Behold Lake Garda! Rounding the corner onto Quartiere Europa the lake, it's sheer cliffs on one side and overlooking hundreds of windsurfers off Riva del Garda, was like a smack in the face. After 40km of beautiful riding through Italian countryside from Trento (where the bike route goes through people's backyards and fights for space among vineyards and apple trees) the sudden lake view was a shock. The high vantage point is spectacular, hand to my mouth I was s...

This ride is one of the most satisfying and safest I've experienced. In fact I am sure the Italians have used tarmac originally meant for their roads (which are repaired in a kind of patchwork style) and used it on their cycle paths. We saw a cleaning crew mowing, whipper snipping and sweeping the path yesterday (I know!). Pathways are signposted with towns and distances, unlike Belgium (where they use a complicated unknown numbering system) or Holland (a confus...

A ride so good I want to do it again and again. Well one continuously good ride I should say. We pulled into Vipiteno just as the heavens opened and a hail storm came through. This morning however the weather is faultless as is the bike route. We've had everything, a mountain backdrop, climbs, flats, over bridges, through tunnels, into forests, past farms, through villages, alongside strawberry, corn, apple and plum orchards. Via dairy farms, next to creeks and r...

We're less than 30km this side of Italy and already I've had a pizza, several glasses of prosecco, said 'caio' and seen half a dozen pairs of shoes I would happily whip my credit card out for. We're in Vipiteno, a very cute, albeit cold, Italian village at the foot of the Austrian alps and Italian Dolomites. It doesn't feel entirely Italian yet, there's still German menus and Tirolean food everywhere but there's now a large number of wedge sneakers, deep tans and...

Somewhere about halfway up the Brenner Pass (1400 meters above sea-level and the lowest accessible point for cyclists to cross the Austrian alps into Italy) I had a chat with my glutes. 'Welcome glutes, so nice of you to join us. I was starting to think maybe I'd left you behind somewhere in a hotel, with forgotten remotes and odd socks, in a land far far away. But no, here you are at last! Sure it took a 1000m of climbing at a speed of 7km/hr, but you made it, ...