The Lake was now very different, much smaller and more polluted. What once was a little harbour was now a patch of grass with abandoned boats and the stench of dead fish could be smelled in places. We only have ourselves to blame for this. 

I was now racing against my nearly dead front light. Fortunately, I made it to the finish line just before the battery ran out completely. I was at the train station in Terontola, my virtual finish line. There was a plaque dedicated to Gino Bartali who would often stop at this train station during his training sessions. He would smuggle fake IDs and documents in his seat post to help Jews escaping to safety, at a time when Italy was ruled by a Fascist government, allied with Nazi Germany. 

I took the ritual photos and selfies - not without stares from passengers awaiting at the platform, understandably not impressed by the sight (and smell) of this sweaty and muddy cyclist. 

It was time to stop the Garmin, save the ride and go home. What an adventure. I was over the moon but also pretty exhausted and on the last few hundred metres I let my guard down and nearly got run over by a car. Fortunately, this story ends with a cheesy finale, hugs and tears and not a plot twist with me in hospital: “Mum I’m home!” 

Lessons Learnt 

I really encourage people to consider breaking down trips that they have done by train or plane and doing part of the journey by bike. A trip doesn’t necessarily have to be strictly by bike OR by another mean of transport. I really enjoyed researching and planning my route and embarking in this adventure and I am now considering making this a yearly occurrence when visiting family. Looking forward to seeing in which random airport I’ll land at next time! 

Trip stats: 

425km distance - 9.000m+ climbing - 40-60 road/off-road - 3d 10hrs elapsed time 

Bike and bags:

• Cinelli Zydeco Lala XL

• Crankset: 46/32T

• Cassette: 11-40

• Wheels: DT Swiss GT1800 with Pirelli Cinturato M 40mm tyres
• Groupset: Shimano Sora 9speed 
• Brakes: Tektro disc (mechanical)

• Bags: frame and saddle bags from Restrap, top tube bag by Miss Grape and feed bags from Decathlon
• Bike weight: 12.5kg + 9.5kg bags + 3kg Salomon hydration vest