il lombardi
In september 2019 after two days of riding high alpine roads in Switzerland (check out the "giants of switzerland" story) my wife and I headed to Bellagio at the beautiful lake Como in Italy. The whole region in general but the small town of Bellagio especially is a really picturesque and also quite historic place. Famous people like JFK and Charles Chaplin used to hang out there and in regard to cycling the giro di lombardia, one of the five roadcylcing monuments takes place in the area every year since 1905 (except two years during ww2). So after one day of living the pensioner lifestyle and regenerating with pasta and gelato did a small loop along the most famous parts of the giro di lombardia course. Starting from Bellagio it immediatly goes up, but luckily not to intense with a few flat parts in between to regenerate. The top of this first section is at the famous Madonna di Ghisallo which is a small church dedicated to the patron saint of cycling. There is also a cycling history museum right next to the church with original bikes and equipment from the historic days of roadcycling. Right next to the church some old Italian cyclists asked us if we are planning on riding the "Muro Sormano". An old road about 2 km long and extremely steep (15,8% average gradient and parts with over 27%) and therefore the most epic key part of the Giro di Lombardia race. We didn't really know about it at that moment, so we just said yes to the Italian guys, and they just said "very strong" and we could see through their reaction that there must be something exciting coming up. We were pretty curious, or let's say scared from that point on. From the Madonna di Ghisallo we descended down for a while before another climb started. At the beginning it is a rather normal climb up to the town of Sormano, but once we've reached the village we already saw the remains of past races like paintings on the road and signs right next to it. After the town you can either follow the road which is a bit longer up to the top but with a rather decent gradient compared, or you turn left into the epic Muro Sormano which I did and it was brutal to be honest. You really get a feeling of how intense the racing up there is once you struggled up there yourself. From the top it is a long and curvy downhill to the lake. So much fun, but you really got to watch out for crazy Italian car drivers because the roads in general are pretty tight. As we arrived at the bottom of the hill we just followed the road back to Bellagio, about flat 15 km right next to the lake and through some beautiful small towns perfect for a small espresso stop. Check out the roadmap if interested.