Published on: 12 March 2013 | Last updated: 12 March 2018
Resources for tour planning
The regional tourism website visittuscany.com has a cycling section :visittuscany.com: cycling with 168 itineraries.
Siena area
Terre di Siena in bici (it/en) is one of the more useful sites aimed at cycle tourists. It includes information about 52 day rides with route descriptions in English with maps (although these aren't the best I've seen). You can of course pick and mix the day rides if you are planning a longer tour. Update: the site was recently reorganised and the English-language versions seem to have got mislaid in the process.
There is a very useful brochure which is available in tourist offices and you can also download it (you need to open the Flash version and then download the pdf file). There’s also a section with accommodation listings and a list of bike shops.
The Eroica
L'Eroica is a famous bike race that takes place in late end of September. It’s a race using vintage bikes on a figure-of-eight course along the roads and strade bianche (unpaved roads) to the east and south-east of Siena. Traditional clothes (and big moustaches) seem to be de rigueur.
The race is run in a day - and with the longer variants at 205kms and 135kms ‘Eroica’ isn’t an exaggeration - but the percorso permanente (permanent course) is signposted and there’s nothing to stop you riding the route, or parts of it, at your leisure. There are shorter variants of 38kms and 75kms. You can download a pdf of the signposted course: Eroica: Cartina Percorso Permanente .
The race course starts and ends in Gaiole in Chianti, but there’s nothing to stop you using Siena as a base.
Signs on the Eroica cycle route near Siena
The Grand Tour della Val di Merse
The Grand Tour della Val di Merse is a circular 147 km signposted route to the south east of Siena primarily on asphalt but with some stretches of sterrata (a total of 12kms).
Firenze
The Firenze Turismo website (firenzeturismo.it) seems to have very little cycling-specific information. There is some information about the Renaissence Ring (Anello del Rinascimento) (Anello del Rinascimento) a 170-kilometre circular walking and mountainbiking tour.
The site also has a download page with maps and guides.
Florence Bike Pages (it/en)
is an independent site with a selection of routes, downloadable roadbooks and gps files with rides in and around Firenze.
Mural near Siena
The Mugello
The Mugello is the area in the Apennines to the north of Firenze. The comuni in the area have got together to produce a site mugellotoscana.it (it/en) which includes a section with rides in the area: mugellotoscana.it: cycle tours with particular emphasis on the ‘mythic climbs of the Mugello Apennine’. There's also a downloadable brochure Mugello in Bike
You can also download a pdf guide Pedalando nel Mugello (Italian). Note of Mac users: you will need Adobe Acrobat to open it.
Livorno area
There used to be a dedicated site for the Livorno area. Many of the routes now seem to be on the the cycling section of the visittuscany.com regional tourism website:visittuscany.com: Cycling.
Lucca area
The provincia of Lucca had a useful site panterabike.com (it/de/en) with 20 routes of different lengths, maps and gps files to download plus lists of bike shops and rail stations. At the time of writing (March 2013) it had been down for maintenance for some weeks, but hopefully it will return to operation.
The provincia's main tourism website luccaturismo.it has a lots of articles about itineraries which might be worth a look if you have a specific area in mind.
The Turismo Garfagnana website turismo.garfagnana.eu has three itineraries in the area but the descriptions are very brief and there are no maps or gpx files . The site is available in Italian, English and German but the itineraries are only available from the Italian pages.
Massa-Carrara area
The Turismo Massa Carrara website (aptmassacarrara.it) has a section with cycling itineraries.
Dried peperonicini near Siena
General tourist information
- Turismo Toscana: visittuscany.com
- Firenze: firenzeturismo.it
- Lucca: luccaturismo.it and luccaterre.it and luccaturismo.it
- Pisa: turismo.pisa.it
- Pistoia: turismo.pistoia.it
- Siena: terresiena.it
- Chianciano Terme: chiancianotermeinfo.it
- Val d'Orcia: valdorcia.it
- Massa Carrara: turismomassacarrara.it
- Garfagnana: turismo.garfagnana.eu
- Mugello: mugellotoscana.it
Get in touch
Please get in touch if you find any errors in the information, or if there’s anything, good or bad, that you’d want other cyclists to know.
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